Susan L. Miller

The Paradox of Women Arrested for Domestic Violence Criminal Justice Professionals and Service Providers Respond

Increasingly, women are being arrested for domestic violence charges as part of dual arrests (when their partner is also arrested) or as a result of their own actions. Could this phenomenon be explained by womens greater willingness to use violence against their abusive partners, or by a strict adherence by police and prosecutors to follow mandatoryor pro-arrest laws without examining the context of the incidents, or something else? This article explores this issue by examining one states experience, using interview data from criminal justice professionals and service providers who deal directly with women arrested for domestic violence charges.

Women's Use of Force: Voices of Women Arrested for Domestic Violence

Following changes in law enforcement policies that encourage or mandate arrest of domestic violence offenders, a concomitant increase inwomen arrested and mandated to batterer treatment programs has resulted. Most research findings, however, suggest that heterosexual intimate violence is gendered, with abuse, power, and control wielded by men over their female partners, and that when women use violence, it is typically in selfdefense or for nonaggressive reasons. However, fewstudies have investigated the female batterer treatment programs and the context of thewomens use of violence. Using qualitative data collected from observations of three female domestic violence offender programs, this article examines womens interpretations of their violent experiences. In addition, the findings raise policy-level questions about the appropriateness of such programs, weighing the costs and benefits of a criminal justice approach to womens use of force in intimate relationships.

Diversity in Blue Lesbian and Gay Police Officers in a Masculine Occupation

Policing is an occupation that is gendered and sexualized. Ideals of heterosexual masculinity inform practices and social interactions within policing. This study explores how police officers manage a homosexual orientation within this organizational environment. Using qualitative survey responses from a sample of “out” and “closeted” gay and lesbian police officers in a Midwestern city, the authors examine (1) how heterosexual, masculine police organizations inform their experiences; (2) how officers construct multiple identities of sexual orientation, gender, and race-ethnicity; and (3) what strategies officers utilize to manage their homosexual orientation in the workplace. The authors are interested in how multiple identities involving race-ethnicity, gender, and “out” versus “closeted” status shape officers’ strategies for surviving in a potentially hostile work environment. The findings suggest that these officers support a more humane approach to policing and see themselves as particularly qualified to work within marginal communities. Despite the structural barriers of homophobia and sexism that tempered these officers’ full acceptance and access to the police subculture, lesbian and gay officers struggled to balance job demands with their sexual orientation, gender, race-ethnicity, and other dimensions of their identities.

Officer friendly and the tough cop:gays and lesbians navigate homophobia and policing.

ABSTRACT Despite attempts to expand social diversity, policing is still dominated by a white, masculine, heterosexual ethos. As a consequence, employment of lesbians and gay men as police officers may be especially threatening to members of this occupation. Within the context of potential hostility and homophobia, nontraditional officers must negotiate their contradictory presence on the police force. This paper investigates that negotiation. Using the Bem Sex Role Inventory and open-ended survey data from a sample of “out” and “closeted” gay and lesbian police officers, we ask how gays and lesbians manage their images as “good cops” in the face of gender norm violations associated with their sexual orientation. Our findings indicate that masculinity and femininity do not hold together in a cohesive, dichotomous manner for these officers. Instead, other characteristics that enhance policing are emphasized to support their occupational competence. These officers see themselves as “good cops.” The gendered/sexualized character of their self-perceptions appears to matter less than the context of the job, more than for a comparison sample of heterosexual police officers. We conclude that although gay and lesbian officers see their sexuality as an occupational asset, they are also likely to work harder to prove themselves as crime fighters.

“Paper Abuse”: When All Else Fails, Batterers Use Procedural Stalking

Using data from in-depth interviews with women who have exited violent relationships, attorneys, and practitioners/policy specialists, this research note explores the continuation of control as women encounter “paper abuse.” The barrage of men’s frivolous lawsuits, false reports of child abuse, and other system-related manipulations exerts power, forces contact, and financially burdens their ex-partners. Although these acts are not new, the significance of this continuing abuse has not been fully explored by researchers. Yet attorneys and practitioners recognize the need for better documentation to strengthen protections for women still forced to contend with their former batterers.

Rocking the Rank and File Gender Issues and Community Policing

Paramilitary “masculine” police organizations are often viewed as a site for socially constructed gendered action. Policing emphasizes gendered divisions of labor and the construction of different police images for male and female officers. The female voice of justice, however, stresses the values of care, connection, and relational concerns. Similar values have been used to characterize recent police reforms that adopt a more community-oriented role for police. This conceptual article explores the contradictions inherent in the conflict between traditional policing styles and beliefs and alternative policing strategies, such as community policing. Also discussed are the strategies used in community policing to personalize law enforcement and the implications for these alternative philosophies and practices in light of gendered action.

“It’s Cool to Care about Sexual Violence”: Men’s Experiences with Sexual Assault Prevention

We explore the paths related to college men’s involvement in all-male antirape prevention groups using in-depth interviews conducted with twenty-five male college students who are active members of such groups from eleven campuses located on the East Coast of the United States. Major themes deriving from analysis of the interviews were all related to the engagement of the participants with the programs on four different levels. These themes, which are developmentally related, are (1) a disclosure which makes sexual assault a personal issue at the same time that it reveals a lack of knowledge and skills on the part of the respondents, (2) the evaluation of the approach of individual programs, (3) the evaluation of the relative effectiveness of the approacher, and (4) the creation of a social context which the engagement facilitates. Overall, we find that when the men in our study were approached in a nonconfrontational, alliance-building fashion by other men, they reported that their knowledge related to sexual assault, their empathy toward sexual assault survivors, and their motivation to actively engage in the prevention of sexual violence all increased. Thus, we see evidence of a pathway to behavioral change represented by the recruitment and participation of men to these programs.

Procedural Justice for Victims and Offenders?: Exploring Restorative Justice Processes in Australia and the US

Sociolegal research indicates that when citizens perceive that legal processes and procedures are fair, both positive and negative legal outcomes will be viewed as acceptable. However, little is known about perceptions of fairness in informal contexts such as in restorative justice (RJ) practices and with victims (and offenders) who participate in these programs. Drawing on interviews with key actors engaged in post-conviction RJ programs for serious crimes in Australia and the USA, this paper asks, do post-conviction therapeutic RJ programs for violent crimes enhance procedural justice for victims and offenders? The data reveal that RJ is compatible with procedural justice for both victims and offenders. Specifically, RJ aids in correcting the harms created by the formal criminal justice system and, thus, satisfies and even greatly enhances procedural justice goals for both victims and offenders.

One Size Fits All? A Gender-Neutral Approach to a Gender-Specific Problem: Contrasting Batterer Treatment Programs for Male and Female Offenders

As an unintended consequence of more strict arrest policies aimed at deterring domestic violence offenders, many battered women have been arrested and court mandated to a treatment program intended for male abusers. This practice raises numerous concerns regarding the impact on specific victims as well as the potential for undermining decades of work aimed at holding offenders accountable. It also offers researchers another lens through which treatment programs can be viewed. This research compares and contrasts two domestic violence intervention programs: one for male offenders and one for female offenders. Specifically, it attempts to answer, What are the challenges in applying a one-size-fits-all and gender-neutral approach to a problem that embodies gender-specific issues and power dynamics? Does treatment designed for battering men need to be altered when applied to women? And how does feminist philosophy as exemplified by the Duluth model translate into groups for men and women?

Defending intellectual property: State efforts to protect creative works

We examine state efforts to protect intellectual property. In particular, we assess two alternative hypotheses relating to these efforts: the intellectual property protection argument, which predicts an increasing amount of law aimed at protecting intellectual property from unauthorized use; and the intellectual property access argument, which predicts little growth in law aimed at protecting intellectual property but considerable growth in law aimed at providing access to it. Focusing on copyright law, we consider legislative action dealing with copyright between 1949 and 1992, efforts to enforce copyright law as a whole between 1955 and 1993, and efforts to enforce copyright law in one sphere between 1985 and 1994. Our analysis provides mixed support for the intellectual property protection argument. Federal legislators increasingly sought to pass laws protecting creative works, and their efforts intensified over the last decade. On the other hand, federal officials were less than aggressive in enforcin...