NCJ Number
127882
Journal
Law and Psychology Review Volume: 13 Dated: (Spring 1989) Pages: 145-163
Date Published
1989
Length
19 pages
Annotation
After brief discussions of the history of wife abuse, the psychological profile of the battered wife, and the socioeconomic costs of wife battering, this article analyzes the criminal justice system's response to wife abuse and summarizes remedies suggested by experts in the field.
Abstract
The social acceptance and promotion of wife battering stems from the Anglo-American cultural view that a husband and wife are a single legal entity, with the wife subsumed under the husband. The husband has been deemed to have the authority to discipline the wife. Under such a view, a husband's physical assaults on his wife have been viewed by the legal system as distinct from stranger assaults. Wife abuse has been treated as a family problem not encompassed under laws against assault. Some administrative remedies needed are criminal justice professionals better trained in the suffering and socioeconomic costs of wife battering as well as more effective responses to it, a policy of arresting batterers, improved recordkeeping for such cases, and a prosecutorial policy of pursuing wife abuse cases even when the victim tries to drop charges. A legislative remedy proposed is the enactment of laws that make mandatory the arrest and prosecution of wife batterers. Other remedies include civil suits against police agencies that fail to protect battered women, greater attention to wife abuse in divorce and custody cases, and the recognition of the battered woman syndrome as an aspect of self-defense when battered women kill their batterers. 129 footnotes