NCJ Number
156127
Journal
Law and Society Review Volume: 28 Issue: 4 Dated: (1994) Pages: 777-786
Date Published
1994
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This paper responds to the article in which Scheingold et al., assign a role to feminism and feminist politics in the production of Washington State's Community Protection Act (CPA) of 1989. (See NCJ-156125)
Abstract
The CPA reflects a punitive strategy for attempting to control sexual violence. In examining the dynamics that produced the CPA, Scheingold et al. place their study in terms of a debate, which they say has two sides. They claim that proponents of the CPA consists of "republican and some feminist criminologists" who "are sympathetic to victim advocacy because they see victims as natural spokespersons for republican/feminist values and policies." In responding to this conceptualization, this paper examines the importance of distinguishing between victim and victim-centered advocacy, the political-historical contexts of activism and reform, and varied feminist analyses of men's violence. The author argues essentially that civil libertarians, liberals, feminists, and republican criminologists are on the same side allied against punitive, conservative, get- tough impulses of citizens and opportunistic politicians. She notes that although feminist analyses of the causes of men's violence toward women are varied, the structural sources of men's power and entitlement over individual women are prominently featured in efforts to address the problem. Policies reflected in the CPA do not express such a strategy. 43 references