NCJ Number
189149
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 7 Issue: 6 Dated: June 2001 Pages: 685-698
Date Published
June 2001
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This article examines the consequences for formerly and currently battered women of a Federal policy named the "One Strike and You're Out" initiative that took effect in March 1996 and that aimed to target gangs, drug dealers, and violent criminals in public housing.
Abstract
The discussion uses a feminist perspective and notes that the Federal government touts the Housing Opportunity Program Extension Act of 1996 as a tough anticrime strategy to make public housing safe for law-abiding residents. However, the law has two provisions that appear to be particularly potentially harmful to female residents currently or formerly involved in abusive intimate relationships. The first provision is the requirement that the lessee assume an affirmative responsibility for the law-abiding behavior of all members of the household as well as all guests and any other person under the lessee’s control. The second provision allows public housing authorities to deny admission to or evict individuals who have engaged in criminal activity, especially drug-related criminal activity, on or off public housing premises, regardless of whether they were arrested or convicted for these activities. The law’s harmful consequences include making it more difficult for a battered woman to leave her abuser and putting her at risk of losing her public housing lease because of the abuser’s behavior. The analysis concludes that two alternative amendments to One Strike would be to empower elected tenant committees to develop a general rule for determining the tenant’s knowledge or role related to criminal activity or to add a family violence option similar to that now offered in the program called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. Notes and 25 references (Author abstract modified)