Abstract
Legal responses to elder, child and intimate partner abuse have developed along similar tracks from civil and regulatory to criminal, employed much of the same mechanisms, and shifted power from victims to law enforcement officers and prosecutors. The siloed evolutionary process leading to the criminalization of the se behaviors has not significantly resolved the problems and criticisms of the behavior. Indeed, thirty years ago, Peter Edelman critiqued the government's role in remediating child abuse and domestic violence. In particular Edelman identified three issues: (1) the failure to recognize the inter-relatedness of different types of family violence; (2) the lack of a coordinated approach to family violence; and (3) the lack of quality research on family violence. His critiques could be lodged anew today and expanded to include the burgeoning field of criminal elder abuse and neglect.
Repository Citation
Andrea L. Dennis,
The Dysfunctional Criminalization of Family Violence
, 57 Crim. L. Bull. 559
(2021),
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fac_artchop/1697