No-Drop Prosecution in Domestic Violence Cases

Liberal Feminist Perspectives and Survivor-Defined Practices

Liberal feminist perspectives center on individual freedom and equality of choice (Daly & Chesney-Lind, 1988; Jaggar, 1988). Such perspectives on prosecuting DV are centered largely on an individual level—recourse for DV victimization should be available, and used if the victim chooses. Liberal feminist perspectives maintain that when the choice is not there—such as when there were no or limited choices available in justice system prior to the battered women’s movement—the result is gender inequality (Nichols, 2011). In addition, some feminists highlight that when women are forced by the state to prosecute, their choices are dictated in a standardized paternalistic way rather than made by choice (Hanna, 1996; Kuennen, 2007, 2010; Mills, 1999, 2003).

Moreover, some feminist scholars state that “hard” no-drop policy removes control from victims in a way that is similar to the control exhibited by abusers (Mills, 1999). Some women may not wish to prosecute for their financial well-being—the batterer is the breadwinner or pays child support, or the victim cannot afford to miss work for trial or other participation in the justice system (Goodman & Epstein, 2008; Hare, 2010; Kuennen, 2007). Other women may fear retaliation for the abuse, or feel the effort is not worth it for the limited punishment involved in most convictions (Kuennen, 2007). Ford (1983, 1991) pointed out that some survivors used prosecution to accomplish their goals, but wanted to drop prosecution once those goals were met. Such goals included using prosecution as leverage to gain a divorce, or control the relative power and violence in their relationships (see also Bennett, Goodman, & Dutton, 1999). Moreover, survivors’ assessment of the potential impact on their children may affect their decision to prosecute (Rhodes, Dichter, Kothari, Marcus, & Cerulli, 2011). Rhodes and colleagues (2011) found concerns about economic resources, exposing children to violence, fear of lost custody or involvement of Child Protective Services all impacted women’s desire to prosecute. In addition, some victims experience further batterer-based and systemic revictimization in the prosecution process (Cattaneo et al., 2009; Fleury-Steiner et al., 2006; Hanna, 1996; Hare, 2010). For example, Hare (2010) found victims did not want to go to trial because they feared re-living their abuse, and did not want to experience the psychological trauma of seeing their abusers. Furthermore, victims may also be forced to prosecute and testify, and there are legal ramifications for failing to testify under “hard” no-drop policy. Victims can be held in contempt of court or even jailed—legally termed a “body attachment”—if they do not testify (Cattaneo et al., 2009; Goodman & Epstein, 2008; Hanna, 1996; Nichols, 2014). Moreover, research suggests that in cases where control is removed from the victims, such victims are less likely to use the justice system in the future (Moe, 2000, 2007; Zweig & Burt, 2007). Regardless, individual women do not have the ability to make the choice under “hard” no-drop policy, which is antithetical to liberal feminist ideologies.

Consequently, liberal feminist perspectives are less likely to support “hard” no-drop policy, under the premise that the policy takes away women’s agency, ignores important contextual concerns, and can result in both batterer-based and systemic revictimization. DV victim advocates label the practice associated with facilitating individual women’s choices survivor-defined, woman-centered, woman-defined, or the empowerment model (henceforth survivor-defined advocacy) (Goodman & Epstein, 2008; Herman, 1997; Mills, 1999; Nichols, 2013a). A primary goal of survivor-defined advocacy is to empower victims by respecting their choices, collaboratively assisting them with their goals, and assessing and making recommendations based upon women’s individual situations and needs (Goodman & Epstein, 2008). A growing body of research finds survivor-defined approaches yield positive outcomes for victims, such as lowered rates of re-abuse and depression, higher satisfaction with the justice system, greater well-being, and willingness to use the justice system in the future (Belknap & Sullivan, 2003; Bell, Perez, Goodman, & Dutton, 2011; Bennett & Goodman, 2010; Bybee & Sullivan, 2002; Filson, 2010; Goodman & Epstein, 2008; Jordan, 2004; Moe, 2007; Nichols, 2011, 2013a, 2013b, 2014; Nurius, Macy, Nwabuzor, & Holt, 2011; Zweig & Burt, 2006, 2007).

Radical Feminist Perspectives and Social Change Practices

While liberal feminist perspectives highlight individual choices of women, radical feminist perspectives emphasize the societal-level changes necessary for shifts in a gender biased culture and society (Daly & Chesney-Lind, 1988; Jaggar, 1988). This “greater good for all women” perspective maintains no-drop prosecution, provides widespread recourse for victimization, helps women prosecute DV as a public “crime against the state,” and sends a general societal message opposing violence against women (Cassidy, 2006; Hanna, 1996). The radical feminist perspective generally defends the continuance of “hard” no-drop prosecution in relationship to social change and the universal benefit to all women. In fact, one scholar suggested, “The societal benefits gained through this criminal justice response to domestic violence [no-drop prosecution] far outweigh any short-term costs to women’s autonomy and collective safety” (Hanna, 1996, p. 1857).

Social change is a primary goal of radical feminists, who maintain that prosecuting violence against women facilitates a less patriarchal society (Cassidy, 2006; Daly & Chesney-Lind, 1988; Dempsey, 2007; Hanna, 1996). “It is a human rights issue—women have the right to live without fear of or receiving domestic violence, it’s about the freedom of future victims” (Dempsey, 2007, p. 913). Women have the right to prosecute their abusers, and the justice system has a responsibility to arrest, prosecute, and deter DV. Ostensibly, when DV is not prosecuted, it is tolerated, and results in continued gender inequality. Thus, empowerment of all women through widespread access to recourse through the justice system is also a goal of radical feminist activism.

No-drop prosecution situates DV in the public realm. When DV was largely perceived as a private family problem, it negatively affected women by denying recourse and ignoring DV as a public issue rooted in male-dominant culture. In fact, advocates have worked to bring prosecution rates of DV to the same rate of stranger violence through their social change activism (Kuennen, 2010). This is a significant change from the days of the informal “automatic drop” policy (Goodman & Epstein, 2008, p. 73; Kuennen, 2007). Radical feminist perspectives also maintain that when prosecution is moved from the victim to the state—a public crime as opposed to a private matter—it increases victims’ options, as victims cannot be coerced by their batterers into dropping charges.

Consequently, radical feminist perspectives are less likely to support discretionary or “soft” no-drop prosecution, as it may lead to reinstating prosecution as a private matter rather than a public issue, which advocates worked for decades to change (Sack, 2009). If defense attorneys and batterers know that prosecution is discretionary and can be dropped at the victims’ request, then the purpose of the policy is undermined by allowing abusers to coerce victims into dropping charges (Goodman & Epstein, 2008; Hanna, 1996; Kuennen, 2007). Dropping charges gives batterers an incentive to intimidate victims, and allows them to control the justice system response, reverting DV to a private issue as opposed to a public crime (Goodman & Epstein, 2008; Kuennen, 2007). Ostensibly, radical feminist social change efforts decline with dropped prosecution. Consequently, patriarchy, as well as violence against women, is perpetuated.

Overlapping Feminist Perspectives

To some degree, there is an overlap in radical and liberal feminist perspectives and practices—they are not mutually exclusive. This is expected, as feminism itself centers upon the eradication of gender inequality. Furthermore, feminists may not consistently align with either radical or liberal feminist perspectives in all contexts; there are radical feminists who do not support no-drop prosecution (Mills, 1999, 2003) and liberal feminists who do (Ford, 1983, 1991). The current study emphasizes this point in the context of DV victim advocacy and no-drop prosecution. The liberal/radical feminist dichotomy is useful in that it provides a framework to explain the struggles of advocacy in working for client’s individual choices while supporting societal-level anti-violence-against-women initiatives. It is important to note that the perspectives themselves, as well as the perspectives of individual feminists, overlap in complex ways. Both radical and liberal feminist perspectives recognize DV as resulting from and perpetuating gender inequality (Black, 2003; Shepard, 1991). Criminal prosecution of batterers was a societal change aimed at eradicating gender inequality that was largely the property of the radical feminist advocates of the battered women’s movement. Certainly, liberal feminist perspectives favor social change that promotes gender equality; but the emphasis is on how such institutional changes affect the choices of individual women, whereas radical feminist perspectives emphasize how social change affects patriarchy and the general experiences of all women within patriarchal society (Daly & Chesney-Lind, 1988; Jaggar, 1988). Moreover, liberal feminist perspectives center on survivor-defined advocacy in promoting women’s agency and individual choices. Yet, survivor-defined advocacy was also a central tenant of radical feminists in the battered women’s movement. Such feminists maintained that hierarchal advocate–victim relationships perpetuated patriarchy by mimicking the power dynamics in abusive relationships, and delineated the importance of survivor-defined approaches to the empowerment of women as a means of eradicating patriarchy (Nichols, 2011, 2013a, 2014). However, in the context of no-drop prosecution, radical feminist perspectives generally center on societal ramifications, essentially the “social costs of domestic violence and the larger issue of women’s subordination” (Hanna, 1996, p. 1877).

Various types of feminists may also support no-drop prosecution under the assumption that state control of prosecution is necessary to reduce the likelihood of intimate partner violence (IPV) homicide. Significantly, many women underestimate the risk their batterers pose to them (Campbell, 2004; Campbell et al., 2003; Nichols, 2013b; Nicolaidis, 2003). In 2009, the Bureau of Justice reported that 42.3% of female victims of homicide were killed by a current or former intimate partner. Nicolaidis (2003) found in a study of 30 women whose former partners attempted to kill them, that nearly half were surprised by the homicide attempt, with risk factors varying widely across the sample. Similarly, another study of 456 women who were victims or near-victims of IPV homicide found that only half accurately perceived their risk (see Campbell et al., 2003). Yet, while the majority of women in Campbell and colleagues’ (2003) study had contact with the criminal justice system, health services, or social services, few utilized advocacy services. A growing body of work highlights the importance of advocacy in maintaining women’s safety. In fact, such research finds safety planning is most effective when women work collaboratively with advocates (Bennett & Goodman, 2005; Campbell, 2004; Goodkind et al., 2004; Goodman, Dutton, & Bennett, 2000; Goodman & Epstein, 2005; Heckert & Gondolf, 2004; Nichols, 2013b; Weisz, Tolman, & Saunders, 2000). Such research supports survivor-centered approaches to advocacy in individual safety planning, as well as state control of IPV in the provision of advocacy and no-drop prosecution. Thus, radical and liberal feminist perspectives may overlap in relationship to the support of state-provision of resources in the form of needs-based advocacy and in no-drop prosecution.

While the debate of “individual choice” versus “greater good” in the academic discourse surrounding no-drop prosecution is well documented, less is known about how the issues presented in this debate specifically impact DV victim advocacy (Cassidy, 2006; Dempsey, 2007; Hanna, 1996, 1998; Kuennen, 2007, 2010; Mills, 1999, 2003). In fact, advocates’ voice in the research literature is marginalized, both in their perspectives and in the practice of advocacy. While the perspective of prosecutors and female victims is present in the extant research, the perspective of victim advocates is largely ignored. The current study provides a triangulation of views in adding the experiences of victim advocates to this literature (Bennett & Goodman, 2010; Bennett et al., 1999; Davis et al., 2008; Dempsey, 2007; Ford, 1991; Ford & Regoli, 1993; Cassidy, 2006; Hanna, 1996; Kuennen, 2007, 2010; Mills, 2003; Rhodes et al., 2011). Such representation offers implications for victim advocacy. The current study works to answer the following research questions: How do advocates reconcile state control of DV with the individual autonomy of victims? Explicitly, how do advocates address tensions between survivor-defined and social change practices in no-drop prosecution cases?

Sample

This study draws from 26 in-depth interviews with advocates in two counties, a rural and a metropolitan county, in a Midwestern state as part of a larger study examining community-based responses to DV from the perspective of victim advocates. Adler and Adler (2008) stated that qualitative methods are particularly valuable in areas that have been little-explored, and give voice to largely unheard-from populations. This is the case with DV victim advocates, whose expertise is lacking in the current academic discourse. Consequently, qualitative methodology was chosen. Advocates in this study had caseloads ranging from 20 to 170 clients per month. Because advocates are frontline workers with victims, have been through many cases in their experience, are with victims through all of the legal channels, and see the outcomes of victims’ cases—their expertise should not only be valued but sought after. All advocates in the current study took part in safety planning, and guiding clients through referrals to relevant resources. Advocates aided victims with accessing housing, shelter, employment, job skills, enrolling in college, assisting with medical/mental health needs, and guiding victims through legal processes such as protective orders and prosecution. Advocates described their work with no-drop prosecution cases as occurring primarily with women.

All were in salaried professional positions. In the rural county, there was one prosecutor who exclusively worked with all the DV prosecution cases in the county, who advocates worked with on behalf of clients and as part of a community-based response team. In the metropolitan county, a majority of advocates also participated in a community-based response team. Advocates in both counties in various organizational contexts regularly accompanied survivors to court to assist and provide support through the prosecution process. The sample included 8 advocates working in a rural county and 18 in a metropolitan county. The 8 advocates in the rural county offered complete representation, as there were only 8 advocates in the entire county. Three advocates worked in the police department, 1 worked in the courthouse, and 4 worked in the only shelter in the county. These advocates were recruited using the [State] Coalition Against Domestic Violence member list, contacting the directors through email or phone call, and then contacting individual advocates, whose contact information was received through snowball sampling from the directors. The sample in the metropolitan county was derived from professional relationships with 2 advocates and 1 personal relationship. Snowball sampling was then used to further the sample through referrals from the initial contacts to establish trustworthiness in this community of advocates. There is a strong and very active local coalition in this metropolitan area, and most advocates know one another. Participants were also recruited by using the [State] Coalition Against Domestic Violence member list as a sampling frame for purposive sampling to recruit advocates working in a variety of organizational contexts—hospitals, the courts, police departments, shelter, outreach, and transitional housing. The organizations’ directors were first contacted though phone calls or emails, and then individual advocates were contacted. The initial contacts allowed use of their names and organizations for further recruitment credibility. The author continued to expand the sample from the State Coalition member list for the metropolitan county until saturation was reached in the interviews, accounting for representation from a variety of different types of organizations (Guest, Bunce, & Johnson, 2006). Eligibility criteria included any advocate who had provided advocacy within the last year. There were no participants who declined participation, although two advocates who wished to participate were not able to schedule interviews within the time frame of the study. In the metropolitan area, the unusually high acceptance rate was likely due to the tightly knit coalition and the use of the names of well-known coalition members in recruiting. In the rural county, the high acceptance rate was likely due to the small number of advocates, who also formed a tightly knit group as they worked together on a community-based response team. Advocates from the ages of 22 to 60 participated, and directors who also provided advocacy composed half the sample. The majority of organizations had very small staff sizes. In total, 11 organizations took part in the study.

Data Collection

The interviews were conducted by the author, who was professionally trained by two researchers with nationally recognized expertise in qualitative research methods. The author had experience in the interview process with prior research projects under supervision as well. The interviews ranged from 45 min to 2 hr and 15 min, with the typical interview lasting approximately 1 hr and 15 min. Advocates were interviewed in private offices and homes where they could speak freely without concern for violations of their privacy. An interview guide was used, but other themes and threads were allowed to be addressed within the interview. Consistent with inductive work, the initial questions were broad-based and general such as, “Can you describe your experiences with no-drop prosecution?” and “What are the benefits and challenges of no-drop prosecution?” Interview questions were intentionally structured to frame questions in the neutral language of “benefits” and “challenges,” which resulted in a richly detailed data set reflecting advocates’ experiences with no-drop prosecution (Corbin & Strauss, 1990; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Interviewing continued until saturation was reached in the metropolitan county, and until all advocates in the rural county had been interviewed (Guest et al., 2006). The recorded interviews were transcribed word-for-word, and were re-checked by the author for exactness through simultaneous play-back of the audios and review of the transcripts. Pseudonyms were given to all the participants and their organizations, so no identifying information remained. These pseudonyms are used throughout the current study.

Data Analysis

An inductive approach to data analysis was used, which first involved low-inference open-coding of the transcripts by hand (Corbin & Strauss, 1990; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). All recurring themes were then additionally labeled and categorized by hand. Next, core categories were identified and labeled; narrative accounts of the core categories were then collapsed into separate data files. Open-coding was important in uncovering overarching themes, as well as themes unanticipated in the research design (Adler & Adler, 2008). Liberal feminist and radical feminist perspectives and practices related to no-drop prosecution emerged as important unanticipated elements of the findings. Approaches to advocacy, including survivor-defined and social change practices, were other core categories uncovered both in open-coding techniques and in selective coding based upon the interview question, “Can you describe your approach to advocacy?”

Axial coding by hand was also used to examine the relationship between various phenomena (Spradley, 1980). Axial coding is related to holistic analysis, in that a whole transcript is reviewed to uncover a more nuanced and accurate analysis of transcribed interviews (Lehrner & Allen, 2008; Spradley, 1980). Holistic analysis and axial coding of the transcripts worked to uncover contradictory statements in advocates’ experiences with no-drop prosecution policy. For instance, the ways social change and survivor-defined practices were specifically related each other and to no-drop prosecution, as well as to liberal and radical feminist perspectives, were uncovered through axial coding. Axial coding was used as an extension of open-coding, in that individual transcripts also included labels marking any contradictions, as well as how advocates may hold multiple interrelated approaches to and perspectives of advocacy.

The coding techniques and analysis in the current study were reviewed through peer examination by four colleagues ¹ , three with recognized expertise in qualitative research methods (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Peer examination involved regular and detailed discussions and examination of the research design as well as data analysis techniques to confirm coding, categorization, and overarching themes. One result of peer examination was the identification of the subcategories of “liberal and radical feminist perspectives” of the core categories “benefits and challenges to no-drop prosecution,” which were then coded and categorized accordingly. Respondents were asked whether they would be interested in reviewing the analysis of the interviews. Member-checking, also known as respondent verification, by four research participants was used to re-check analysis of narrative accounts. Member-checking involved a review of the analysis of narrative accounts to avoid misrepresentation; participants had no suggestions for change (Kulkarni, Bell, & Rhodes, 2012; Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

Advocates’ Radical Feminist Perspectives of No-Drop Policy

A majority of advocates in this study explained that no-drop prosecution moved DV from the private realm to the public realm by holding the justice system and batterers accountable, and providing recourse to battered women. Veteran advocates professed that with implementation of no-drop prosecution, the justice system was prosecuting cases that they would have dropped prior to implementation of the policy. These advocates maintained that state, prosecutor, perpetrator, community, and justice system accountability resulted from no-drop prosecution, where they could no longer ignore DV, drop charges, or relegate it to the private realm. Liz, a battered women’s movement veteran that worked to get no-drop prosecution policy established on a state level, provided a typical response:

I use this example all of the time: A bank is robbed no one goes in and asks the bank President, “do you want us to press charges?” So we shouldn’t do that in any crime. If a stranger came up and clocked me in the parking lot, no one would say “what do you want us to do Liz,” but if it was my husband that clocked me they would be like, “well what do you want us to do?” So that kind of dynamic should be taken out of the equation all together. It’s a sexist assumption that reduces and normalizes violence against women.

Like Liz, most of the advocates that supported no-drop prosecution did not support approaches that worked to privatize DV in the justice system, under the assumption that privatization indicates inaction or tacit acceptance of DV as an individual problem as opposed to a public issue. Shelli used an identical analogy to Liz, and related it to reducing DV in society, as well as holding abusers responsible for their violence against women:

The benefit [of no-drop prosecution] is you’re treating it like any other fricken crime. Why are DV cases—why do we even permit something like that [treating it differently]? If a bank robber robbed a bank, and the bank said, “you caught him—he got the money, but we don’t want you to prosecute him.” They don’t have the right! No prosecuting attorney’s office would allow that. They would say “too bad, we’re going on with this case! Because we don’t want this robber to continue to rob people.”

A majority of advocates also delineated that no-drop prosecution sends not just a societal message but also a message to abusers that DV is a real crime punishable by the state. Advocates related no-drop prosecution to improved responses for battered women on a socio-structural level. For example, Charlotte provided a representative response:

Well no-drop prosecution is good in that he also then gets a pretty good picture that the community is now behind her, and that they are not going to tolerate his behavior . . . At least he’s got an idea now that this isn’t just a private thing between the two of them, and now he’s spent some time in jail for it. He’s been held accountable to a certain level. So regardless of whether the accountability keeps her safe or gives her peace of mind, at least the prosecution is the beginning of our society saying, “we’re not going to tolerate this anymore.”

Thus, by no-drop prosecution taking DV from the private realm to a public crime, a societal message of intolerance toward DV is given, providing a general benefit to all women.

Furthermore, some advocates compared survivor-defined approaches with social change approaches to advocacy. For an example, Shelli offered a radical feminist perspective and social change approach to no-drop prosecution that contrasted with a liberal feminist survivor-defined approach:

There’s that whole thing “well it’s up to her!” [survivor-defined approach] there comes a point where you have to say that this is not an “I” but a “We.” At one point it’s no longer about her it’s about the community and how it responds. No-drop policies also hold the prosecuting attorney or the circuit attorney’s offices accountable. Not just holding him accountable, but it’s holding everybody. It’s the whole “We” thing. It’s the community saying it to him, which is just one more little hammer on that stone of violence that has been chipped away.

A small minority of advocates described perspectives that held societal benefits over women’s individual choices. In such cases, prosecution was about the “greater good,” and community accountability rather than individual choices.

Advocates generally described that state accountability for DV supported women’s agency. Such advocates explained that no-drop prosecution removes blame from victims, as it is the state that is prosecuting. Liz demonstrated a typical response:

We explain to the women on our domestic violence cases from the very get-go is that the weird thing about the criminal justice system is that the victim is not the victim, the state of [State] is the victim, because the state’s laws were broken. That seems unfair on one part, but it also provides a safety net for the women, because it’s the state going after this person. It’s not a personal thing between me and my boyfriend. I’m not suing him, I’m not going after him in a civil case. It’s the State that’s going after him. So, in a way it gets me off the hook, and I can justifiably say to my partner, “I’m not prosecuting you it’s the State, I don’t want charges to be pressed but there is nothing that I can do, it’s out of my hands.”

A majority of advocates made similar statements—no-drop policy could facilitate women’s agency, who may otherwise drop prosecution because of threats, intimidation, or coercion from their abusers. Consequently, a majority of advocates in the sample supported no-drop prosecution, emphasizing social change and the benefit to all women. Yet, at the same time, a majority of advocates in this study also indicated that no-drop prosecution could sometimes be challenging to their advocacy because it undermined victims’ choices.

Advocates’ Liberal Feminist Perspectives of No-Drop Policy

While advocates generally described no-drop prosecution as supporting women’s agency, because victims may otherwise be coerced or threatened by their abusers into not testifying, they simultaneously described no-drop prosecution as disempowering, because victims may otherwise be coerced or threatened by the justice system into testifying. Advocates unanimously stated that no-drop prosecution sometimes resulted in both batterer-based and systemic revictimization because of its centralized control. The issues advocates cited the most frequently as problematic were denying women’s choices and forcing victims to testify in court. So, while a majority of advocates in this study supported the policy, in a seeming contradiction, they also stated that survivors should not be forced to testify because they can be revictimized in the courts by their abusers.

Advocates indicated that when women are forced to testify, being in the same room with the abuser can be traumatic. They indicated that women were exposed to their abusers during courtroom testimony, which provided a platform for abusers to not only make contact with their victims, but to continue their abuse in subtle ways with the intent of controlling the courtroom experience and outcomes. For example, Eve described how abusers psychologically abused victims in court:

It happens all of the time. You know, a man that walks in [to court] with a Bible—he tells her all along, or her church has been telling her all along—you are his servant, a good wife is going to do this, and a good wife is going to do that, and you’re put here to serve and to obey, and you will conform to my way of doing.

Eve provided another example of an abuser who intimidated a victim who was forced to testify in court:

I was at court one time and I had an abuser bring in a beautiful bouquet of red roses and laid it down. Of course, the bailiffs at our courthouse do immediately come over, but before they could come over of course she picked up the flowers and in the flowers tied up real pretty was the black cord that he strangled her with! So roses didn’t look very good to her!

Some advocates stated that abusers did such things to make victims appear hysterical, unable to testify in a comprehensible way, and consequently discreditable. Such experiences exemplify how victims’ presence in court can expose them to batterer-based revictimization, and how it can potentially negatively affect the court outcome. Eve related these traumatic courtroom experiences to survivor-defined advocacy:

If you think about it, a survivor of domestic violence is probably the most amazing person you’re ever going to meet in the world. She has survived years of abuse and control, and judgment made against her that was not favorable. Having to walk a line of it’s got to look really good in public. I have to keep up my front, my face, but she has also kept him at bay. So who knows her abuser better than she does? She is the one that has had to survive. So we need to listen to her, so when he brings a box of chocolates to court, or he walks in with this bible, and she is hysterical, let’s think about why?

Like Eve, exposure to abusers in court was described by many advocates as revictimizing to survivors, and a challenge to their advocacy.

Moreover, when victims did not want to prosecute, and were subpoenaed, in rare cases they could be jailed for not testifying. For example, Vicki stated,

When we’ve had victims who don’t show up for court and they’re repeated victims, the prosecutor’s office before has done body attachments. If they are not married, they go to jail until they are willing to testify.

Supported by state law, if victims are served a subpoena and they fail to appear in court, then the prosecutor can go to the judge and issue a body attachment. The body attachment gives the legal right to jail such victims, so they will be forced to appear at the rescheduled court date. The state in which the current study is based includes a Spousal Privilege Statute, in which a wife can choose not to testify against her abusive husband. Advocates used it in recommendations to victims who did not want to prosecute as a way of relieving them from testifying in court. However, unmarried women were not able to use spousal immunity, and were consequently subpoenaed to testify against their abusers. A majority of advocates offered a perspective on body attachments that was consistent with liberal feminist approaches. For example, Jasmine stated,

They issue a body attachment [when victims don’t appear in court]. That’s what they—something they can go and get them and make them sit in jail until the next court date . . . I think that it’s a more of a retaliation by the court system than it is to help anybody, because we don’t know why she’s not coming forward, or she’s not showing up or even if she was able to show up, we don’t know. And frequently they’ll call or they’ll come in and they want to drop charges, all understandable in the scheme of what that is . . . I don’t think it’s helpful. I think it’s harmful. They would be less likely to call the police next time something happens.

This example delineated the liberal feminist perspective, in emphasizing individual reasons why women may not wish to testify. Advocates in this study generally did not support the practice of body attachments, despite the fact that the majority supported no-drop prosecution policy. Furthermore, advocates indicated that the choice of the victim, contextual concerns, and forced presence in court led them to support dropping some cases. Advocates that did not support body attachments or forced testimony in court developed strategies to address them. To deal with the batterer-based and systemic revictimization involved in no-drop prosecution, advocates used a combination of both survivor-defined and social change practices.

Advocates’ Survivor-Defined and Social Change Practices Addressing Revictimization

Radical and liberal feminist practices were interconnected for a majority of the study participants, who concurrently exhibited an emphasis on both individual choice and on social change. Advocates described extensive trainings with police officers with the aim of evidence-based prosecution in cases where victims did not want to testify. This worked to reproduce the radical feminist goal of the policy—social change and improved responses for battered women—but simultaneously worked to resist some negative elements of the policy—the practice of revictimization in the courts, body attachments, and forced testimony. Advocates generally indicated that prosecutors were moving toward evidence-based prosecution, in which victims were not required to testify in order to prosecute. Such advocates described involvement in training officers, and collaborating with the police lieutenant or prosecutor’s offices to support evidence-based prosecution. For example, Charlotte stated,

There are some cases where we do what people call victimless prosecution, what we call evidence based prosecution. So, and the police have been trained on this, so that when they go in to investigate a case they are taking photographs, they are making specific documentation of a woman’s injuries, they are getting excited utterances from the victim so that by the time we go to trial if she doesn’t want to participate we can still put on the evidence to show that a crime occurred.

Thus, advocates believed that training officers related to evidence-based prosecution would alleviate some of the negative latent consequences of systemic/batterer-based revictimization involved in no-drop prosecution. Evidence-based prosecution provided a means for prosecution that did not require the victim’s participation. If further efforts toward evidence-based prosecution were made, ostensibly victims would be less likely to experience body attachments as well as exposure to their abusers in court.

In addition, advocates in this study unanimously used survivor-defined practices. They stated that in meeting with victims, they discussed women’s individual needs and collaboratively developed a plan, with advocates providing information about resources and choices and survivors describing their goals, individual cases, and needs. Women had varied needs—such as assistance with housing, welfare, job search, child support, disability, or a confidential shelter location. Advocates indicated that collaboratively assessing and addressing victim’s needs helped women to leave their abusive situations and avoid re-abuse. Furthermore, a majority of advocates working in the justice system stated that they assessed women’s needs related to their fears of prosecution. For example, Annie stated, “I would never recommend prosecution without making sure she has the resources to leave her abuser—it’s just not safe. Victims know it. We should know it.” According to such advocates, in meeting women’s needs, prosecution was more likely to be collaborative, safe, and successful. For example, Amy provided a characteristic response:

So, if she’s afraid of prosecuting because she is worried about money and having a place for her and her kids to live, and to eat, we work with that. Of course she’s going to worry about that stuff, any good mother would. So, [we say] “let’s see if you can get welfare, or let’s apply for habitat for humanity, and here, we can help you file for child support, or we can get you into this transitional housing program, or, hey, you have friends you can live with in another area? We can get you there.” Or she might need a confidential shelter. It just depends on the situation . . . or sometimes she stays with the abuser but still wants to prosecute, and we develop safety plans.

Yet, even with such measures to address the latent negative consequences of no-drop prosecution, 24 advocates supported victims’ choices when they wanted to drop prosecution. While no-drop prosecution appears to be standardized with little room for survivor-defined approaches, prosecution was in fact dropped in some cases at the request of the victim and with the help of her advocate. Liz provided a typical response:

I don’t fault women for not going through the system. You go through everything, you prosecute, only to see somebody get five years probation, and [she asks] “now he’s going to get out of jail and he’s going to be really pissed at me?” For a lot of women they feel like the system is not going to protect them. I personally believe that whatever a woman needs to do to protect herself is what she needs to do. If that’s not participating in the system, the criminal justice system, I will support her.

In situations where victims did not want to prosecute or testify, advocates did not directly resist the policy itself on a societal-structural level. Instead, they worked with victims through their individual-level practices to address women’s needs, to work with prosecutors with evidence-based prosecution, and to advocate for dropped prosecution when it was in the victim’s interests (such as through spousal immunity).

In sum, a majority of advocates in this study supported no-drop prosecution because they related it to social change and recourse for battered women. Yet, a majority also opposed the negative consequences—such as forced testimony and body attachments resulting from “hard” no-drop policy. Consequently, despite almost unanimous support for the policy, advocates addressed the individual choices and contextual concerns of the women they worked with, at times superseding the social change goals of the policy. Yet, advocates worked to reconcile social change and survivor-defined practices. Advocates supported prosecution efforts through involvement in evidence-based prosecution trainings, as well as assessment of the reasons women wanted to drop prosecution and addressing those concerns through survivor-defined advocacy. However, advocates found loopholes to drop prosecution when survivors wanted to. Thus, survivor-defined and social change practices simultaneously contradicted and complemented one another.

Implications for Advocacy and the Courts

In the current study, advocates believed, based on their experiences and expertise, that prosecution can only happen safely with adequate advocacy and prosecution resources to support victims’ needs. Consequently, drawing from advocates’ experiences, expansion of needs-based advocacy in the courts is recommended. First, addressing victims’ primary reasons for not prosecuting—safety concerns, financial issues, and the length/nature of the sentence—could lead to both increased prosecution and addressing women’s individual needs. Reasons for not prosecuting are key to social change efforts—advocates’ narrative accounts indicated that there is an interaction effect of individual needs and social change in prosecution cases. According to advocates in this study, if individual needs can be even somewhat reconciled, willingness to prosecute can be expected to increase. Researchers have explored reasons why women do not want to prosecute, but generally do not take it a step further in recommendations to advocacy and the courts to address those reasons on a structural level. Advocates routinely work with victims in safety planning, and obtaining housing, employment, child support, and welfare. Research also indicates advocates’ presence in the courts has a positive effect on victims (Campbell, 2004; Heckert & Gondolf, 2004; Moe, 2000; Zweig & Burt, 2006, 2007). Ostensibly, increased presence of advocates in prosecutors’ offices and in the courts can further benefit victims and justice system efforts, as advocates would work to address women’s reasons for not wanting to prosecute. Kuennen (2010) suggested a similar approach to prosecution. She found in some jurisdictions, advocates were working with prosecutors to make individual assessments of whether victims truly wanted to drop prosecution or if abusers were coercing them. Furthermore, the current study suggests advocates should work with victims in prosecution cases, not only to determine whether victims are being coerced into dropping charges but also whether they have other contextual reasons for dropping prosecution. In turn, perhaps those contextual concerns could be addressed through survivor-defined approaches to advocacy.

Furthermore, Zweig and Burt (2006) found that when law enforcement worked with DV victim advocates, the result was better evidence collection, increased prosecution, and more convictions. Evidence-based prosecution can relieve victims from experiencing trauma in the courts and exposure to their batterer, and thus can complement survivor-defined approaches. Prior research finds 70% of victims support prosecution, yet only 37% are willing to go to trial (Hare, 2010). Similarly, the present research finds that trial can be challenging to many victims and victim advocates. Some advocates stated victims they worked with were intimidated and psychologically revictimized by their abusers in court. Furthermore, advocates reported that abusers did this purposefully to make victims appear hysterical and to discredit them in front of judges. In addition, the current study found victims can be subpoenaed to testify against their abusers, and can even be jailed if they do not. These findings are consistent with prior research as well, which finds prosecutors have threatened victims with jail time if victims failed to testify against their abusers (Goodman & Epstein, 2008; Lyon, 2002; Moe, 2007). In the current study, this dynamic directly related to advocates’ struggle with competing objectives—the majority supported no-drop prosecution, but they simultaneously did not support forced testimony and body attachments. Advocates supported and were involved in education and training in evidence-based prosecution to avoid such systemic revictimization while concurrently supporting no-drop prosecution as a way of reconciling these inconsistencies. This finding is consistent with other research, which finds evidence-based prosecution positively impacts victims who do not want to testify in front of their abuser. Evidence-based prosecution that uses police reports, excited utterances, victim statements, 911 calls, photographs, hospital reports, witness testimony, and Amicus briefs from advocates has been found to benefit victims (Messing, 2011; Rutkow, Vernick, Webster, & Lennig, 2009; Zweig & Burt, 2006).

While advocates generally found survivor-defined approaches complimented no-drop prosecution in essentially the form of a “soft” no-drop policy, there were still limitations, and women were still revictimized. Prosecution, and the form it takes, is a difficult justice system response to address because the consequences are not standard, regardless of any attempt at standardizing the policy. Consequences will vary according to women’s individual cases and needs. Advocates reported that women’s needs were different, and women’s individual cases warranted different responses to best ensure safety and to avoid revictimization. At times, that involved advocating for dropped prosecution. This highlights the need for survivor-defined advocacy, and more widespread availability of advocacy in the courts. Such advocacy compliments a “soft” no-drop policy that considers women’s individual circumstances, and does not penalize women who do not want to testify. In turn, advocacy inclusive of assessing factors deterring women’s desire to prosecute and responding to those factors, and training officers in evidence prosecution, compliments prosecution endeavors.

Limitations

There were some limitations to the research findings uncovered in the current study. First, all the advocates in the current study were White women. The rural county examined was 97.5% white, thus the sample somewhat reflected the population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). However, the metropolitan county was only 70% White (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). The reason for the lack of representation within the organizations that participated in the study is unclear. Few studies examine the disproportionately low representation of women of color among DV victim advocates (see Donnelly, Cook, Van Ausdale, & Foley, 2005). This is an important area in need of further research to gain the insights and experiences of advocates who are women of color. Furthermore, intersectional approaches to victim advocacy, a form of advocacy recognizing inequalities victims may experience related to their intersecting identities and consequently tailoring advocacy to address systemic and other biases, is another area in need of further research in the prosecution process (see Nichols, 2013a, 2014). Second, despite availability of services to male victims, as well as outreach efforts, work with male victims was described by advocates in the current study as relatively rare, thus advocates’ experiences with victims depicted in the current study largely reflect their work with female victims. The reasons why male victims were rarely using services, both in the justice system and outside of the justice system, is an area of research that was beyond the scope of this study. Finally, it should be noted that contextual dynamics may vary greatly between study sites. As the present study only included two sites in one Midwestern state, the results may not reflect advocacy in sites with differing contextual dynamics. Community support, local and state coalition involvement, community-based response structures, and the presence of “soft” or “hard” no-drop policy, as well as the varied ways the policy may be implemented, are key areas in need of further research through qualitative-comparative work.