Working Within and Outside the System: Why and When Survivors Seek Help After Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

This paper explores the experiences of survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) who seek help or avoid help from both within and outside the criminal legal system (CLS). Data derived from 22 interviews reveal four types of help-seeking experiences: (1) addressing harm (2) increasing harm (3) mandating participation and (4) avoiding participation. These types reflect the interactions between the CLS and vulnerable populations who frequently mistrust the CLS but are compelled to interact with it. This typology uncovers the complex realities of survivors’ contact with the CLS and suggests less harmful alternatives as desired by the participants in our sample.

Keywords

intimate partner violence criminal legal system anti-carceral feminism help-seeking

Introduction

Recent scholarship has focused on the processes by which the criminal legal system (CLS) creates increased risk for harm for survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) and how this is especially salient for Black and Latina survivors who face additional obstacles to help-seeking due to systemic racism within the CLS (Davis et al., 2022; Goodmark, 2023; Hattery & Smith, 2021). As a result, some survivors choose to seek help outside of the CLS. This paper explores how and why survivors choose to interact with the CLS and how survivors are able to avoid the CLS by utilizing outside sources of support. Examining the ways that survivors of IPV seek help outside of the CLS is important as it can help determine what programs and policies can be developed to support these individuals without risking greater harm from the CLS and its actors.

For many individuals there is little “choice” in terms of help-seeking. Perceptions of police and policing make many people hesitant to call 9-1-1 even for medical emergencies (Sasson et al., 2015; van der Meulen et al., 2021). Survivors of IPV face additional stigmas as the CLS has historically treated victims of gender-based violence (GBV) with hostility, stereotypes, incompetence, and disbelief (Meyer, 2011; Spencer et al., 2018; White & McMillan, 2021). Despite the evidence that CLS contact can and often does traumatize survivors, many IPV and sexual assault victims/survivors are compelled to report their experiences as a result of social pressure or service providers (Brooks-Hay, 2020; Spencer et al., 2018). People experiencing IPV may seek CLS intervention as a last resort, due to a lack of alternatives, or due to an inability to refuse CLS contact. Substantial research shows how victims/survivors of GBV are harmed and retraumatized by the CLS (Goodmark, 2023; Miller, 2005; Richie, 2012). Yet, less is known about the ways in which survivors of violence express agency in seeking help when they experience an incident of IPV. Our research advances this argument by cataloging the various ways in which survivors navigate the CLS, including by voluntarily engaging with the CLS and their impacts on survivor outcomes.

Our analysis identified four help-seeking experiences of survivors of IPV based on a willingness to utilize CLS resources and their outcomes from engaging with the CLS. Some participants in our study willingly sought CLS intervention and received some benefits (addressing harm), others willingly sought contact with the CLS and experienced increased violence (increasing harm), some participants did not want contact with the CLS but were compelled either through a third party’s interventions or policies mandating CLS contact (mandating participation), and lastly, other participants successfully avoided the CLS and used alternate pathways to address IPV within relationships (avoiding participation). Examining the experiences of IPV survivors who attempt to navigate outside systems of support has the potential to create better prevention and intervention programs and policy recommendations for extra legal responses to IPV. Using semi-structured interview data from 22 survivors of IPV, we discuss the operation of the CLS in the lives of our participants, the outcomes of these criminal legal interventions, and how participants access resources from alternative sources. By exploring the help-seeking experiences of survivors, this research contributes to policy discussions that can promote racially just ways of help-seeking that minimize the effects of systemic racism and misogyny in the lives of those affected by IPV. This article uses an intersectional feminist and anti-carceral approach to explain how transformative justice practices are able to, and already do, address GBV outside of the CLS.

Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate partner violence is defined as the “physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse that takes place between intimate partners” (Hattery, 2009). Although anyone can become a victim of IPV and rates of abuse are high for some in the LGBTQ + community, IPV most commonly occurs within heterosexual relationships characterized by a male abuser and female victim (Petrosky et al., 2017). Statistics estimate that one in three women in the United States have experienced, or will experience, IPV in their lifetime and therefore IPV has been identified as an epidemic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as millions of people experience IPV every year (CDC, 2022). While experiencing IPV, survivors face great challenges when attempting to access resources to navigate their abusive relationships. These challenges often stem from the abusive relationship itself, but also from difficulties in engaging with the police and other actors within the CLS. Research has found that negative experiences or fear of negative experiences with the CLS deters survivors from seeking help (Decker et al., 2019; Garza et al., 2022; Hulley et al., 2023). This can lead to poor outcomes for survivors, as a lack of supportive and empathetic care decreases the likelihood that survivors will leave their abusers, thus increasing the likelihood of further harm.

Research has found that an individual's race, socioeconomic status, immigration history, language, and culture impact the experiences of IPV survivors, as a result of cultural-specific barriers (Espinoza et al., 2022; Garza et al., 2022; Hulley et al., 2023; Monterrosa, 2021). IPV in the United States disproportionately affects Black women; not only do Black women have among the highest prevalence rates of IPV, they are also more likely to be murdered by their intimate partners than are white women (Violence Policy Center, 2022; Waller et al., 2023). However, when Black survivors attempt to seek help from the CLS, they often face great challenges as a result of racial discrimination and systemic racism (Decker et al., 2019; Waller et al., 2023). Black women are more likely to be arrested after calling the police to report their abusive partner (Rajan & McCloskey, 2007; West, 2007), which can lead to greater harm once the survivor has been criminalized by the system and labeled as a “victim offender” (Goodmark, 2023; Miller, 2005; Musto, 2016). In addition, prior research shows that Hispanic and/or Latina¹ survivors of IPV face great barriers to accessing help from the CLS (Espinoza et al., 2022; Garza et al., 2022). This is especially true for immigrant Hispanic women, as fears of deportation and citizenship status deter undocumented women from seeking help (Garza et al., 2022; Reina et al., 2014).

Anti-Carceral Feminism

Within feminist criminology, there is a distinction between those who rely on law enforcement and incarceration as their primary intervention strategies, known as carceral feminists, and those who seek alternatives outside of the CLS, known as anti-carceral feminists (Bernstein, 2010; Kim, 2020). Anti-carceral feminists, also known as abolition feminists, utilize an abolitionist approach to reduce violence and focus on creating new systems that are not aligned with nor dependent on the carceral state (Brown & Schept, 2016; Goodmark, 2023; Kim, 2018, 2020). This movement has roots in communities of color and has been greatly influenced by the experiences and actions of Black, anti-racist, queer, and feminist activists (McNaull, 2018).

The CLS is navigated by raced, classed, and gendered survivors. The intersecting oppressions of classism, sexism, racism, and other forms of oppression impact the legal consciousnesses of those engaging with CLS processes. Legal consciousness is the reciprocal relationship people develop with the legal system based on their experiences with how the law is practiced and imposed upon them (Ewick & Silbey, 1998). Ewick and Silbey describe how ordinary people may come to understand the law as “with them or against them” based upon their access to resources, including social capital (1998, p. 40). Anti-carceral feminists recognize that socially vulnerable survivors have a resistant or antagonistic legal consciousness because they are frequently disadvantaged in formal legal proceedings. Survivors experience the law much like they experience an abuser, as something unpredictable that can provide survival resources, as well as punishment, exposing survivors to hyper surveillance and cycles of violence.

Anti-carceral feminism is intersectional and acknowledges the many ways in which intersecting systems of race, class, gender, and other social identities act as “structuring forces” to affect survivors’ experiences both within and outside of the CLS. Anti-carceral feminism draws on both intersectionality and Black Feminist Thought (Collins, 1986) as GBV is frequently cited as a rationale for increased carceral powers (Davis et al., 2022; Kaba, 2021). Intersectional scholars argue that the state upholds a white supremacist heteropatriarchy, thus victims of GBV who are poor, non-white, gender minorities experience disparate outcomes (Davis et al., 2022). Prior research has found that Black women are at greatest risk of harm when reporting their abuse to the authorities; Black survivors of IPV are more likely to be ignored, arrested, and prosecuted by the CLS (Decker et al., 2019; Goodmark, 2023; Rajan & McCloskey, 2007; Waller et al., 2023; West, 2007). These racial disparities were exacerbated after the implementation of mandatory or dual arrest policies where Black women face a disproportionate risk for arrest (Goodmark, 2023; Larance et al., 2019).

Despite the strides that have been made in the past decade to improve responses to IPV, survivors of IPV continue to report facing scrutiny and disbelief when reporting abusive relationships to formal authorities. The CLS’ failure to acknowledge, address, and respond compassionately to all survivors of IPV illustrates the ways survivors are victimized by the system itself. These experiences form the basis of the argument that anti-carceral scholars make that the CLS not only fails to deliver justice, but also leads to further physical and legal harm for survivors of IPV. Carceral strategies can result in very poor outcomes for survivors, either through secondary victimization in the courtroom or through the criminalization of women who seek domestic violence services, evident in cases where undocumented women are deported (Laing, 2017; McNaull, 2018).

Anti-carceral scholars argue that strategies for reducing GBV should focus on community-based responses to violence and accountability, in addition to broader decarceration practices (Kim, 2020). This includes implementing nonreformist reforms, or reforms that work to promote safety and justice for survivors of GBV without increasing the funding or legitimacy of the CLS (Brown & Schept, 2016; Davis, 2022; Goodmark, 2023; Kim, 2020). These reforms strive toward creating better circumstances for people today while also laying the foundation for non-carceral approaches to succeed in the long term. These reforms include eliminating felony accomplice charges and material witness warrants and promoting the use of crisis intervention specialists, or teams of non-law enforcement officials, to respond to IPV (Goodmark, 2023).

This paper seeks to extend prior research by delineating the ways in which survivors interact with the CLS. This new typology describes not only the complex realities of survivors’ contact with the CLS but identifies intervention sites to support help-seeking behaviors that occur outside of the formal system.

Data and Methodology

Our data come from 22 in-person and Zoom interviews with women who have experienced IPV. All 22 participants self-identified as victims/survivors of IPV. Eleven were Latina and eleven were non-Latina women. Four of the non-Latina women were white and seven were Black or multi-racial. All participants currently live in the Mid-Atlantic region. Participants were recruited using flyers in both English and Spanish and through connections with social service agencies that provide resources to individuals experiencing IPV, including shelters, batterer intervention programs, and other community agencies. Snowball sampling was used to increase the diversity of the sample by including participants who were not formally seeking or receiving services. Interviews lasted anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours and were transcribed using the software programs Otter.ai and Sonix. Transcripts were cleaned and participants were given or chose pseudonyms. Interview impressions were recorded both during and after each interview.

Transcripts of the interviews were coded in their original language by native English and Spanish speakers. Coders took a thematic approach by grouping topics such as childhood experiences, intimate relationships, IPV experiences, experiences seeking social services, and contact with the CLS. Based on the first round of thematic coding, coders then took an axial approach identifying themes and subthemes within topics (Struass, 1987). The coding schema was developed abductively after multiple rounds of reading interviews and consulting literature on IPV and the CLS, allowing codes to emerge organically from the data (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012; Vila-Henninger et al., 2022). Qualitative coding memos were also used to analyze major themes, similarities, and differences within the data (Birks et al., 2008). Our data consist of over 100 pages of interview transcripts, interview notes, impressions, and memos.

We took an intersectional approach to analysis allowing participants’ complete narratives to inform our coding decision. Rather than group participants by race or SES, we considered their identities beyond discrete categories. For instance, rather than using income as a proxy for SES, we coded for concepts such as housing instability, engagement with social welfare services, and employment stability. We considered how these experiences might intersect with factors, such as drug use, parental status, and native language. These considerations were discussed at length during coding meetings and documented through coding memos. In this way we identified tensions, contradictions, and schemas.

Results

Interviews with participants reveal four distinct pathways that arise from seeking help that form this typology: (1) addressing harm (2) increasing harm (3) mandating participation and (4) avoiding participation. Participants who willingly sought and received beneficial services from the CLS were not common in our sample. Often, participants did not want to engage with the CLS and hoped to avoid contact. However, friends, family, neighbors, and even strangers called 9-1-1 on their behalf. Once in contact with the CLS, some participants experienced greater severity or new sources of harm as a result of that contact, while a few were able to obtain beneficial resources. Another pattern emerged of participants reporting avoiding help from any CLS source out of fear of getting caught up in the CLS. Fear of the CLS was particularly pronounced among participants who were undocumented or struggling with substance abuse. The majority of participants did not desire contact with the CLS but all participants were forced to interact with the CLS at some point in their narrative. The outcomes of CLS contact varied across race, gender, citizenship status, and socioeconomic status of participants. Our findings suggest that participants with privileged racial, citizenship, and socioeconomic statuses were more likely to seek and receive services from the CLS. The intersection of race and gender disadvantaged women of color as they were less likely to be offered protection and services from the CLS.

The typology is built around the four major types of help-seeking experiences that emerged from our interview data: (1) addressing harm (2) increasing harm (3) mandating participation and (4) avoiding participation. This typology considers whether the participant engaged with the CLS (willingly or unwillingly) and the resulting experience of that interaction. Each incident of IPV was examined in isolation and within the broader context of a participant’s narrative. A participant may be helped in one instance and harmed in another or seek help for one event and avoid the CLS at another point in time. This typology is not monolithic or exhaustive, but reflects the most common experiences in our sample.

Addressing Harm - Seeking Criminal Legal Resources

The first type, addressing harm, refers to participants who actively sought criminal legal interventions and benefited as a result. While their engagement with the CLS may have been the result of no other alternatives or due to an active emergency, the participants in this category initiated contact with criminal legal resources by calling 9-1-1, filing for a protection from abuse order (PFA), and participating in criminal trials. In the interviews with Latina survivors, interventions by the CLS manifested differently as many of these participants and their abusers were undocumented. Despite fears for their citizenship status, Latinas were often forced to call the police in order to stop violent encounters with their abusers. In one instance, this led to the participants’ abuser being deported back to their home country:

Hasta que llamé a la policía. Yo llamé y dije lo que había pasado y lo arrestaron…Y lo deportaron. Lo mandaron para México, - Fernanda²

Until I called the police. I called them and told them what had happened and he was arrested…and they deported him. They sent him to Mexico, - Fernanda

For Fernanda, the CLS protected her by removing her abuser from her home. However, Fernanda explains how this deportation was only a temporary fix as her abuser returned to the United States and physically assaulted her, resulting in the police deporting him again. This repeated twice until he was arrested after attempting to kill her. Although this arrest and subsequent incarceration helped to keep her abuser away, Fernanda describes how she only discovered he was released from jail when she began to receive phone calls from him, threatening to kill her. She was not alerted of his release and the police did not believe that he was calling her until they checked their database and realized he had, in fact, been released. Fernanda’s abuser went into hiding soon after, and at the time of the interview, she thankfully had not heard from him in four years. Although the CLS helped to scare away her abuser, this took several years and her overall experience seeking help was marked by distrust.

Another example of the CLS intervening in a way the participant felt was a positive outcome can be seen in A’s story. Forced to flee her violent husband by stealing a car, this participant chose to risk incarceration and live in the stolen car rather than live with her abuser. When the car was discovered, she was arrested, and was horrified when her estranged abuser paid her bail and brought her back into his household. Because of her vehicle theft, she went to court and was assigned a parole officer, who she subsequently asked to violate her parole and send her to prison to escape her abuser:

So he started hitting me again. He broke my glasses and cut down the side of my face. And I went to my probation officer the next time I was supposed to report, and I begged him. I begged him to please violate me. I can get away from this man. I don’t care what you say. Just do it. New change of address or whatever please violate me. And he did. I went to the [local women’s prison]. I was there for a couple months…I was so happy. - A

Her contact with the CLS helped her escape her first husband; however she did not receive any services for survivors of IPV while incarcerated. Overall, A made the best of her CLS contact by strategically utilizing the CLS in a way that benefited her current situation, but she notes that her lengthy record has made finding employment difficult.

Overall, most survivors who willingly sought CLS services sought carceral interventions such as an arrest or a PFA against their abuser. As a result of their contact with the CLS, participants describe receiving beneficial services such as victim’s compensation (VCAP) and overall feelings of safety and security once their abusers were incarcerated. This can be seen in Samantha’s story, who describes obtaining a PFA with help from her mother. Her experience is positive in that she was granted the PFA, but she describes feeling terrified being in the same space as her abuser. While some survivors reported positive or benign interactions with the police and criminal legal officials, these survivors were more likely to have personal or family connections to the CLS. For example, Katie, a Black woman, received swift action from the police when she called 9-1-1, and the police even assisted her with paperwork. She attributes this in part to her employment with the county and reflects later that she still worries about racial violence from the police. Even the participants who received their desired outcomes described fears that their engagement with the CLS would lead to negative legal and physical outcomes.

Increasing Harm - Physical and Legal Repercussions due to the CLS

The second type, increasing harm, refers to participants whose willing engagement with the CLS resulted in greater harm. For most participants, contact resulted in negative consequences for themselves, their families, and their economic stability. Contact often escalated their abuse, as the system did not adequately provide services or protect them from their abusers. For example, one Black woman described how she called the police while being physically assaulted by her abuser and when the police arrived at the scene, they threatened to arrest her since her abuser had a small cut on his face. After explaining how her husband was the aggressor and not her, the police decided to leave without arresting either of them, leaving her alone with him:

But when they got there, I remember two [city name] cops walking in my house. I was in the front room and he, he was in the bathroom. And that cop said he claims that he [the abuser] said ‘Well if you’re going to arrest him, you’re gonna arrest her too.’ They said you need to look at him because he had a little cut and they thought I hit him. I had finally said enough and I just started fighting back. I probably just nicked him somewhere and I looked at him, I said I’m not leaving his house. And I’m not leaving this child. But you’re gonna take him out of here because he’s the abuser not me. They were mad at me, so they didn’t take him, - Ivana

Ivana’s account of how she was poorly treated by police and their false equivalence of self defense and IPV is an example of the way the CLS minimizes, and actively challenges, survivors’ stories and experiences. This is an unfortunate reality for many Black women who report their abuse to fundamentally racist systems only to be criminalized (Kaba, 2021; Richie, 2012). Instead of identifying her abuser as the primary aggressor, the police officers chose to leave Ivana with her abuser instead of removing the responsible party. While Ivana evaded an arrest, her contact with the CLS led to greater harm as her victimization was questioned and she was left with her abuser unprotected and without support.

Lola, another Black woman, faced a similar situation. When she locked her abusive partner out of her home, police forced her to allow him back inside despite her legal ownership of the house. Shortly after giving birth, her abuser claimed she was the aggressor. In her case, the police did arrest her and forced her and her newborn to relocate while the matter was being decided. This exacerbation of harm can be seen in Sol’s story as well:

Tuve un problema de abuso doméstico por mi parte con mi esposo. Pero en este problema, a mi me sacaron de mi casa, sacaron a mi mamá de mi casa. Él tiene mis hijos. Él fue a la corte. Yo lo que estaba [haciendo] era defendiéndome de el para mí. Entonces a mí me pusieron como que yo soy la abusadora…El año pasado me sacan de mi casa. El 25 de enero. El 1 de [febrero], la amante de mi esposo llegó. Me sacaron por violencia doméstica. - Sol

I had a domestic abuse problem on my part with my husband. But in this problem, they took me out of my house, they took my mother out of my house. He has my children. He went to court. What I was [doing] was defending myself from him for myself. So they put me like I’m the abuser…Last year they took me out of my house. January 25. On [February]1st, my husband's mistress arrived. I got kicked out for domestic violence. - Sol

In this quote, Sol shares her troubling experiences seeking help from the CLS. When calling 9-1-1 in the past, her claims of abuse were ignored by police as her ex-husband spoke more English and lied to the police when they arrived at the scene. After her most recent interaction with the police due to her abuse, Sol was evicted from her home, lost custody of her children, and had a PFA placed against her by her abuser. Her fight to win her children back after her abuser accused her of abusing their children resulted in great emotional harm as she navigated an unfamiliar system without assistance. At the time of the interview, Sol had not regained custody of her children from her abuser. This devastating narrative paints a bleak picture for women who are ensnared into the CLS due to their victimization. Her encounters with the CLS led her to seek external support and join a support group for survivors of IPV in her community. Sol believes this group allowed her to begin her journey towards healing and obtain the crucial information and support she needs to win her court case and gain custody of her children once again.

Mandating Participation - Unwilling Encounters with the CLS

While several participants willingly contacted police or sought court protections, the majority of participants expressed concerns about accessing formal criminal legal resources. These concerns stemmed from prior experiences with police and their perceptions of police as ineffective and discriminatory, but also due to fear of retaliation from their abusers if they were to call the police. Yet, some participants were forced to engage with the CLS when a concerned employer, family member, or neighbor called the police on their behalf, an experience we type mandating participation. Out of these experiences, some participants reported receiving some beneficial services as a result of their involuntary contact, such as obtaining a PFA or VCAP. Nevertheless, this type is tellingly rare in our sample, which points to a troubling reality where positive experiences are not guaranteed for these survivors, especially those deemed as “imperfect survivors,” such as Black and undocumented women (Goodmark, 2023; Kaba, 2021). If the CLS functioned as a resource to survivors, then we should see evidence of involuntary contact leading to resources or positive outcomes for all of our participants. For example, if the CLS was designed to assist survivors of IPV, then one might expect participants who did not want to engage with the CLS to ultimately benefit from the interaction, e.g., a survivor who did not want to report an assault is provided with services that reduces violence or improves the situation in some way. Unfortunately, this was a rare outcome in our interview data.

One Latina survivor describes an unhelpful encounter with the police after her manager called the police when she came into work with a bloody mouth:

Ese día, cuando él me golpeó la boca…me dijeron que no me podían ayudar. Dije, ¿Para qué? ¿Quién me puede ayudar? Ya no voy a llamar a la policía. ¿Verdad? ¿Por qué viniste? No pudieron hacerme nada, ayudarme en nada, - Ana

That day, when he hit me in the mouth…. they told me they couldn’t help me. I said, What for? Who can help me? I’m not going to call the police anymore. Right? Why did you come? They couldn't do anything for me, help me with anything, - Ana

Another participant describes her ongoing cycle of abuse and interaction with the CLS after her son called the police after witnessing her ex-husband assault her:

They [the police] believed me. But when they went to arrest him he ran. But that was the first time that he severely, severely, severely beat me. I was unrecognizable… Even if you just cry and cry and it was mostly their word against your word, stuff like that, but the day that my face was unrecognizable and I miscarried. That was seeable, so they [the police] couldn’t deny it. - Dede

When Dede reports her partner’s assaults, she is told she does not have enough physical evidence. However, when she is then beaten to the point of miscarriage, the police charge her partner with assault but fail to locate him. This cycle of reporting the violence, police charging her partner but failing to arrest him, and her partner returning to her enraged because of the charge, escalated the violence Dede experienced. She did not elaborate on how or why the police failed to locate her partner, but she does reference the police’s initial reluctance to investigate at all. In her previous attempts to seek help from the CLS, she felt the police ignored her accounts of violence and her pain. Dede sought protection but received little to no support from the police. She does not describe being offered any resources or services, only the possibility of criminal charges for her partner. Police intervention after her miscarriage only escalated the violence she experienced.

Participant “A” also fits this overall pattern. Despite her aversion to the police, she came into repeated unwilling contact with the CLS as she cycles in and out of abusive relationships. Her reactions to her abuse included heavy substance abuse and car theft to escape, resulting in multiple arrests. After being denied a job at a recycling center, she commented the employer did not think she was “good enough to sort trash.” Her economic instability was a major factor in her dependence on abusive partners. Our data indicate that interactions with the CLS result in incarcerations, loss of custody, housing instability, and increases in substance abuse. Survivors often lack the social supports that provide stability and reduce the likelihood of future IPV.

Avoiding Participation - Working Outside the CLS

The last type, avoiding participation, can be seen when a participant in our study successfully avoided contact with the CLS and instead, sought resources outside of the carceral state. This was a common experience for participants in our study, particularly for Black and undocumented women, who are particularly vulnerable to the CLS. Oftentimes, these survivors tried very hard to prevent contact with the CLS, particularly with the police, and in many instances they begged their concerned family members or employers not to call the police. Instead, these survivors chose to navigate their abusive relationships on their own or enlist the help of their familial and social networks to avoid violence in their relationships.

Non-Carceral Organizations

Participants accessed help from external organizations, such as grassroot and community organizations that do not include the threat of incarceration or carceral harm. In Estrella’s story, this was in the form of a support group offered by a local community organization:

Yo siento que, que me ayudó mucho. Como yo pregunté en el [nombre de la organización], pedí ayuda. Y yo pienso que es una de las cosas que nos pueden ayudar, a hablar en Español porque se siente uno más cómodo y hay organizaciones que no nos entenderían lo que digamos en el momento. Entonces este, yo creo que eso cuenta mucho lo de [nombre de la organización], lo que nos ayuda mucho, - Estrella

I feel that, that it helped me a lot. Because I asked in the [organization name], I asked for help. And I think that it is one of the things that can help us, to speak in Spanish because one feels more comfortable and there are organizations that would not understand what we’re saying in the moment. So, I think that says a lot about [organization name], what helps us a lot, - Estrella

For Estrella, seeking support from a source outside the carceral state was a way for her to ensure her needs were met in a supportive environment where she felt comfortable both sharing her experience and asking for help. In addition, the organization’s large number of bilingual staff allowed Estrella to speak her native language and avoid the challenges associated with engaging with an institution that does not always value the importance of high quality translation services.

Friends and Family

Another participant, Lola, was able to pursue a divorce from her husband due to a loan from an old friend. A one time cash loan was essential for her. This is in stark contrast to a participant like Alaska, who was dependent on abusive partners for her housing stability and was denied short term housing support or loans from family. Our data come disproportionately from low socioeconomic status women in part because more affluent survivors are able to leave abusive relationships without help from extended social networks. Having the funds or social resources to secure safe housing and move quickly marked the difference between a successful separation and prolonged abuse for many of our participants. Katie, a Black woman, shared her fears regarding the police in light of high profile incidents of police violence: “I do get on high alert, like if I do come in contact, I do subconsciously say ‘are you a good cop or bad cop?’ Like even subconsciously will, will say that to myself.” Long before the incident that led to Katie calling 9-1-1, she went to her family for support. Katie shares her suspicions that her father intervened after she disclosed the abuse:

I talked to my dad about it. And my dad, he’s like okay, I’ll handle it. I’ll talk to him. I, still to this day, my father is deceased. Now. I still, to this day, don’t know what that conversation was. But I know there was a conversation. And I know there was a conversation because of the actions that came from [my abuser] after that… [he was] Very kind. Nice. My dad, my dad was a street guy… this one day I can remember [my abuser] had got beat up, he had got punched. And I think to this day, my dad has something to do with that, - Katie

Retaliatory Violence

Another participant, Queen, like Katie, did not trust the CLS. Her boyfriend hit her when she accused him of infidelity. Frustrated by his continued violence and lack of consequences, she waits until the next day and attacks him with a box cutter:

[The courts are] not going to do anything. It’s not gonna change him as a person. They don’t even make him get help. Like y’all need to make him get help. Help him see that he’s the problem. I’m trying to live my life as good as I can. He’s interfering and interrupting and keeps putting his hands on me. That is a no. Like, I don’t do that to you and it’s funny and stuff that you do that you deserve to get hit. And you know, you should get abused, but I don’t do that to you. Right, but you’re not gonna keep doing that to me,

- Queen

Feeling isolated and with no non-carceral solutions, Queen attempts to end the abuse herself, resulting in her own incarceration. Katie and Queen were able to avoid initiating contact with the CLS during one incident of IPV. Katie’s husband would continue to abuse her while Queen will have lifelong legal consequences for her actions. Both women turned to retaliatory violence as a better, safer option than the CLS.

Participant motives and experiences within this typology are varied. Some participants sought help outside of the CLS due to fear of the system itself, while other participants feared the consequences that may arise from engaging with the system due to partner retaliation. Fear of the system was especially pronounced for Latina women, while fear of partner retaliation was a concern for many women in our sample. Further, while some participants relied on their friends or family, others sought help from community organizations. Survivors actively sought help outside of the CLS by using resources and services from grassroot and community organizations that do not include the threat of further carceral harm. This includes working with local organizations for safety planning and housing accomodations, and using family and social relationships to confront abusers on their behalf. These help-seeking strategies allowed survivors to take control of their experiences as they navigated their violent relationships. Participants’ ability to seek support from friends or family reflects the importance of social networks in which survivors can draw resources from to leave abusive relationships and also prevent harm that may arise from interacting with the CLS. These experiences point to other, perhaps more effective or safer ways, that empower survivors and work to prevent future violence and harm from not only intimate partners, but also the CLS. While it is difficult to remain outside of the carceral state, it is possible to work to minimize criminal-legal contact by utilizing external sources of support that center on the survivor and their needs, not on the abuser and the offense committed.

Discussion

Balancing the needs of survivors of GBV for both justice and safety alongside the documented negative impact of the carceral state is one of the most contested issues among scholars, activists, and advocates. Our initial findings indicate that survivors of IPV, especially Black and Latina women, are hesitant to seek help from the CLS due to fear and a lack of knowledge regarding the CLS. Women with children were less likely to call the police and engage with the CLS due to fears of having their children removed from their care. For Black and Latina women, this fear was often exacerbated. Black women frequently felt they were treated as aggressors by police, even if they had visible injuries. White women often feared criminal legal involvement in IPV would result in drug charges (if struggling with substance abuse) or an escalation of violence. Latinas reported experiencing great barriers to seeking help from the CLS due their citizenship status and the system’s structure that does not offer adequate language translation services and consists of state actors who exert little effort to communicate case details and explain court processes to non-English speakers and/or U.S. citizens.

For the participants who chose to engage with the CLS in our sample, negative outcomes often outweighed the positives, and these participants typically only benefitted from non-carceral services such as VCAP. The only participants who reported solely positive outcomes in our sample had formal and professional ties to the legal system, and they still expressed misgivings and fears of the CLS. Without high social status or insider knowledge, survivors struggled to utilize the CLS and actively avoided police and courts who they viewed as incompetent at best and dangerous at worst. Without sanctioned alternatives, participants who worked outside the system saw mixed results, including those who resorted to retaliatory violence. These non-carceral strategies were in part necessitated by the lack of anti-carceral options, suggesting the ways in which strong, non-carceral alternatives protect survivors from carceral harm as well as reducing overall violence within communities. Although some CLS outcomes, such as PFAs, did contribute to feelings of safety for participants, we argue that most of these benefits can be provided without threat of further criminalization and carceral control. Instead of relying on the carceral state to respond to violence, we call for community-based responses to violence to produce positive outcomes for survivors of all forms of GBV, including sexual and intimate partner violence. Even without the complete dismantling of the CLS and/or the carceral state, anti-carceral strategies to improve outcomes for people impacted by IPV can still be employed in powerful ways.

Non-carceral resources include stable housing that accommodates families and stronger addiction services and emergency financial resources that are not linked to the CLS. Accessible, affordable housing and programs that assist in emergency moves without requiring court documentation may help survivors leave violent relationships and reduce the risk of police escalating violence. To support survivors seeking these resources, we must create and fund alternative pathways to healing and harm reduction. While we are not arguing that all survivors want to avoid the CLS, for survivors who choose not to engage with the CLS, we must provide adequate support through community programs and organizations. To do so, we must normalize the detachment between help-seeking and the CLS and advocate for greater funds directed to these programs. One way we can achieve this is by shifting resources away from police departments and toward public assistance and social service programs. Existing resources for survivors are often intertwined with the CLS, such as the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which has a carceral component (Goodmark, 2022). By diverting resources away from institutions of violence and towards basic necessities and grassroot organizations dedicated to supporting survivors, we can better serve survivors of GBV.

In addition, while changing legal statutes to more accurately reflect research on survivors who fight back may protect survivors charged with assault, this does not prevent other types of carceral harm and only makes insubstantial changes to fundamentally flawed systems. Violence is often not prevented nor reduced by criminal legal intervention; these interventions solely focus on punishing the abuser without offering adequate services to change behavior and reduce their likelihood of re-offending in the future. Anti-carceral feminists abandon the idea that the CLS is able to, nor actively works to, prevent GBV, and instead focus on promoting safety and healing for victims, while also holding individuals accountable for their actions (Brown & Schept, 2016; Goodmark, 2023).³

Conclusions

By exploring how participants experience the CLS and why some survivors of IPV choose to work outside the CLS, we find criminal legal solutions fall short for victims/survivors and their families. As increased attention has been paid to the ineffectiveness of the CLS and the violence enacted by the carceral state, more people than ever before are seeking less-harmful alternatives to address gender-based harm. The fear that many of our participants expressed was well-founded in their narratives, suggesting a major barrier to seeking help from the CLS is that there is very little “help” a carceral system can provide. When exploring strategies to combat IPV, it is important to recognize avenues for change that do not increase contact with the CLS and prioritize the survivors’ healing over carceral interventions.

Future research should elaborate on the help-seeking experiences of survivors outside of the CLS. In addition to extending this work to larger and more diverse populations, researchers should compare regions with high and low social service densities, particularly regions where non-CLS resources are more accessible for addressing IPV. Resources vary county by county and state by state, resulting in an uneven patchwork of policies with disparate outcomes for victims/survivors and abusers. One recommendation would be to create a national database of existing programming and evidence-based approaches to IPV interventions that exist outside of the CLS. This would allow greater agency for survivors who prefer low-CLS engagement and greater replication and collaborations between service providers. A national database would also provide researchers the ability to identify, evaluate, and compare non-carceral strategies for IPV prevention and interventions.

Additional comparative research is needed, including an expansion of this typology to new contexts. While our typology explores four types most evident in our sample, additional types may arise that more accurately encompass the experiences of survivors in other contexts. This typology should also be applied to the vastly understudied civil legal system, particularly the child welfare system that Dorothy Roberts terms the family policing system (Roberts, 2022). This research can prove to be useful in drawing attention to the blurred lines between carceral and non carceral institutions and the way the civil legal system policies families under the guise of care (Bach, 2022; Roberts, 2022; Sweet, 2021).

Help-seeking and the blurred boundaries between services and punishment are not limited to IPV, but help-seeking more broadly in a carceral society. In a carceral society, to seek help is to be compelled to engage with the CLS, whether it is a school requesting support only to receive police officers in the classroom, a relative calling for a welfare check on loved one in a mental health crisis only to have armed police arrive, or people struggling with substance addictions receiving sentences instead of treatment. These carceral outcomes suggest a lack of imagination in the services a state can and should provide. It is worth rethinking the “services” offered by the state and how these “services” often compel survivors to engage with the carceral state, which research has shown is ill-equipped. We believe our typology reflects the dynamics of a larger carceral society and by listening to survivors of IPV, we can build systems of support that better meet the needs of all community members and prioritize healing over punishment.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Maria Paula Mendoza

Notes

Author Biographies

Maria Paula Mendoza is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware and a graduate researcher for the Center for the Study and Prevention of Gender-Based Violence. Her research examines the help-seeking behaviors and experiences of survivors of intimate partner violence within the criminal and civil legal systems, as well as the potential of non-carceral approaches to address gender-based harm.

Dr. Elle Rochford is a Senior Data and Policy Specialist with the Crime and Justice Institute, a Division of Community Resources for Justice. She received her PhD in Sociology from Purdue University. Her academic work explores political performances in digital spaces, social movements for racial and reproductive justice, and criminal legal policy implementation and evaluation.

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