A Critical Examination of the Influences of Intimate Partner Violence, Help-Seeking, and Social Identity on Women’s Experiences Seeking and Obtaining Civil Protection Orders

Abstract

This research describes women’s engagement with the civil legal system as a safety strategy when experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV). Using a critical lens, it explores how violence victimization, help-seeking, and social identities influence victim-survivors’ decisions to seek civil protection orders (POs) and whether they obtain them. Using cross-sectional survey methods, we recruited women experiencing IPV in relationships with men (N = 660) from ten emergency shelters in a metropolitan region of the southwestern United States. Violence and help-seeking predicted whether victim-survivors sought POs, whereas social identities predicted whether they received them, revealing the influence of social identities on civil justice outcomes.

Keywords:

• Civil legal system
• civil protection orders
• criminal legal system
• intersectionality
• intimate partner violence

Notes

1 All states include married partners as qualifying for orders of protection; only some include dating partners. In the state where we collected data, for example, dating relationships only qualify if the couple lived together at some point or have a shared child. In addition, only some states include same-sex partners, though this could change with more recent same-sex marriage legislation.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant #1154098, Legal Mobilization and Intimate Partner Victimization.