Just following orders: procedural justice and respondent compliance with civil protection orders
Date
2020
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Introduction: Research demonstrates the many ways that the legal system in particular often falls short when attempting to frame and respond to IPV. These cases are notoriously hard to prosecute criminally, and often the professionals working in the civil side of the court system lack appropriate expertise to understand the complex dynamics of IPV (Goldfarb 2008; Baker 2008; Benitez, McNeil, & Binder, 2010; Zeoli et al. 2013). Despite the research that finds that civil protection orders (CPOs) are a potentially useful tool for victims of IPV, research rarely focuses on respondents of civil protection orders. There is no research looking at what respondents’ perspectives are about the CPO process as they relate to order compliance. ☐ Research Questions: How do respondents experience the Civil Protection Order (CPO) process, and how do they understand the petition that has been filed against them? How fair do respondents perceive the CPO process to be, and how satisfied are they with it? Which respondents in the current study are less likely to comply with their orders and why? ☐ Methods: Over the course of an eight-month period, the researcher shadowed and interviewed 41 respondents (9 women and 32 men) from all three counties in Delaware. Additionally, the researcher completed over 100 hours of court observation. For cases in which an order was granted, the case was reviewed after four months to determine if there were additional non-compliance filings with the court. ☐ Results: Men were much more likely use a gendered explanation about why a CPO was filed against them than were women. Men often believed unfair advantages were given to petitioners because they were women and frequently used a stereotyped explanation that women lack control of their emotions and that was the cause of the filing. Additionally, men would note that women filed against them to gain something from the relationship. Women were more likely to center structural advantages of the petitioner and their own experiences with abuse as reasons for negative evaluations of the process; indeed, women may see the court process as being an extension of the abuse perpetuated by the petitioner. ☐ Consistent with the procedural justice framework, men in the current study were more likely to report being somewhat or very satisfied than unsatisfied, and were also more likely to report the process as being fair despite harsh criticisms of it, with several citing that the process was easy to understand. Also consistent with the procedural justice framework, men in the current study reported being satisfied even when they had findings against them. However, men also cited outcome-related items when rating the process, which indicates that an additional framework should be used to analyze these responses. While there were much fewer women in the sample than men, women were less likely to rate the CPO process positively, but had similar ratings and perceptions of court personnel. ☐ Court contempt filings were rare in the current study’s sample. The majority of contempt filings were internal, with only two contempt filings originating from the petitioner. Both petitioner-led filings occurred after a finding of abuse was made at trial, which indicates that the parties could have been experiencing high conflict separations. In one of the cases, mental health and substance abuse issues may have also played a role in the respondent’s violations of the order. ☐ Discussion: The current study contributes to extant literature by broadening our understanding about the efficacy of CPOs, the connection between CPO compliance and procedural justice, and the relationship between court personnel behaviors and respondents’ perceptions of fairness. The current study’s findings also add a major contribution to this literature in that there is no extant research that focuses explicitly on respondents of CPOs. Another major contribution stemming from this study regards the methodology; as an administrator working for the court and a graduate student conducting the study, the researcher was in the unique position of being both an insider and an outsider. Being able to leverage practitioner insight and experiences allows the researcher to use the findings from the current study to inform court improvement initiatives.
Description
Keywords
Civil Protection Orders, Gender, Intimate partner violence, Law and society, Procedural justice, Protection Order Compliance