Domestic Violence Essay

The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines domestic violence as the social and legal concept that refers to any abuse – including physical emotional, sexual or financial – between intimate partners, often living in the same household. This essay will review the history of domestic violence as a criminal offense, It will asses the legal and social changes that over time have altered how the criminal justice system reacts to domestic violence. It will outline the response of the police, courts and the prosecution of domestic violence as well as discuss the different correction programs, state legislations and government sponsored campaigns that better describe how, the Australian criminal justice system has, over the years, responded to domestic violence.
During medieval times, husbands had the powers of life or death over their wives (Pleck, 1987). Physical cruelty, including murder of a wife was allowed as long as it was inflicted for disciplinary purposes (Davis, 1971). Historically, wife or partner abuse was viewed as a “normal” part of the marriage. Up until the 1970’s, many still believed that physical abuse in spousal relationships did not constitute a crime, and that as long as the disciplining of the spouse did not result in serious injury, the criminal justice system could justify such abuse as merely an acceptable way of correcting a spouse’s misbehaviour (Dobash & Dobash, 1979).
In the 1960’s the women’s libertarian movement began. Women from all over gathered together and began talking about violence against women in the form of spouse and sexual abuse. They recognized three majors contributors to the violence against them: financial inequality, traditional gender role expectation and a criminal justice system that did not ho...

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...s immense problem that affects everyone. We have used the excuse that it is none of our business and that we don’t want to get involved for far too long. Although we have since made progress in our society through education and awareness of domestic violence, it still remains an issue. Because society has, for a very long time, placed such a high value on family privacy and male authority, the criminal justice system has struggled criminalize acts of domestic violence. These views and attitudes have since undergone revision and over the last two decades society has witnessed an increased understanding of the cause of domestic violence, the behavior patterns of abusers and the reaction of their victims. However, there are still many questions left unanswered about the ways to conceptualize domestic violence and the establishment of acceptable intervention strategies.