Type:	Journal Article
Title:	Battered women’s experiences of the criminal justice system: decentring the law
Other Titles:	Feminist legal studies
Authors:	Douglas, Heather
Keywords:	Criminal justice responses;Legal issues
Year:	2012
Publisher:	Springer Publishing
Citation:	20 (2), August 2012
Notes:	This article takes up Smart’s suggestion to examine the way the law works in practice. It explores the context of current criminal prosecutions of domestic violence offences in Queensland, Australia. This article argues that legal method is applied outside the higher courts or “judge-oriented” practice and that the obstacles inherent to legal method can be identified in the practices of police, lower court staff, magistrates and lawyers. This article suggests that it may be difficult to deconstruct legal method, even by focussing on law in practice, and as a result it may be difficult to successfully challenge law’s truth claims in this way. The analysis of criminal prosecutions of domestic violence offences reported here supports Smart’s earlier findings that women and children who seek redress through the criminal justice process find the process at best ambivalent and at worst, destructive. However, the article also shows how, in the Queensland context, women sometimes find their way to feminism and personal empowerment by going to law. [? Springer, Part of Springer Science+Business Media. For further information, visit SpringerLink.]
URI:	https://anrows.intersearch.com.au/anrowsjspui/handle/1/13586
ISSN:	0966-3622
Appears in Collections:	Journal Articles

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