Preventing Domestic Violence and Child Abuse
Legal, Medical, Social, and Faith-Based Strategies for Protecting Children and Families
Edited by Barry Goldstein, Mo Therese Hannah and Veronica York

What would an all-out offensive against Domestic Violence and Child Abuse look like?

In 1961, the American Cancer Society and other health organizations submitted a letter to President John F. Kennedy alerting him to research connecting smoking and cancer. President Kennedy directed his Surgeon General, Dr. Luther Terry, to review the research and formulate the necessary response. The Surgeon General’s Report in 1964 definitively confirmed that smoking causes cancer, and pledged to coordinate a national effort to address the harm caused by cigarette smoking. Virtually every corner of society was enlisted in the campaign. The nation collectively developed legal, medical, educational, and regulatory strategies to discourage and in many cases prohibit smoking. The response saved millions of lives and trillions of dollars.  

Like the campaign against cigarette smoking, an effective campaign against DV and child abuse has the potential to save millions of lives and trillions of dollars in health care costs and lost productivity, and prevent incalculable human suffering. Like the campaign against cigarettes, it will take an all-out effort, with the full participation of all corners of society. This book provides a roadmap for how this all-out campaign can work.  

It begins with holding abusers accountable, something that our justice system regularly fails to do. Law enforcement and the courts must recognize abuse for what it is—not the failure of partners to work out their differences, but a recognizable pattern of abuse inflicted by one partner on the other. Accountability is the beginning. The campaign must also extend to the way the health care system responds to evidence of abuse, how journalists and the media report it, how faith communities support victims, and how the legal profession represents victims. Social service agencies, like child protective services, must address the serious deficiencies in their understanding of and response to DV and child abuse. And the courts, especially family and custody courts, must rid themselves of the corrosive biases that infect their decision-making.

Preventing Domestic Violence and Child Abuse assembles an unrivalled team of experts focusing on the essential "legal, medical, social, and faith-based" strategies that will play a role in the effort:

• Barry Goldstein on ridding the custody courts of harmful practices such as treating cases involving domestic violence like ordinary high-conflict divorces, and refocusing the courts' priorities on protecting children, not clearing crowded dockets.
• Lynn Hecht Schafran on the decades long fight to eliminate the gender bias that stacks the deck against mothers in custody proceedings.
• Wendy Murphy on why the Constitution permits women to be treated as second-class citizens, and what to do to correct it.
• Rita Smith on how professional sports and athletic celebrities can become a force for positive change.
• Veronica York on the failures of child protective services and how to refocus these vital agencies.
• Maureen Hannah on the mistakes chronically made by custody evaluators with no training or expertise in domestic violence.
• Jessica Klein on how media typically contributes to society's generally poor understanding of abuse, and how to reorient journalistic coverage to more accurately report the reality of DV.
• Plus specialized chapters on the role of lawyers (Elizabeth Liu, JD), front line clinicians (Karli Okeson, MD), and religious communities (Debra Wingfield, Ed.D. and Dan Boeck, B.A.) in supporting survivors.

The fundamental premise of this book is that we can create a coordinated community response to prevent DV as we did to prevent smoking. It is time, indeed well past time, to wage the same health-enriching, life-saving effort against DV and child abuse.

Related Publications:
Domestic Violence, Abuse and Child Custody
Representing the Domestic Violence Survivor
Domestic Violence Report