Battered Women in the Courtroom: The Power of Judicial Responses.

• Author: Ferrall, Bard R.
• Position: Review

JAMES PTACEK, BATTERED WOMEN IN THE COURTROOM: THE POWER OF JUDICIAL RESPONSES (Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1999) 240 pp.

This is a study of how the courts are responding to battered women seeking legal protection. The issues guiding the study include the types of violence women are reporting to the courts, how judges respond in court to women seeking protection, how judges exercise their restraining order authority, and how effective courts are at protecting from women violence. In pursuing these questions, the author emphasizes the distinction between an "incident-based" definition of battering (which focuses on discrete episodes of violence that violate criminal laws) and a "control-based" definition (which characterizes battering as a web of coercive tactics, including but not limited to actual physical assault). The latter conception of battering implicates social institutions, in that the perceived or actual indifference of medical, legal, and other institutions to the battering, contributes to the coercive control exercised by the battering man. The frequent failure of those from whom battered women seek help, to fully understand the obstacles to escape from battering, contributes to the entrapment of women. While the responses of police and medical personnel to battered women have been studied, this study looks at the courtroom interaction of judges, battered women, and their...