Empowering Women across Systems

• Date: 01 August 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12062
• Author: Jill Theresa Messing
• Published date: 01 August 2013

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

VICTIM-CENTERED PROSECUTORIAL

POLICIES

Empowering Women across Systems

The Impact of Intimate Partner Violence Intervention

Jill Theresa Messing

Arizona State University

This week, in Phoenix, where I live, Carol Sanders, her 14-year-old daughter Audra, and her

brother-in-law Tom, were killed by Carol’s estranged husband/Audra’s father.1Carol had

been to the police; she had both left her abusive husband and filed for divorce; she had told

the authorities that her estranged husband had threatened her life, her daughter’s life, and

his own life; and she had obtained an order of protection. The morning of her death, Carol

bravely faced her husband in court because he had contested the order of protection that

she had received. Carol’s murderernever surrendered any of the eight firearms he owned as

he was instructed to do by the court; instead, he used one of them to murder his family and

then to kill himself. Risk factors for homicide and homicide-suicide (Campbell et al., 2003;

Koziol-McLain et al., 2006) are conspicuous throughout the news stories: gun ownership,

threats with a weapon, threats to kill, threats directed at Audra, Carol’s belief that he might

kill her, suicide threats, recent separation, and controlling behavior are evident thus far

(Woodfill and Madden, 2013). As one journalist aptly commented, “the best that we could

do was to send Carol Sanders out to meet a bullet . . . armed with a piece of paper”

(Roberts, 2013). This story, along with the more than four women killed by an intimate

partner each day in the United States and the many more beaten and injured (Black et al.,

2011; Catalano, Smith, Snyder, and Rand, 2009), raise questions about the interventions

that we have in place to combat intimate partner violence and homicide.

Mary A. Finn (2013, this issue) responds to one of these questions in her article:

What prosecution strategy (evidence-based prosecution or victim-centered prosecution) is

more likely to reduce future abuse and violence, increase court empowerment, and enhance

Direct correspondence to Jill Theresa Messing, School of Social Work, Arizona State University, 411 N. Central

Avenue, Suite 800, Phoenix, AZ 85004 (e-mail: jill.messing@asu.edu).

1. I am making a conscious decision to use the names of the victims and not the name of the perpetrator.

Although it is important to be clear that the perpetrator is responsible for the violence he committed, I

prefer only to memorialize the names of his victims.

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12062 C2013 American Society of Criminology 437

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 12 rIssue 3