Fifty Years After the 1967 Crime Commission Report

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12370
• Date: 01 May 2018
• Author: Joanne Belknap,Deanne Grant
• Published date: 01 May 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

PRESIDENT’S CRIME COMMISSION:

PAST AND FUTURE

Fifty Years After the 1967 Crime

Commission Report

How Nonpolicing Domestic Violence Research and Policies

Have Changed and Expanded

Joanne Belknap

Deanne Grant

University of Colorado at Boulder

Abstract

In the 50 years since the U.S. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and

Administration of Justice under President Johnson issued its report, feminist activism

and both feminist and mainstream research have resulted in defining domestic violence

(DV) as a social problem. This awareness of the seriousness and expansiveness of DV

has spurred the development of unprecedented programs and policies. Although DV

policing changes have been significant, so too have been the development of and changes

in safehouses, no-drop court policies, domestic violence courts, community-coordinated

responses, and batterer intervention programs. In this article, we review the nonpolice

responses to DV cases and outcomes and provide recommendations. First, research and

policies need to more regularly be aimed at addressing victims’ safety and their diverse

needs and experiences. Second, assessments should include addressing the processing of

these cases through the impact of responses by individual community and criminal legal

system actors (e.g., victim advocates, police, prosecutors, and judges) to victims and

offenders.

Keywords

domestic violence, intimate partner abuse, courts, community-coordinated responses,

safehouses, protection orders, batterer intervention programs

Direct correspondence to Joanne Belknap, Department of Ethnic Studies, 339 UCB, University of Colorado-

Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309-0339 (e-mail: joanne.belknap@colorado.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12370 C2018 American Society of Criminology 467

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 17 rIssue 2