The Feminist Law Professor Who Wants to Stop Arresting People for Domestic Violence

For many years, Goodmark saw the world the way most of these students did. Every societal ill was the result of an intentional harm, a single malicious or misinformed actor, and every harm could be redressed by the proper application of the law. She began her career representing battered women, convinced that she could protect them through policing, protective orders, prosecution, and prison. Now she argues that the legal system does not make abused women safer; instead, it makes their problems worse. She is still an advocate for domestic-violence victims, but she is also the country’s most prominent proponent of decriminalizing domestic violence—that is, addressing the problem without recourse to police or prosecutors. This does not mean striking the laws from the books and leaving vulnerable people without recourse; that, she concedes, would be a nightmare. But it does mean replacing police and prison with targeted interventions proved to reduce violence. “If you had told me back then that I would now be arguing to decriminalize domestic violence, I’d have told you that you were crazy,” she said to me. Link to full article here.