Alternatives to Criminalization
All of the theories of criminalization require proponents of criminal legislation to consider whether the state could reduce the incidence of undesirable conduct through means short of criminalization. Alternatives to criminalization are underdeveloped, making criminalization the default response to bad behavior. But given that the majority of people subjected to abuse do not seek assistance from the criminal legal system, developing alternatives to that system should be a priority for policymakers.
Currently available programs and legal solutions could partially replicate the role of criminalization—to control or deter abusive behavior. People subjected to abuse can seek civil protective orders requiring that their partners refrain from abuse or stay away and providing other forms of relief. Those who abuse may be able to access batterer intervention counseling without being ordered to do so in a criminal case, although many such programs are court affiliated.
In terms of programs designed to replace state control with community or other forms of informal social control, however, both policymakers and antiviolence advocates have been leery of experimentation. Antiviolence advocates have opposed the idea of using alternative dispute resolution in cases involving intimate partner violence. Concerns have been raised about whether such processes can be made sufficiently safe and whether they will actually hold offenders accountable for their actions. Moreover, having worked for forty years to have intimate partner violence treated as a crime, advocates are unwilling to risk diluting the power of the criminal legal response by creating parallel or alternative justice systems.
Nonetheless, alternatives to prevent and address the harms of intimate partner violence do exist. Economic interventions could relieve some of the conditions that spur intimate partner violence. If prevention is the goal, public health initiatives might serve that function more effectively than criminalization. Community-based alternatives, like restorative justice, transformative justice, community accountability, and male peer support interventions, are being used successfully in some communities and could be expanded. But criminalization hampers the development, implementation, and evaluation of these alternatives. Criminalization is the default response that policymakers and some antiviolence advocates are loath, even afraid, to abandon. And so long as funding for antiviolence efforts remains focused on the criminal legal system, criminalization will deprive efforts to develop alternatives of needed resources.
The United States has developed a robust response to intimate partner violence. That response relies heavily on the effective operation of the criminal legal system. But intervention by the criminal legal system does not deter intimate partner violence. Moreover, the costs of criminalization, particularly when intervention results in incarceration, significantly outweigh its benefits. Given those realities, a persuasive argument could be made for decriminalizing intimate partner violence.
The U.S. policy experiment with criminalization as a primary response to intimate partner violence is neither an unqualified success nor a total failure. What it has revealed is the need for a multidimensional response to intimate partner violence. Policies grounded in economics, public health, community, and human rights should all be part of that response.
2. Intimate Partner Violence Is . . .
An Economic Problem
Intimate partner violence imposes huge costs on the U.S. economy. Poverty and intimate partner violence are strongly correlated. Low-income women are much more likely to experience intimate partner violence, and under- and unemployed men more likely to perpetrate it. Economic instability prevents women from leaving abusive relationships. Economic abuse is a widely recognized form of intimate partner violence, experienced by the majority of people subjected to abuse. Intimate partner violence is affected and exacerbated by structural economic forces. A strong case can be made for confronting intimate partner violence as an economic problem.
THE COSTS OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE
While it is impossible to pinpoint an exact amount, intimate partner violence costs the U.S. economy as much as $67 billion annually. That figure includes expenditures by local government (in payments for police, medical, and social services) and losses to individuals (for decreased productivity, health care, destruction of and damage to property, and diminished quality of life). Injuries resulting from intimate partner violence total approximately $5 billion per year in medical expenses and lost productivity.
People subjected to abuse, not surprisingly, bear the majority of the economic burden. Health-care costs are 19 percent higher for women subjected to intimate partner violence; people subjected to abuse spend as much as $1,775 more yearly on health care than those who have not been abused.1 Each time an employed woman is assaulted, she averages seven days of absence from work and needs $800 in medical and mental health care.2 Women subjected to abuse report significantly worse physical health than other women and are three times as likely to experience a mental health disorder.3 People subjected to abuse also earn less. Women may lose as much as $18 million annually in earnings as a result of intimate partner violence.4 Intimate partner violence contributes to structural economic inequality as well; violence against women may contribute to the gender pay gap, for example.
Seeking protection from intimate partner violence results in economic penalties and contributes to income instability. Contact with police can lead to loss of housing, employment, and welfare benefits. Participating in prosecution imposes economic harm on those who are forced to miss work for court dates. Women lose up to $1,018 in income the year after they petition civil courts for protection from abuse and never recoup that income.5 Studies likely underestimate the true costs of intimate partner violence for people subjected to abuse. A comprehensive estimate of the costs would have to include “reduced wages, work hours, job experience, employment stability, and earnings; increased food insecurity and trouble paying rent or utility bills; chronic individual and intergenerational cycling between work and welfare and in and out of abusive relationships; and what researchers term ‘dangerous dependencies’ on abusive men for job supports such as childcare and transportation.”6
Employers also incur significant expenses as a result of intimate partner violence. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that intimate partner violence costs employers $5.8 billion annually in health care and lost productivity. Women subjected to abuse use approximately $2,000 more in benefits than others enrolled in health plans.7 Offenders’ tardiness and absenteeism also impose economic burdens on employers. Seventy-five percent of men convicted of intimate partner violence reported missing at least one day of work as a result of intimate partner violence. Forty-six percent were late, 39 percent left early, and 17 percent attributed mistakes on the job to abuse. Offenders also use work equipment to stalk and harass their partners, expenses borne by employers. Seventy-eight percent of the men used workplace resources either to monitor or to threaten their partners; 48 percent reported trouble concentrating at work.8 Men who use violence were more likely to make mistakes at work and to report bad health.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ECONOMICS
AND INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE
The early antiviolence movement described intimate partner violence as a problem that plagued women without regard to race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic class. But low-income women are disproportionately represented among people subjected to abuse. As many as two-thirds of low-income women are subjected to intimate partner violence.9 The lower a woman’s income, the more likely she is to experience intimate partner violence: women who are at or below the poverty level are subjected to abuse almost twice as often as women at 101 percent to 200 percent of the poverty level.10 Women with household incomes of less than $10,000 per year experience intimate partner violence four times more often than women with annual household incomes of $50,000 or more.11 Women with household incomes of $7,500 or less annually are subjected to intimate partner violence nearly seven times as often as women with household incomes of $75,000.12 Debt is also related to rates of intimate partner violence. Women with significant debt are 75 percent more likely to be abused than women with little debt.13 According to researchers Lisa Goodman, Katya