Technology & Intimate Partner Violence

While technology is not inherently violent, people who engage in intimate partner violence often employ technology as a means of obtaining and maintaining coercive control. Various technologies equip offenders with very efficient means to commit the crimes of stalking, intimidation, and harassment, while also enabling them to pinpoint their victims’ physical locations. Although it is [...]

Judicial Oversight in Domestic Violence Cases

If you are a judicial officer reading this, chances are you’ve issued an order or two in your career. You did so with the belief that the parties involved would obey those court orders, right? One way to find out if someone is complying with an order is to wait for the filing of notices [...]

Children Who Witness Violence

I once heard a judge compare her civil protection order docket to an emergency room—especially the ex parte cases. What an apt comparison!
Judges and court staff often deal with people who have been physically, mentally, and emotionally traumatized when they consider ex parte protection orders. Violence of any kind is traumatic to human beings, and [...]

Specialized Domestic Violence Courts

Although there is no standard model of a “domestic violence court,” the term generally means a specialized court division where only domestic violence cases are filed or a specialized docket on which a trial court, which hears other types of cases, assigns domestic violence cases and hears them on a particular day or time.
In the [...]

Are Protection Orders Effective in Reducing Intimate Partner Violence?

Editor’s Note: We begin a new feature focusing on Family Violence articles that will be written by the Indiana Supreme Court Division of State Court Administration’s newest Family Law Staff Attorney, Ruth Reichard.
Ruth has over twenty-seven years of combined litigation, judicial and teaching experience, as well as a passion for domestic violence issues. She served as [...]