Revise!!!!

Social Welfare Policies and Service I

9/17/20

Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)

Introduction

With the law having been achieved originally in 1994, Violence against Woman Act was to address enacting concerns about violence against women particularly and violent crimes in different ways. This act allowed the enhanced judgement of recurrence federal sex violators and it mandated payment to victims of the specified federal sex violation. It also granted the authorization of grants to local, tribal and state law regulatory agencies s as they can investigate and sue forceful acts against women.

Violence against Women Act came into play as a result of the rising rate of violent cases and especially, where women fell in the victim slot. As time passed, researchers channelled their attention to the problem arising from the issue of women violence. From study findings carried out between the early 70s and late 70s, from the data collected from family wrangles, it was attributed that a decline in the assault of the spouse will be used to strengthen the awareness of the problem among criminal justice system and men. Family wrangles and violence were beginning to be viewed as an act of a criminal rather than a matter of family privacy by the system of criminal justice and the public. In mid 80s, Family Violence Prevention and Service was enacted by the president and the congress which was meant to assist the states in controlling and preventing violent incidences in families and to help in the provision of shelter and any other required assistance to the affected victims and those that are dependent on them.

In the mid 90s, 1994 in specific, VAWA came to be implemented into law by the United States president and the Congress as the forceful misdemeanour control and the enforcement of the law Act. It was meant to reinforce the fight against violence and also the provision of services to the affected casualties of violent crimes.

Social Problem

VAWA, 1994, improved and facilitated the probe and executions of the offences based on sexual harassment, providing for aid programs to cater to the issues surrounding women harassment. This involved law administration, casualties of crimes, private and public organizations, and service providers as well as providing the necessary provisions for the immigrants to protect the aliens from abuse. To support permanent federal feedback to violence against women, VAWA created the Department’s Office on Violence against Woman (OVM).

Having enacted the VAWA law, it helped in streamlining and speeding up the investigations and executions of probes that surround violence on women in a different manner. Such include; fines on the protection orders violation, and stalking in which a state line was crossed by the abuser to ether harass or cause injury, or established new offences. It improved and allowed charging of recurrent federal offences on sexual harassment. It also aided in authorizing the funding for the attorney general to help develop programs on training.

The act created grant programs for a wide range of activities, which includes programs that are aimed at preventing domestically based violence and sexually related assaults, facilitating collaboration among law administrations, and private/public providers in regards to the services for the casualties of domestically and crime-related offences. These grants administered were used to provide financial aid for rape prevention, shelter and education. The programs came to the rescue of homeless youths and the community as it helps address and reduces sexual abuse to educate on domestic violence.

This was addressed to cater for challenges related to immigration and the problems that were faced by the aliens. This involved related provisions that violated aliens, violated by foreign national their children and spouses, required to produce or provide facts when protesting/demonstrating violation, and also cancelling removals and suspending deportation. The oversea spouses and their offspring are thereby granted the freedom of an individual application for principle status in substitute of petitions for the lawful status.

Other activities beyond the criminal justice enhancement, grants program and provision of immigrants include:

· To ensure confidentiality of related issues on domestic violence and violation of peoples addresses is required that the U.S postal service take measures.

· To increase the government’s knowledge on the violation against women, the civil research by the AG (Attorney General), secretary of health, national academy of sciences (NAS) and human service is mandated.

· Research on the sexual related violation and hurting female’s syndrome is requested.

OVM was established within the branch of justness administratively so as it can administer awards authorization under VAWA. Office Violence against Women was summarized through Title IV Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act in 2002.

Crime Categories addressed through VAWA.

Although some programs of VAWA are addressing additional crime, VAWA generally has addressed the following issues:

· Domestic related violence,

· Stalking,

· Sexually related assault

· Dating violence.

The crimes covering a vast range of the affected demographics although victimization risk lies is on the highest point for women. Women are therefore on the receiving end of this kind of abuse with the highest risk of victimization realized by women.

This can take different forms but usually termed as intimate partner violence or family violence. VAWA interprets domestic violence as intimate partner violence. This includes; assaults or crimes committed by ex-spouses/spouses, ex-girlfriend/boyfriend and boyfriend/girlfriend. Crimes may be categorized as the assault on sexual matters and homicides.

Stalking

Stalking is defined as an act of conduct directly pointed to a person such that it could put the person in a reasonably fearful feeling.

U.S territories are guided by the stalking laws even though the laws differ in definition. Travelling across state lines, using mails or computer and electronic communication services with the mind to either kill, harass, injure or intimidating other people/person leading to the person in to be in fear of death, causing emotional distress to the person, spouse/intimate partner or a member of the family or the person carries bodily injuries was made unlawful by the Federal law.

Sexually related assault

Sexual assault is an act of an unwilling sexual act that describes how the person lacks the consent of the act and is normally known as sexual abuse. This includes crimes on the following:

· Forceful rape,

· Attempting forceful rape,

· An assault-related offence with an intention to rape,

· Lawful rape.

Dating Violence.

VAWA describes dating violence as the assault on people/person that has/is in an emotional relation of intimacy/romance nature with the victim. To determine the relationship between the victim and the offender, we base our arguments on the following factors:

· Partner’s frequency of interaction.

· Relationship type

· The period spent in the relationship.

This form of violence mostly affects the teenagers though it’s not the only subject of demographic factor.

Goals

The essential aims/goals of VAWA are to prevent the following offences:

· To prevent violence-related crimes.

· To help understand more about crime

· To change the attitudes of the public through a collective attempt by the criminal justice system, research organizations, social services agency, private organizations, schools and public health organizations.

· To help acknowledge the demands of crime victims

Through the guidance of VAWA, after it was passed, the rate of partner intimacy violence against women declined. Also, the number of intimacy homicides of women decreased.

Having been reauthorized by the Congress in 2000 and in 2015 December, VAWA didn’t get bipartisan support in 2012 hence no reauthorization was done as it needed to be reauthorized after every five calendar years. The U.S. Senate passed a new VAWA bill though with some additional amendments as follows in 2013:

· Providing targets for human trafficking.

· Making sure that grant assistance is accorded to child victims of sex trafficking and that they are eligible.

· Provide a section for the lesbians, gays, bisexual, queer individuals and transgender and providing the Native Americans living on provisions.

Power struggle

As mentioned before, VAWA was enacted to create and support overall, cost-effective feedbacks to stalking, family violence, sexual abuse, and intimate partner violence. The policy, therefore, helps prevent domestic violence, sexual assaults among the other violation against females. There is no provision provided in the law or rather even in the amended bill passed by the Senate on the rights and abuse of women in the political arena or top managerial positions. The policy covers violence of women extensively both domestic and sexual assault. We are yet to see if the next reauthorization of the act will include the abuse of power against women by the high level of inequality and inequity geared towards women.

REFERENCES

Biden, J. R. (1993). Violence against women: The congressional response. American Psychologist, 48(10), 1059.

Clark, K. A., Biddle, A. K., & Martin, S. L. (2002). A cost-benefit analysis of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. Violence Against Women, 8(4), 417-428.

Goldfarb, S. F. (2002). The Supreme Court, the Violence Against Women Act, and the Use and Abuse of Federalism. Fordham L. Rev., 71, 57.

Modi, M. N., Palmer, S., & Armstrong, A. (2014). The role of Violence Against Women Act in addressing intimate partner violence: A public health issue. Journal of Women's Health, 23(3), 253-259.

Resnik, J. (2000). The programmatic judiciary: Lobbying, judging, and invalidating the Violence Against Women Act. S. Cal. L. Rev., 74, 269.