Looking into the Day-To-Day Process of Victim Safety Planning

Although safety planning is a widely recommended intervention for domestic violence and sexual assault victims, there has been limited research on the safety planning process, content, context or effectiveness. This study builds on prior research to increase the understanding of safety planning in every day practice through focus group discussions with domestic violence and sexual assault advocates from a variety of settings. Five focus groups with 37 participants from a variety of settings discussed typical safety planning strategies and addressing the complexity of safety in challenging situations. Six main themes emerged with regard to typical safety planning strategies. Additionally, discussions revealed there are no widely accepted protocols or evidence-based strategies regarding how to assess and handle common but risky situations. Lastly, results indicate that risks are multi-layered and impacted by resources available to victims as well as civil or criminal justice system procedures, policies and victim status. It is essential that evidence based best practices and protocols be developed for safety planning for a number of high risk situations along with ongoing training, supervision and support. Future research is needed to examine whether, and how, safety planning best practices and protocols should differ depending on agency setting or delivery mode (e.g., hotline, case management, counseling) and geographic context.     

Factors Associated with Separation and Ongoing Violence among Women with Civil Protective Orders

This study examined a large sample of women recruited out of court at the time they received a civil protective order to better understand relationship status after obtaining a protective order (PO) and factors associated with protective order violations. Results are consistent with prior research suggesting that the protective order may be the impetus in separating from the abusive partner for some women, while for other women it is part of the separation process. Results also indicated that five out of ten women who did not continue a relationship experienced a violation while seven out of ten women who did continue a relationship with the PO partner experienced a violation. The majority of women felt safer and reported they believed the protective order was effective 13 months post-PO, regardless of relationship status. Furthermore, stalking played a significant role in separation from an abusive relationship and in protective order violations regardless of relationship status. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

The Firm and Common Pool Resource Theory: Understanding the Rise of Benefit Corporations

In September 2015, the crowdfunding site Kickstarter announced that it would adopt a new corporate form, that of a benefit corporation. Kickstarter is far from alone in this decision; in fact, it joined a growing list of tech firms that are moving toward adopting a benefit corporation designation. The result of the legal movement is that corporate governance across the nation may be changing, impacting everything from business ethics training to board decision making, with potentially wide‐ranging implications for the economy, environment, and civil society. Despite its growing popularity, though, the rationale behind the emergence of benefit corporations is an understudied question. In this article, we argue that benefit incorporation affects the very nature of the corporation by creating corporate common pool resources (CPRs) and that the CPR theory provides a way to understand the puzzle and future of the movement. This approach is important because it resituates the conversation, from a narrow view of the effect of the legislation on traditional corporate concepts to a broader view of the impact of the legislation. Furthermore, we consider the benefit corporation through the lens of Professor Elinor Ostrom's design principles, offering a unique perspective through which to analyze if the designs of state statutes and implementation by business entities meet criteria that would predict successful governance of the benefit corporation CPR.     

Partner killing by men in cohabiting and marital relationships: a comparative, cross-national analysis of data from Australia and the United States

Using a national-level U.S. database, T. K. Shackelford (2001) calculated rates of uxoricide (the murder of a woman by her romantic partner) by relationship type (cohabiting or marital), by ages of the partners, and by the age difference between partners. Women in cohabiting relationships were 9 times more likely to be killed by their partner than were married women. Within marriages, the risk of uxoricide decreases with a woman's age. Within cohabiting relationships, middle-aged women were at greatest risk of uxoricide. The risk of uxoricide increased with greater age difference between partners. We sought to replicate the findings of Shackelford (2001) using a national-level database that includes information on more than 4,400 homicides that occurred in Australia between 1989 and 2002. Despite the higher rate of partner killing in the United States, and despite other cultural differences between the two countries, we replicated key patterns with the Australian data.