Assignment: Domestic violence approach

The prosecutor is getting feedback from local law enforcement officers explaining that they are discouraged from making arrests in cases of domestic violence and child abuse. They claim that they have been neither making arrests in domestic violence situations nor arresting both parties when they go out on a call. It seems that abused women often go back to the abusers, and children who get removed from the homes where they have been abused often return after removal. These occurrences have been especially demoralizing to law enforcement.

One of your jobs in working as a victims’ witness assistant is to help educate law enforcement on the nature and behaviors involved in domestic violence and child abuse. The prosecutor’s office has decided that you should present each of the following topics for the next training session:

Topic 1: Domestic Violence: Your goal is to educate law enforcement to use best practices in the investigation of domestic abuse cases. Include the following topics:

How to approach a domestic violence situation when responding to an emergency call

When the parties should be separated

How to interview parties

What information needs to be in the report and why

How best to help a victim

What laws protect victims, including the use of protection orders

Why victims return to abusers

Length of time it may take to stay away from their abusers

Arrests

The legal standard needed to make an arrest in a domestic violence case

What evidence should be collected at the arrest

Are dual arrests effective law enforcement

How to assist domestic violence victims

Reluctant victims

Help for victims

Topic 2: Child Abuse: Your goal will be to educate law enforcement about the dynamics of abuse and neglect cases. Include the following topics:

Signs of child abuse and categories (physical, sexual, emotional)

Difference between abuse and neglect

Legal description of neglect

Use of guardian ad litems

The legal standards that must be met in removal from the home

Termination of parental rights

Requirements of Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)

Role of court-appointed special advocates (CASA) in child abuse and neglect cases

Role of Social Services in abuse and neglect cases

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.