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Barriers to Addressing Substance Abuse in Domestic Violence Court

  • Original Article
  • Published:
American Journal of Community Psychology

Abstract

Substance abuse commonly co-occurs with intimate partner violence among both perpetrators and survivors. Specialized courts that focus on intimate partner violence provide a unique opportunity to address both problems simultaneously, but research has yet to identify whether this happens. In this qualitative study of a domestic violence court in a large midwestern metropolitan area, key informants were interviewed to understand how the Court treats substance abuse. Results indicate that substance abuse typically is not identified among perpetrators or survivors going through the Court unless it is mentioned in a police report. Barriers to such identification are the organization of the Court, bounded definition of actors’ roles in the Court, limited resources, and negative attitudes towards survivors. These results suggest that specialized courts that attend to only one problem may overlook the possibility of addressing issues that commonly co-occur.

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Notes

  1. Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a term that acknowledges that violence may occur outside the home. Courts established to address this problem are commonly known as domestic violence courts, so we retain that terminology when referring to the court and to advocates for survivors of violence.

  2. The sexual orientation of those going through this Court is not known. However, since the majority of instances of IPV involve male perpetrators and female victims, we use that terminology.

  3. In fact, judges, especially in the criminal side of the Court, do not rotate often.

  4. If someone violates the conditions of his/her sentence, the State's Attorney can petition the judge to change the sentence. Typically, costs of domestic violence education classes are subsidized for those who qualify but substance abuse treatment may not be.

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Acknowledgments

The first two authors are grateful to the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago for support in conducting this research. We also thank members of the Domestic Violence Court and community agency personnel who generously participated in this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Stephanie Riger, Larry W. Bennett & Rannveig Sigurvinsdottir

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  1. Stephanie Riger
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  2. Larry W. Bennett
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  3. Rannveig Sigurvinsdottir
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Correspondence to Stephanie Riger.

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Riger, S., Bennett, L.W. & Sigurvinsdottir, R. Barriers to Addressing Substance Abuse in Domestic Violence Court. Am J Community Psychol 53, 208–217 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-014-9636-4

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