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Making Domestic Violence a Crime: Situating the Criminal Justice Response in Canada

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Global Responses to Domestic Violence

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Abstract

Domestic violence has been actively responded to as a crime in Canada since the robust “second-wave” activism of feminists, women’s advocates, and grassroots service providers recognized the problem as a political one in the late twentieth century. Over 40 years of activism, research, and public policy have led to aggressive criminal justice interventions, including mandatory arrest and pro-prosecution policies, specialized domestic violence courts, and batterer intervention programs, becoming embedded as the criminal justice response to domestic violence in Canada without adequate attention to the structural, cultural, and gendered underpinnings of this violence. In this chapter, evolutions of naming, understanding, and responding to domestic violence as a crime in Canada are situated within the broader context of critical decolonial feminist praxis addressing systemic violence against women and girls.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In Canada, criminal law is set at the federal level, but provinces/territories are responsible for enforcing laws, administering justice, and delivering corrections, including youth corrections, custodial sentences under 2 years, and community sentences.

  2. 2.

    Archival research in this chapter was conducted for my Ph.D. dissertation, “Claims-making in Context: Forty Years of Feminist Activism on Violence Against Women in Ontario and Quebec” (2014), University of Ottawa.

  3. 3.

    On December 6, 1989, 14 women, most of who were enrolled as undergraduate engineering students, were targeted and killed at l’École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, during a mass shooting. The women who were killed are: Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Crotaeau, Barbara Daigneault, Ann-Marie Edward, Maude Haviernick, Barbara Maria Kueznick, Maryse Leclaire, Maryse Laganière, Ann-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St.-Arneault, and Annie Turcotte. The perpetrator, who also killed himself, left a suicide letter blaming feminists for ruining his life, including failed applications to l’École Polytechnique.

  4. 4.

    “Founding” refers to the police practice of differentiating between substantiated and unsubstantiated complaints.

  5. 5.

    Other sources and estimates of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls: Amnesty International (2004) counted over 500, the Native Women’s Association of Canada (2009) counted nearly 600, Pearce (2013) found 824 missing or murdered indigenous women, and grassroots activist Gladys Radek has collected the names of over 4200 missing or murdered indigenous women and children (Chartrand, 2014).

  6. 6.

    Based on 2011 Census data, Indigenous women make up about 2% of Canada’s population (http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/index-eng.cfm).

  7. 7.

    A word of caution in interpreting low rates of domestic violence among immigrant and visible minority women, which may be underrepresented due to cultural norms dissuading individuals from talking about experiences of abuse.

  8. 8.

    British Columbia’s Provincial Domestic Violence Plan (2014): http://www.mcf.gov.bc.ca/podv/pdf/dv_pp_booklet.pdf

  9. 9.

    Manitoba’s Multiyear Domestic Violence Prevention Strategy (2012): https://www.gov.mb.ca/asset_library/en/stoptheviolence/domestic_violence_prevention_strategy_2012.pdf

  10. 10.

    Domestic Violence Action Plan for Ontario (2004): http://www.oaith.ca/assets/files/Publications/dvap.pdf and 2012 update: http://www.women.gov.on.ca/owd/english/ending-violence/dvap_update_2012.shtml

  11. 11.

    Quebec’s Plan d’action gouvernemental 2012–2017 en matiere de violence conjugale (2012): http://www.scf.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/publications/Violence/Plan_d_action_2012-2017_version_francaise.pdf

  12. 12.

    Newfoundland and Labrador’s Taking Action Against Violence: Violence Prevention Initiative (2005): http://www.gov.nl.ca/VPI/initiative/actionplan2006_2012.pdf

  13. 13.

    New Brunswick’s A Better World for Women: Moving Forward (2005): https://www.gnb.ca/0012/Violence/PDF/movingforward-e.pdf

  14. 14.

    Nova Scotia’s Domestic Violence Action Plan (2010): http://novascotia.ca/news/smr/2010-12-03-domestic-violence-plan/media/Domestic-Violence-Action-Plan.pdf

  15. 15.

    Alberta’s framework Family Violence Hurts Everyone (2012): http://preventdomesticviolence.ca/sites/default/files/research-files/Framework%20to%20End%20Family%20Violence%20in%20Alberta_Source%20Document%20Nov%202012_1.pdf

  16. 16.

    NWT Family Violence Action Plan (2007): http://www.learningtoendabuse.ca/sites/default/files/NWT-Family-Violence-Action-Plan.pdf

  17. 17.

    The Yukon territory’s Victims of Crime Strategy (2009–2014) includes violence against women: http://www.justice.gov.yk.ca/pdf/Victims_of_Crime_Strategy.pdf

  18. 18.

    British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and New Brunswick.

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    Jennifer Fraser PhD

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Fraser, J. (2017). Making Domestic Violence a Crime: Situating the Criminal Justice Response in Canada. In: Buzawa, E., Buzawa, C. (eds) Global Responses to Domestic Violence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56721-1_3

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