Restraining orders/orders of protection

I have been going through the Intimate Partner Sexual Abuse Course as I posted about a few days ago.  Module XIII talks a lot about crafting orders of protection that address anything that might pull the parties back together such as the victim needing child support to care for the children, or the defendant/respondent wanting to see the children.  WI's restraining order laws prohibit including any orders besides orders prohibiting contact or further acts of domestic violence which is contrary to Illinois which includes placement and other family law orders in their restraining orders.

Before reading this module I was adamantly against restraining orders that included family law orders.  I worked with a woman once who was trying to get a restraining order here in WI after she had fled from IL and in the meantime, the father of her child filed for and obtained a temporary restraining order in IL gaining temporary placement of their child.  At the time I was frustrated with a system that would grant placement (even on a temporary basis) to a parent without even a hearing where both parents could provide evidence.

I also have lost much confidence in our court system when judges and commissioners make placement orders which give an abusive parent significant time and often make a schedule that maximizes the number of exchanges and thus the number of opportunities for the abusive parent to continue the abuse.  So I fear that in the context of a half hour restraining order hearing, a commissioner would not be able to gather enough evidence (especially when one or both parties are pro se) to make a good order about placement.

All that said, this Module makes some very good points about addressing all the things that pull parties back together.  With clear orders about how to exchange property, child support, and placement, the court is taking away respondents' excuses for initiating contact and can more easily hold the respondent accountable for violations.  So I don't know what to think.

Sexual Assaults

As sexual assault month and National Denim Day, it seems appropriate that today's post focus on sexual violence.  Today I received notice of a web course on sexual violence aimed at judges and the court system called Intimate Partner Sexual Abuse which I have started and found full of really good information.  (It is a free course available to anyone and if you don't have the time to go through it all, you can easily skip to the parts most interesting to you.)

In that web course there was a question that really got me thinking that I wanted to share:


When you are listening to a victim of intimate partner sexual abuse give her account on the stand, what questions do you ask yourself? Do you think to yourself, Why doesn't she just say 'no'? or Why doesn't she leave? Would you think to ask, Why doesn't he leave her alone?