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Meeting the needs of victims of domestic violence with family law issues: the dangers and possibilities in restorative justice

Victims of controlling domestic violence who also have family law issues continue to have their safety compromised and to suffer the abusive use of the legal system by perpetrators. A range of conditions contribute to this systemic problem, including the fragmentation of the legal ‘system’ faced by victims, and the emphasis given to contact with fathers and to private dispute resolution. At a more abstract level, unwillingness to look at past conduct and to attribute fault in family law proceedings has led to a failure to pay attention to issues of justice in family law. The possibilities for the use of restorative justice in these cases are explored. It is argued that there are considerable dangers, particularly with a generic model of restorative justice. There is, however, some potential in restorative justice processes which are carefully designed for the domestic violence context. In particular, such processes offer the potential to extend an empowering ‘justice’ rather than a ‘dispute resolution’ frame to a wider range of cases and to overcome the current fragmentation of the legal system. It is argued that our concern should be with how to meet the needs of victims of domestic violence, rather than with the good of restorative justice in theory. In addition, we must continue to work on improvements to the formal legal system as alternatives to restorative justice.