Thesis (M.A.)--Duquesne University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 62-67) and index.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Women's Studies, 1998? / Bibliography: leaves 1-11 at end.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences / Department of Sociology

M.A. / Domestic violence is widespread in South Africa, with one in four women being the victims of it. Victims of domestic violence try to change their conditions in the hope that things will get better. Domestic violence takes many forms. Some of the victims experience only one form of violence while others experience different forms. Domestic violence has physical, emotional, sexual, and economic dimensions (Goosen and Shaik, 1998: 1). The Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998 was passed in the South African Parliament and became operational on 15 December 1999. Unlike the old Act (i.e. the Prevention of the Family Violence Act of 1993), the new Act addresses a number of problems specific to domestic violence. It also recognizes the range of relationships within which domestic violence occurs as broader than only the relationship between a man and a woman. (Fedler in Reclaiming Women’s Spaces, 2000: 132). Gangaloo (in Naidoo, 1999: 17) mentioned that the preamble of the Domestic Violence Act aims to provide protection to the victims of domestic violence. The Protection Order under the Domestic Violence Act orders that perpetrators of domestic violence stop their violent behaviour against the victims and also that they be of good behaviour towards them. The research problem of the study can be formulated as follows: After the implementation of the Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998, on 15 December 1998, a number of victims of domestic violence applied for and were granted the Protection Order in Alexandra Township. However, no follow-up studies have been done in Alexandra on the perspectives of the affected marital couples on the Protection Order. The main goal of the study is to explore the perspectives of marital couples in Alexandra Township on the Protection Order under the Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998 with the intention of finding out whether the Act is achieving its primary purpose, i.e. to protect victims of domestic violence. The objectives of the research study are: * To explore perceptions on the impact of the Protection Order on family stability * To investigate the attitude of affected marital couples towards the Protection Order * To investigate the understanding of the Protection Order by affected marital couples * To investigate, using the results of the study, whether the Protection Order is achieving its primary purpose – i.e to protect victims of domestic violence. The researcher will be using qualitative research method to conduct the study. The goal of the study is exploratory as it will add new information and knowledge to the field of domestic violence. The research will focus on marital couples, married either in a civil or customary marriage, who applied for and were granted the Protection Order between January 2000 to January 2001. The age group of the respondents varies from 30 to 55 years. The research results of the study show that legal remedies alone will not eradicate domestic violence. The study demonstrates that physical violence may have stopped but victims are still abused emotionally. / MS. H.F. Ellis

No description available.

The judicial response to family violence in Montreal during the period 1825 to 1850 was marked by paradox. The criminal justice system, driven by private prosecutors, limited the ability of some victims to seek the law's protection, but it allowed others to exercise considerable discretion and influence over the pursuit of justice. The legal response to the crimes of infanticide, child abuse, domestic violence, and spousal murder was equally contradictory. Infanticide may have been depicted as a horrific crime, but the call for justice was never strong. Society became increasingly sensitive to the notion that parents should be held accountable for causing injury to children, but a belief in the sanctity of the family was still paramount. When child abuse cases did come before courts, children were often accorded the same legal remedies by courts as were adult victims. Similarly, while the issue of family violence was not then a widespread societal concern, and while the notion that a wife was subordinate to her husband remained a prominent part of early-Victorian life, hundreds of abused wives prosecuted their husbands for assault. Those cases reflect not only that abused wives were contesting their partner's use of violence, but also that courts were willing to intervene. Spousal murder cases were further evidence of contradiction: women were subject to heightened legal penalties for killing their partners, but their gender also insulated them from the full severity of the law. / In a period before the sweeping public movements that developed in the last several decades of the nineteenth century, courts were forced to grapple with family violence because private prosecutors brought those issues before them. In their willingness to hear cases involving infanticide, child abuse, domestic violence, and spousal murder, courts made public some of Victorian Montreal's darkest secrets. While the privately-driven system of justice was slowly to erode over the intervening decades, that erosion was to coincide with the rise of public crusades against child-cruelty, domestic violence, and other social issues. The visibility of family violence likely fueled, and in turn was fueled by, those social movements.

No abstract available. / Thesis (LL.M.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2000.

The thesis is divided into two parts, Part I contains four chapters which map the pattern of legal changes relating to domestic violence against women from the 18th century to the 1980s. The history is written from the viewpoint of the legal interventions available to and used by women victims of domestic violence. Statutory enactments, case law and procedural changes in the relevant areas of criminal, family (ecclesiastical) and welfare law are described. Throughout Part I the discussion of the remedies available and reforms implemented is supplemented by the inclusion of case examples and statistical evidence showing local and national patterns of use. Chapter 1 describes the period from the start of the 18th century to the begining of the 20th; Chapter 2,1900 to the 1960s, Chapter 3 from 1969 to 1977 and Chapter 4 the more recent history in the 10 years between 1977 to 1987. Part II contains five chapters and is based upon an analysis of women victim's needs in contemporary socio-legal discourse. Part II grew out of a concern about the part played by the law in the secondary assault of women. The main aim of the discussion is to look at how women victims' self defined needs inform the practice of the law and how the legal approach contributes to the creation of violent relations between men and women in the social institution of heterosexuality. Part II emphasises the use of written and spoken language in interactional settings to define women's needs. The discussion is based upon the analysis of: 1. a survey of women involved in 54 legal cases concerning their partners' behaviour supplemented by interviews with legal advisors; 2. case records obtained from solicitors' offices with the womens' permission; 3. over 300 decisions traced from the published Law Reports; 4.105 press reports of cases of domestic violence against women. Chapter 5 describes the method employed in the research for Part II. Chapter 6 contains the analysis of the women's cases; Chapter 7 the reported decisions and Chapter 8 the press reports. Chapter 9 offers a summary of academic discourse and the abuse of women as well as a concluding discussion on some possibilities for the empowerment of women in law.

This thesis is an investigation into the effects of the 1992 böryokudan countermeasures law (böryokudan taisaku ha or, more simply, bötaihö) on Japan's organised crime syndicates (böryokudan or yakuza). Underlying this examination is a functionalist perspective of organised crime which rests on the premise that, far from being unambiguously socially dysfunctional, organised crime groups exist because they satisfy needs held by various sections of society (both in the upper and underworlds). This approach demystifies many of the supposedly unique aspects of the böryokudan/yakuza (such as yakuza-authority symbiosis) and places Japan within the compass of modem organised-crime studies. An empirical overview of the böryokudan's development from 1945 to 1992 shows that the prime dynamic behind this evolution has been the legal and law-enforcement environment within which these groups exist and that frequently the impact of these changes has been socially undesirable. Attempts to examine whether or not the bötaihö has similarly exacerbated organised criminality in Japan are hampered by the collapse of Japan's bubble economy in 1990. This event had profound consequences for boryokudan groups rendering many activities unviable, whilst simultaneously creating new opportunities. Despite these extraneous considerations, the bötaihö has had an observable impact on many aspects of the böryokudan's activities and some of these consequences have been socially undesirable. The legal analysis of the bötaihö is placed in the wider context of international organised-crime control measures, in particular America's RICO statutes and European laws, both of which were highly influential in the debate within Japan concerning the framing of new anti-böryokudan laws. The thesis concludes by arguing that the radically different structure of the bötaihö, vis-ä-vis these alternative models, is part of a wider reversion to pre-war legal and policing norms in which, in addition to enforcement of the criminal law, the police also exercise considerable administrative powers.

Zugl.: Berlin, Humboldt-Univ., Diss., 2007