For many years, owing to marital rape exemption laws on the books, intimate partner sexual abuse evaded legal recognition. Even now, 26 states have laws which provide for lesser penalties for perpetrators if they rape within the context of marriage.
While the legal system has historically overlooked or ignored the role of sexual abuse in violent relationships, Lynn Hecht Schafran, Director of Legal Momentum's National Judicial Education Program, points out that intimate partner sexual abuse is actually an important factor in determining the risks - to the victim, family members, and third parties -- posed by the perpetrator in this issue of Judicature Magazine.
Judges have a unique role to play in realizing the implications of intimate partner sexual assault and encouraging law enforcement, prosecutors, and victim's advocates to focus on this issue:
"Judges can enhance victim and comunity safety and educate the community by treating intimate partner sexual abuse with the seriousness it deserves. Judges can require that batterer intervention programs address intimate partner sexual abuse (many currently ignore it) and, in criminal cases, sentence offenders in accordance with the gravity of the crime and the unique impact on victims Both pre-sentence assessments and post-conviction assessments should probe for co-occurring physical and sexual abuse, even if this was not raised in this court, in order to determine whether sex offender treatment would be appropriate."
- Read Risk Assessment and Risk Assessment and Intimate Partner Sexual Abuse: The Hidden Dimension of Domestic Violence from Judicature Magazine
- Learn about NJEP's online course Intimate Partner Sexual Abuse: Adjudicating the Hidden Dimension of Domestic Violence Cases
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