New York's One Judge‐One Family Response to Family Violence

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article reviews the history and implications of New York's one judge‐one family domestic violence courts. These courts were designed to reduce the burden on victims caused by overlapping and occasionally conflicting civil and criminal jurisdictions in domestic violence cases. The article details the obstacles and objections to this unified approach and spells out how those concerns have been addressed in New York. It describes a typical case example in order to show how the ideas work in practice. Finally, the piece argues that, based on what we know so far, a one judge‐one family approach can improve the justice system's ability to provide contextualized and individualized responses to address the complicated reality of many domestic violence cases.