“Paper Abuse”: When All Else Fails, Batterers Use Procedural Stalking

Abstract

Using data from in-depth interviews with women who have exited violent relationships, attorneys, and practitioners/policy specialists, this research note explores the continuation of control as women encounter "paper abuse." The barrage of men's frivolous lawsuits, false reports of child abuse, and other system-related manipulations exerts power, forces contact, and financially burdens their ex-partners. Although these acts are not new, the significance of this continuing abuse has not been fully explored by researchers. Yet attorneys and practitioners recognize the need for better documentation to strengthen protections for women still forced to contend with their former batterers.

‘I’d just lose it if there was any more stress in my life’: Separated Fathers, Fathers’ Rights and the News Media

“…The research literature on custody disputes indicates that it is often coercive fathers who pursue custody and/or contact provisions aggressively and tenaciously through family courts as part of their ongoing harassment of their former partners (Boyd 2003;Tolmie 2012a, 2012b;Meier 2009;Miller and Smolter 2011;Stark 2007Stark , 2009). Moreover, when legal processes fail to deliver the results coercive fathers wish, they not infrequently resort to more forceful means of achieving their desired ends; for example, custody abductions or even child homicide.…”

Domestic Violence and Family Law: Criminological Concerns

“…Custody orders often require ongoing scheduled contact between the abuser and those reporting abuse. 'Paper harassment' thus provides a venue for ongoing abuse following attempts at separation, effectively enlisting powerful institutions in coercive control of survivors (Miller and Smolter 2011). This type of harassment is the latest variation on the victim blaming and discrediting tactics that have cropped up in response to public acknowledgement of abuse by family members and intimates stretching back to the early twentieth century (Olafson, Cordwin and Summit 1993;Salter 2012;Smart 2000).…”

“…Despite clear evidence that separation requires greater rather than lesser protection from violence and abuse, and the literature documenting not only the overlap of partner and child abuse but also the damaging effects of exposure to violence, men's physical violence against adult female partners is frequently deemed irrelevant to parenting in family court. Lack of recognition of the various means of manipulation, controlling behavior, and threats that form the fabric of abusive relationships is incomprehensible in the resulting family law discourses about domestic violence (Stark 2009 In addition to physical and emotional abuse, critical criminologists have begun to document what Miller and Smolter (2011) termed 'paper harassment', using civil and family law processes to retaliate against women and children who report abuse, especially at divorce. The family law system in particular regularly mandates continuing engagement between abusive fathers and protective mothers.…”

“…In addition to frequent engagement with criminal law and civil orders for protection, family law is a central system of concern for abused women (Cuthbert et al 2002;Hardesty 2002;Hardesty and Ganong 2006;Lemon 2000;Miller and Smolter 2011;Schneider 1994;Schneider 2000;Slote et al 2005). Family law systems are located at the intersection of contradictory gendered expectations.…”

“…Such facially neutral income support policies penalize all lower income parents, but are especially damaging for survivors of abuse who face increased pressure to promote easy access to fathers even when they are abusive. Often custody arrangements are made via ostensibly restorative and non-adversarial practices like mediation which many abused women experience as coercive and unsafe (Hardesty 2002;Hardesty and Chung 2006;Hardesty and Ganong 2006;Haselschwerdt, Hardesty and Hans 2010;McMurray 1997;McMurray et al 2000;Miller and Smolter 2011).…”