Victim and Judicial Decision-Making in Protection Order Cases: Considering Institutional and Contextual Factors

This paper focuses on victim and judicial decision making in domestic violence civil protection order cases filed in Arizona. Arizona is an ideal place to examine victim decision-making as there are no residency requirements for protection order filings. Thus we can examine not only when protection orders are awarded, but also which courts victims choose to use to file for protection orders. We analyze victim and judicial decision making through a series of logistic regressions with two separate dependent variables: (1) whether the petitioner files for a protection order in a court that is not the nearest court and (2) whether the judge awards a protection order to the petitioner. Independent variables in the models include extra-legal factors (petitioner and respondent demographic characteristics), legally relevant factors (descriptions of violence and characteristics of the incident(s)), institutional factors (the resources provided by the court, measures of standard court operations, and filing procedures), and contextual factors (characteristics of the neighborhood in which the petitioner resides, including language fluency and socioeconomic measures). Results are discussed in the context of access to justice for victims of domestic violence, the feasibility of waiving jurisdictional residency requirements for protection order filings in other states/countries, and the need for greater support and outreach services for victims.