Social and Legal Responses to Violence In Families: Social Welfare, Civil, Criminal and Family Law

States shape the ways violence in families is enacted and reproduced through social policies such as family welfare, child support and child protection, alongside legal structures of civil protection orders, criminal prosecutions and family law systems. These govern the social supports, legal rights and protections for perpetrators and victims of violence and their dependents through decisions about accountability for violence and abuse and support for those escaping violence. Social welfare, housing, health and education provisions, alongside other family support systems such as post-separation child support, family law decisions about parental responsibility and child protection systems’ responses to violence and abuse organise culture and gender politics of violence in families. This session examines intersections of state policies and laws with violence and abuse in families and the consequent organisation of gender and cultural politics and the implications and outcomes for fathers, mothers and children. The session aims to foster discussions of the ways in which states can support or reduce family violence through increasing risks for perpetrators and enabling safety and recovery for targets of violence and abuse.