Retaliatory Violence After Family Court: Victim Safety After Family Court Litigation in Intimate Partner Violence Cases

Family courts assist separating parents with developing parenting plans for the children. Nearly half of these cases have reported intimate partner violence (IPV) as a factor. Children are harmed by witnessing IPV and thus, need protection. Family courts are in a crisis when handling cases with dangerous IPV. A gap in the literature exists with how family court processes influence IPV among the litigants. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to use violence typology constructs to understand and describe the experiences of individuals who used the family courts for parenting plans when their case contained IPV. Extreme case sampling was used to ensure the violence experienced during and after family court was represented in the data. Fourteen participants came from one organization dedicated to identifying and improving family court processes. From a content analysis of textual data, themes were developed into a situated structure which provided a coherent whole of their experiences. According to the key findings, the participants initially experienced profound fear, shame, and denial at the first realization they were victims of IPV. Subsequently, they endured a lengthy period where the perpetrator used the court processes to further abuse them, and experienced some court processes as surreal, cold, biased, and abusive. Social change implications of this study may include improving the experience of IPV victims using family courts, and increasing the likelihood of developing safe parenting plans for the victims and children.