Legislation, Intimate Partner Violence

State and Local Legislation

Most laws outlawing domestic violence developed at the state and local levels. Massachusetts and Alabama were the first states to outlaw wife beating in 1871. However, it was not until a century later, in the 1970s, that domestic violence emerged as a serious issue worthy of a public response in state legislators' minds. This shift occurred largely as a result of a strong women's movement and a burgeoning battered women's movement. States tended to focus their legislative efforts on outlawing types of assault, only some of which were ever actually labeled domestic violence. State efforts also focused on including intimate relationships as covered by the scope of existing laws. It is difficult to definitively catalog when every state actually passed a law outlawing domestic violence, though all states now have some criminal sanction against violence against an intimate partner.

States and localities also have passed laws creating protective or stay away orders that require abusers to stay away from their victims for a certain period of time. Focused in the civil courts typically, protective order statutes now exist in all 50 states as well as in the District of Columbia. Created in the mid-1970s largely because criminal courts were not applying existing criminal statutes to domestic situations, protective orders can be effective in preventing further victimization, and their violation is now often viewed as a criminal matter.

The early 1990s saw the recognition of stalking as a serious crime, usually involving intimate partners. California first enacted a law prohibiting stalking in 1990, and since, every other state has created a similar statute. Stalking is repeated harassment and threatening behavior and, like domestic violence, is defined differently by different states.

Although rape within the marital context was not historically recognized, marital rape was finally criminalized in all 50 states by 1993. However, marital rape statutes in many states still grant some exemptions from prosecuting husbands for rape.

Federal Legislation