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“The law doesn’t get you there”: A comparative study of legal abuse and coercive control law implementation in Arizona and Connecticut

Deyo, Sylvia Wilcox LU (2025) SOLM02 20251
Department of Sociology of Law
Abstract
Legal abuse is an underrecognized form of domestic violence and coercive control in the legal system, with laws recognizing its proliferation only recently being sparsely enacted. At the same time, the conversation about coercive control as a form of domestic violence has been rising both domestically and internationally. This exploratory, qualitative study endeavors to understand if that rising conversation, and the new laws implemented as a result, could impact the decisions made by legal street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) in response to legal abuse. It further assesses how laws impact whether legal SLBs identify survivors of domestic violence as victims in these cases. In recognition of Lipsky’s (2010) theory of street-level bureaucracy,... (More)
Legal abuse is an underrecognized form of domestic violence and coercive control in the legal system, with laws recognizing its proliferation only recently being sparsely enacted. At the same time, the conversation about coercive control as a form of domestic violence has been rising both domestically and internationally. This exploratory, qualitative study endeavors to understand if that rising conversation, and the new laws implemented as a result, could impact the decisions made by legal street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) in response to legal abuse. It further assesses how laws impact whether legal SLBs identify survivors of domestic violence as victims in these cases. In recognition of Lipsky’s (2010) theory of street-level bureaucracy, this project focuses on legal SLBs as the primary enactors of laws in order to assess policy efficacy and implementation. Using Christie’s (2018) theory of the ideal victim, it examines how legal SLBs decision-making reveals the construction of the survivor both institutionally and individually in relation to legal abuse. Consistent with the bottom-up approach to bureaucratic legal policy, this study shows how legal frameworks are often not enough to change the ways that legal SLBs make decisions. Instead, legal SLBs continue to rely on existing institutional, personal, and gender biases with a bias against identifying domestic violence survivors as ideal victims because the interpersonal nature of the abuse. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Deyo, Sylvia Wilcox LU
supervisor
organization
course
SOLM02 20251
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
coercive control, domestic violence, legal abuse, abusive litigation, street level bureaucrats, ideal victim, Arizona, Connecticut
language
English
id
9212432
date added to LUP
2025-09-22 11:29:27
date last changed
2025-09-22 11:29:27
@misc{9212432,
  abstract     = {{Legal abuse is an underrecognized form of domestic violence and coercive control in the legal system, with laws recognizing its proliferation only recently being sparsely enacted. At the same time, the conversation about coercive control as a form of domestic violence has been rising both domestically and internationally. This exploratory, qualitative study endeavors to understand if that rising conversation, and the new laws implemented as a result, could impact the decisions made by legal street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) in response to legal abuse. It further assesses how laws impact whether legal SLBs identify survivors of domestic violence as victims in these cases. In recognition of Lipsky’s (2010) theory of street-level bureaucracy, this project focuses on legal SLBs as the primary enactors of laws in order to assess policy efficacy and implementation. Using Christie’s (2018) theory of the ideal victim, it examines how legal SLBs decision-making reveals the construction of the survivor both institutionally and individually in relation to legal abuse. Consistent with the bottom-up approach to bureaucratic legal policy, this study shows how legal frameworks are often not enough to change the ways that legal SLBs make decisions. Instead, legal SLBs continue to rely on existing institutional, personal, and gender biases with a bias against identifying domestic violence survivors as ideal victims because the interpersonal nature of the abuse.}},
  author       = {{Deyo, Sylvia Wilcox}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{“The law doesn’t get you there”: A comparative study of legal abuse and coercive control law implementation in Arizona and Connecticut}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}