Criminalization Of Domestic Violence In The United States

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Domestic Violence has not always been viewed as a serious issue in America (Alhabib et al., 2010). Alhabib et al., (2010) credit the rise of domestic violence awareness to the advocacy of women's groups in the 1980's. Despite the best efforts of these groups, laws protecting domestic violence victims in the United States were not enforced until the 1990's (Alhabib et al., 2010). The criminalization of domestic violence grew from efforts to research and understand the concept over the past 30 years (King-Ries, 2011).
Since the criminalization of domestic violence, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) developed a set of key elements they recommend to be incorporated in Violence Against Women (VAW) laws (Ortiz-Barreda & Vives-Cases, 2013).