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Ball/Oberman Current Challenges in Criminal Law
Section 6
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Intimate Partner Violence

W. David Ball,
Michelle Oberman

Intimate partner violence is perhaps the most widespread crime in the U.S., if not in the world. Affecting one in three women and one in four men, it poses and exposes problems in virtually every system of government, not just law enforcement. Throughout centuries of common law history, cases involving intimate partner fatal killings have been treated as voluntary manslaughter.

In this section, you are asked to consider the problem of intimate partner violence from a broader lens, considering the points of intersection with the criminal legal system and the various ways in which the law might be harnessed to make the home a safer place.

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