Beyond the Victim-offender Binary: Legal and Anti-violence Intervention Considerations With Women Who Have Used Force in the U.S. and Australia

Abstract

In the United States (U.S.) and Australian contexts, the fight to achieve legal and societal recognition of cisgender men's violence against cisgender women operated according to an incident-based victim-offender binary. Those held accountable for the violence were seen as offenders, those who survived the violence were seen as victims. This binary persists across police, court, corrections, intervention, and child protection settings. However, work with cisgender heterosexual women with offenses of abuse and violence demonstrates that the binary does not capture their complex experiences. Instead, they have “offended” in the context of often surviving long-term harm in their families of ori..