Governing Gender-Based Violence: Legal Responses, Policy Innovations, and Unintended Consequences

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel brings together emerging scholarship examining the policies that shape intimate partner violence (IPV), reproductive rights, and gender-based violence through a multidisciplinary and global lens. The panel explores how laws, court decisions, and administrative practices can either mitigate or exacerbate violence and vulnerability, particularly among women, children, and marginalized gender groups. Fantoni’s mixed-methods study offers a rare view inside judicial decision-making on protective orders, revealing how legal outcomes vary in practice and perception. Campbell and Atkins' quasi-experimental analysis of state-level Hope Card initiatives evaluates whether innovations in protective order verification systems reduce IPV incidents. Durrance, Wang, and Wolfe assess the ripple effects of abortion restrictions post-Dobbs, linking diminished abortion access with increased IPV and child welfare involvement. Their work emphasizes the often-unseen consequences of reproductive policy on household dynamics and systemic interventions. Finally, Li and Fay offer a global perspective, assessing how national transgender protections influence IPV and sexual violence rates. Their findings point to positive spillover effects from trans-inclusive policies on broader population safety, while also complicating narratives about who benefits and how. By leveraging administrative data, legal analysis, policy variation, and cross-national comparisons, the panel advances conversations on how to build more responsive and inclusive policy solutions.

Policy Area

• Crime, Justice, and Drugs

Secondary Policy Area

• Family and Child Policy

Chair

• Danielle Atkins, Florida State University

Discussant

• Daniel L Fay, Florida State University

Organizer

• Danielle Atkins, Florida State University

Individual Presentations

• The Undue Burden of Abortion Restrictions on Relationship Violence and Child Welfare Involvement - Presenting Author: Christine Piette Durrance, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Yang Wang; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Barbara L Wolfe

• A rising tide lifts all ships: Transgender protections and sexual violence outcomes across the globe - Presenting Author: Mingxu Emma Li, Florida State University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Daniel L Fay, Florida State University

• Do judges get it right? Mixed-methods evidence on outcomes of protective orders - Presenting Author: Marylis C Fantoni, Brigham Young University

• The effect of Hope Cards on Intimate Partner Violence - Presenting Author: Adenike (Nike) Campbell, Florida State University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Danielle Atkins, Florida State University