The Current State of Domestic Violence Courts in the United States, 2007

Hon. Donald E. Shelton, Eastern Michigan University

Abstract

This is an effort to collect, update and catalogue a list of specialized domestic violence courts in the United States. There is no current central source for such information and considerable research was required to obtain the more current information reflected in this study. Using old lists and personal resources at the National Center for State Courts, a prior 2000 compilation was expanded to reflect some additional courts that had been established. A comprehensive literature search revealed that several of the courts had been professionally evaluated and those individual evaluations were helpful in locating and describing a few of the new courts. Nevertheless a state by state internet search of court web sites was necessary to both locate new courts that had been established and to eliminate courts in the 2000 compilation that were no longer functioning. The quality and comprehensiveness of state court system web sites varies a great deal and in several cases it was then necessary to follow up with personal contact by telephone or email to attempt to get the basic information needed for this study.

The resulting catalogue of domestic violence courts is the table in this study titled “Domestic Violence Courts in the United States – 2007”. It does not purport to be a totally comprehensive compilation of exisiting domestic violence courts but reflects the best available investigation that could be conducted in the parameers of this study.