Proposals that challenge carceral punishment fail to address the criminal law responses that govern gender-based violence. The failure to include gender violence offenses within progressive reform initiatives often serves to categorize those who have engaged in such harm as unworthy of the benefits of reform.

In recent years, mainstream anti-domestic violence programs have moved away from a fixation on the criminal justice system to undertake economic justice initiatives designed to “respond to, address, and prevent financial abuse” related to domestic violence.  The shift reflects the growing realization that strategies of remedy through the penal state have tended to fracture the…