The 1994 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), with additions passed in 1996, outlined grant programs to prevent violence against women and established a national domestic violence hotline. In addition, new protections were given to victims of domestic abuse, such as confidentiality of new address and changes to immigration laws that allow a battered spouse to apply for permanent residency.
According to the VAWA Act, a domestic violence misdemeanor is one in which someone is convicted for a crime “committed by an intimate partner, parent, or guardian of the victim that required the use or attempted use of physical force or the threatened use of a deadly weapon” (Section 922 (g)[9]). Under these guidelines, an intimate partner is a spouse, a former spouse, a person who shares a child in common with the victim, or a person who cohabits or has cohabited with the victim.
Another area this act addresses is interstate traveling for the purposes of committing an act of domestic violence or violating an order of protection. A convicted abuser may not follow the victim into another state, nor may a convicted abuser force a victim to move to another state. Previously, orders of protection issued in one jurisdiction were not always recognized in another jurisdiction. The VAWA specifies full faith and credit to all orders of protection issued in any civil or criminal proceeding, or by any Indian tribe, meaning that those orders can be fully enforced in another jurisdiction. Forty-seven states have now passed legislation that recognizes orders of protection issued in other jurisdictions. Three states, Alaska, Montana, and Pennsylvania, require that an out of state order be filed with an in state jurisdiction before the order can be enforced.
There are several landmark cases that have been decided under these new interstate provisions. For example, in the United States v. Rita Gluzman (NY), the defendant traveled from New Jersey to New York with the intention of killing her estranged husband. The weapons she took with her were used in the murder. Gluzman was convicted for this crime. In the United States v. Mark A. Sterkel (1997), the defendant was convicted of interstate stalking after traveling from Utah to Arizona to threaten his former boss.
The VAWA also allows victims of domestic abuse to sue for damages in civil court. However, this part of the VAWA was recently overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brzonkala v. Morrison (2000) in which the court held that Congress did not have the authority to implement such a law.
Another goal of the VAWA was to influence state legislators, particularly in regard to arrest policy for domestic situations. In order to receive Federal funding, states must adopt certain responses. The Act reads: VAWA 1994: (1) To implement mandatory arrest or pro-arrest programs and policies in police departments, including mandatory arrest programs and policies for protection order violations (Part U, SEC. 2101). This act has had a profound effect on state laws governing domestic abuse.
