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Foreword
- State University of New York Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Foreword I have worked in the domestic violence field full time since 1981. I have interviewed hundreds of battered women, represented many of them in court, testified as an expert witness, taught Domestic Violence Law at Boalt Hall School of Law (UC Berkeley) since 1988, published the first textbook on this subject (Lemon 1996 and 2001), worked on legislation with the California Alliance Against Domestic Violence, helped edit a national newsletter (Domestic Violence Report ), written judicial and other curricula, given dozens of trainings, attended numerous conferences, taught counseling classes for domestic violence workers, and read untold numbers of articles , books, and cases on the subject of domestic violence. Although often frustrating , this field is continually challenging and fascinating, but, overall, it is the clearest example of an effective movement for widespread social change that exists today. I first heard about Elizabeth Leonard and her work through a prisoner at California Institution for Women in Frontera. This prisoner , whom I have never met, started corresponding with me many years ago because she had heard of my work and we quickly became pen pals. One day early in 1998 she sent me a note telling me about an acquaintance of hers named Elizabeth Leonard, a criminologist who was doing research with battered women at the prison. From the prisoner’s description, I got the impression that she saw Dr. Leonard as a friend of hers. This further intrigued me. I asked how I could contact Dr. Leonard and my pen pal sent me her address. I then had the pleasure of starting a correspondence with Elizabeth Leonard and reading her dissertation, which was a fascinating and important study of forty-two battered women serving time for killing their abusers. As far as I know, it was the largest study to date on this topic. Even though I had been working in the domestic violence field for many years, I learned a great deal from reading the xi dissertation and I immediately urged Dr. Leonard to publish this significant document. In addition to the valuable content of the dissertation that has become this book, I was struck by the method Dr. Leonard used in her study. It is an excellent example of conducting research in a way that treats human subjects as human beings, giving back to them through the process, and not just using their stories for someone else’s ends. Since my B.A. was in Women’s Studies, I was very pleased to see a feminist researcher thinking so deeply about how to conduct research in a humane and respectful way, empowering the women she interviewed in the process. I came to understand why my pen pal thought of Dr. Leonard as a friend. I am now pleased to call her my friend too. In February 1999, I had the good fortune of seeing Dr. Leonard present some of her research at the annual Western Society of Criminology conference in Oakland, California. That day she focused on that part of her research dealing with the forcible administration of psychotropic drugs to jail inmates without medical justification. The conference audience, mostly criminologists, was as struck as I was by the horrors of this forced drugging and urged Dr. Leonard to present her work to the general public, as part of stopping this illegal and barbaric practice. Last year, when I heard from Dr. Leonard that the State University of New York Press was interested in publishing her dissertation , I enthusiastically wrote to them, urging them to do so, so that this important work could be widely circulated. I am very pleased that this book is being published. As I wrote to the publisher, “What I like most about this manuscript is that it deals with a very important topic that has not been researched or written about very much. Second, it is well written in that it takes both a global approach to the issue (through the background and contextual chapters), and also a specific and personal approach (through the chapters in which the voices are excerpted). I think this is an invaluable resource to policymakers, scholars, and activists, which is why I have encouraged the author to publish it.” This topic of this book is very significant on many levels: in the fight to end domestic violence, in the field of criminology, in assisting legislators and policymakers when they decide whether to build more prisons or instead put major resources into halfway houses, in uncovering the forced used of psychotropic...