Posts

About the NOMAS Model for DV Offender Accountability Programs

The purpose of the NOMAS Model for DV Offender Accountability Programs (formerly the NY Model for Batterer Programs) is to provide a service to the civil and criminal court systems, for men who are domestic violence offenders. -As a service to the courts, a NY Model batterer program is utilized to extend judicial monitoring (both […]

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Worldwide Analysis: Over One in Four Women (or 27 percent) Experience Intimate Partner Violence Before the Age of 50

March 24, 2022. McGill University Newsroom Worldwide analysis led by researchers from McGill University and the World Health Organization shows that over one in four women (or 27 percent) experience intimate partner violence before the age of 50. The largest of its kind, the analysis covers 366 studies involving more than 2 million women in […]

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Is Domestic Violence a “Choice?” No, not exactly…

By Phyllis B. Frank and Chris S. O’Sullivan, PhD Reprinted with Authors permission from The Voice: The Journal of the Battered Women’s Movement, Fall 2011 There are many terms and explanations that have caught on in domestic violence work as we come to new insights, but we must often go back and rethink how the […]

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Don’t Confuse Domestic Violence with “He-Said-She-Said”

Barry Goldstein Judges, lawyers and evaluators often minimize or dismiss domestic violence (DV) by referring to the dispute as “he-said-she-said.” This flawed approach simply means that the professional does not have the necessary training to seek and recognize evidence that would explain the true nature of the case. Most of these disputes are easily resolved—if […]

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Family Court is Broken and Must be Fixed

Barry Goldstein Many protective mothers believe that corruption is the reason family courts are so tilted in favor of abusive fathers and create such harmful decisions. This belief is widespread because so many of the courts’ actions and practices seem so unreasonable and catastrophic that it is hard to imagine any other explanation. There have […]

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12 Reasons Family Courts Continue to Destroy Children’s Lives

Barry Goldstein Why Don’t Family Courts Fix Dangerous Practices? The research is now clear that Family Courts get most domestic violence custody cases wrong and often dangerously wrong. The proof of this alarming circumstance is readily available. This article explains many factors that cause courts to tilt in favor of abusive fathers and away from […]

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Domestic Violence Is a Gendered Crime

Barry Goldstein For many years, battered women and domestic violence advocates have said Domestic Violence (DV) is a gendered crime, but they were not listened to because they usually had no advanced degree; they were mostly women; and there was no research to confirm their experience. Professionals wanted to focus on issues like mental health […]

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Opposition to Systemic De-Gendering of Domestic Violence: NOMAS Position Statement

• Violence is a tool of oppression. It is used to enslave, degrade, dehumanize, punish and coerce. In a male supremacist society, men use these tools to subdue women. In a white supremacist society, white people have used them to subdue BIPOC. Everyone learns the “master’s tools” but not everyone has the ability to wield […]

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Stop Legalizing Incest: The Failure of the Court System to Protect Children

By Barry Goldstein, NOMAS Task Group on Child Custody. District Attorney Bill Delahunt put together a group of best practices from the late-1970s to the mid-1990s that dramatically reduced domestic violence, particularly homicides.  Bill understood that incest was far more common than most people realized and included a special office to respond to this heinous […]

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Tara O’Shea-Watson Could Have Been Saved: Domestic Violence and the Court System

By Barry Goldstein. We know how to stop domestic violence crime and especially homicide.  This confidence is based on successful practices in communities like Quincy, San Diego and Nashville that dramatically reduced these horrific crimes.  In Quincy, a county that averaged 5-6 domestic violence (DV) homicides, they enjoyed several years in a row with no […]

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