Trouble at Home

Abstract

In her Jacob Prize 2009 award-winning book, At Home in the Law: How the Domestic Violence Revolution is Transforming Privacy, Professor Jeannie Suk mounts a sustained argument to the effect that under the guise of protecting women, coercive state power has weaseled its way into the hitherto sacred area of the home. Unfortunately, Professor Suk makes a number of errors in her book, including misreporting cases, misrepresenting statutes, and misunderstanding law. Because so little is written in the area of domestic violence, it is critical to correct these errors before they have an effect on policy. The purpose of this paper is to correct those errors and to defend current approaches to combating domestic violence.