ders,” or some similar term. The order—a “PFA”—is providedrnby a judge to a woman or her legal representative, often fromrna loeal “women’s refuge.” All that is required is a statementrnthat domestic violence has occurred or appears likely, and thernPFA is granted without a full hearing, without providing the accusedrnman with legal representation or any chance of redress.rnThe man is then excluded from his home for weeks or monthsrnuntil a full judicial hearing can be obtained. If he violates thernorder in any way, for example by visiting his children, he becomesrnguilty of contempt of court, and will probably be jailed.rnObviously, he is offered no financial assistance in finding an alternativernplace to stay in the meantime.rnThis is an astonishingly broad power for petitioners, who arernvirtually never denied orders, and there is enormous potentialrnfor the abuse of abuse. The procedure makes it simple to strikernat a spouse to exact revenge or impose pressure, and it is an invaluablernweapon of intimidation in questions of separation, divorce,rnand child custody. “Abuse orders” should be the subjectrnof national controversy. The only reason they are not is that,rnonce again, the victims are likely to be not just men, but veryrnpoor men. Insofar as there is a movement to “reform” the practice,rnit comes from the 1992 bill proposed by Senator JosephrnBiden that would codify many aspects of feminist legal theoryrninto federal law. In the area of PFAs, his solution is to expandrnthe practice by mandating interstate enforcement, thus bringingrnthe FBI into the “war” on abuse.rnThe problems with the PFA procedure are, or should be,rnstarkly obvious, but they are almost wholly neglected in the academicrnliterature. If one suggests to a feminist criminologistrnthat there might be issues here of injustice or foul play, the initialrnresponse is commonly one of utter astonishment that anyrnaspect of the “progressive” legal framework might be subject torncriticism. “You just don’t get it!” The next reaction involvesrna failure to understand how exclusion from home and familyrnmight constitute “punishment,” as opposed to civil regulation,rnwhich docs not require constitutional scrutiny. And it canrnbe almost impossible to establish the common ground requiredrnfor any form of meaningful debate. I once had the experiencernof debating a feminist legal scholar, who assertedrnthat there was no danger of abuse orders being misused, asrnwomen (unlike men) never lie about this sort of thing, and certainlyrnnot out of revenge or self-interest.rnBut abuse orders are not an isolated insanity. Again from thernarea of domestic violence, we are now witnessing the spread ofrn”stalker” legislation across the country. The stereotypicalrn”stalker” is an individual (well, let’s be frank—a man) who pursuesrnand harasses a woman over a period of months or years,rnand whom the police refuse to take seriously except perhaps byrnissuing minor warnings. The man habitually ignores cautionsrnand court orders, until he maims or kills the woman in question.rn”Stalker” laws permit official intervention at an early stagernin the process, demanding that police resort to arrest once earlyrnwarnings are ignored. Also, violators face greatly increasedrnpenalties, often raised from a traditional 30 days or so to a majorrnfelony sentence of three or five years in prison. Californiarnpassed the first such statute in 1990; neariy 30 others followedrnover the next two years. States are now vying with each otherrnto pass the law offering the harshest penalties in the nation,rnwith Michigan currently edging ahead of its competitors.rnStalker laws (like abuse orders) can certainly be justified inrnsome instances; but once again, they give wide discretionaryrnlatitude to victims as well as to those who perceive themselvesrnas victims—two categories that are by no means identical. Asrncustomarily occurs with such legislation, the statutes are generallyrndrafted in disturbingly broad terms, requiring proof thatrnthe accused pursued and harassed someone, “demonstrating anrnintent to place a person in fear of bodily injury.” But what exactlyrnis “harassment,” sexual or otherwise? As a number of celebratedrncases have made clear, it is far from obvious how muchrnany definition of harassment should take into account thernstandards and beliefs of a particular individual or community.rnWhat might be playful banter to one woman is gross harassmentrnto another. What one woman might perceive as stalkingrnmight be seen by another as a series of chance encounters.rnWhat is the standard, and how is the offense proven? The lawrndoes not even include customary legal language indicatingrnthat the fear of harm must be reasonably founded.rnThe recent spate of laws effectively leaves the definition ofrn”stalking” entirely up to the beliefs and perceptions of thernwoman accuser herself, regardless of her mental state or ideologicalrnapproach. Such a law could not have been passed 30 orrn40 years ago, because it was widely accepted that laws framedrnso badly could and would be used in a discriminatory way, andrnit was hkely that virtually all the complainants would havernbeen white and all the accused black. Is American society nowrnso completely free of prejudice based on class, race, or genderrnthat we can afford to do without the luxury of traditional legalrnprotections? These points have all been raised by the AmericanrnCivil Liberties Union, among other groups, but the feministrntide has proved too strong.rnPraising one new statute, a Philadelphia Inquirer columnistrnwrote that “critics say the language is too vague. Women whornhave been stalked, however, seem to understand exactly whatrnit means.” The respondents may be congratulated on their legalrnacumen, but judges are likely to be less sanguine, andrn”stalker” convictions should be a lively issue in the appealsrncourts for years to come.rnThe topic of domestic violence has attracted some atrociouslyrnformulated pieces of legislation and official policy,rnbut one of the most controversial must be the use of a “battering”rndefense to excuse murder. Anglo-American law hasrnalways recognized self-defense as a justification for or mitigatingrnfactor in homicide, but it has traditionally demanded thatrnthe defense be more or less contemporaneous with the attack,rnand not (say) an act of revenge committed an hour or a weekrnlater. Since the I970’s, feminist writers have cited eases wherernwomen killed husbands or lovers said to have systematicallyrnabused them over a period of years. Some of these cases demandedrnpublic sympathy, and judges would often recognizernthese extenuating circumstances. More recently, the use of arn”battering” defense has been pushed much further, and sincern1990 some states have offered mass clemency to women believedrnto fall into this category.rnThe question, again, is one of credibility. Some of the pardonedrnwomen had no evidence other than their unsupportedrnword to corroborate the alleged abuse, while others did notrneven claim that the abuse had involved actual violence. Somernof the eases in Maryland and Ohio were particulady egregious.rnIn one instance, a pardoned woman had hired a contract killerrnto remove her husband, in the hope that she would profitrnfrom his life insurance. Other “abuse victims” tracked downrnand killed ex-husbands from whom they were already separatedrn—an innovative form of “self-defense.” But these casesrn20/CHRONICLESrnrnrn