Family Violence Protection Act - Assignment Example

Introduction: The protection against family violence act is a legislation enacted in the year 1999 for purposes of protecting family institutions affected by violence. In the above case scenario, a 25 year old woman faces violence from the husband, who is very abusive, and uses emotional blackmail to hold on to his wife. The man slaps her wife around, and threatens to kill her by using a kitchen knife. The man, on most occasions sexually abuses his wife, and uses extreme violence such as pulling his wife’s hair. However the woman is reluctant to press charges against the man, due to his mental nature. She was forced to press charges when the husband’s violent acts spiraled to his oldest child whom he pushed to the wall, while he was trying to protect the mother. This paper identifies a piece of legislation that applies to such situations. It identifies the vision of the legislation, and the population my serves. It describes the effective of the legislation, in solving the crises in question, and its implementation by social workers. It has a concluder, which outlines how to change and improve the legislation in question to effectively serve its purpose. Agency Mandate The protection against family and violence act is the legislation under consideration. The legislation aims to protect family members against violence. The act protects married couples, children, partners who at one point lived with each other, adults who depend on each other for survival and people who share parenthood even though they do not live together (Carniol, 2010). The act provides a definition of the family, and it defines it as individuals who share similar blood patterns, or brought together through adoption or marriage. A family according to the act can also mean a relationship between two adults who depend on each other for survival. According to such definition, a family can encompass a mother in law, a son, a child, a mother, a father in law, a daughter, sisters, brothers, adopted children, a wife and a husband (Carniol, 2010). The act provides procedures and choices an abused victim can take to protect herself from violence. An individual can apply for a restraining order, an emergency protection order, a warrant authorization entry order and a Queen’s Bench protection order. The act protects family members from violent actions that create fear, destruction of property and injury to the victim. It provides protection to a vulnerable family member who is at risk of experiencing violence that is done with the intention of harming the person. It protects individual members against forceful incarceration, stalking and unapproved sexual interaction. The act protects people with disability, and it outlines how a vulnerable person can use emergency protection orders to obtain restraint orders against the suspect. This was a change made between the periods 2006 to 2011 for purposes of strengthening the act. Other changes include, setting a penalty against a suspect who fails to obey the emergency, and the Queen’s Bench protection order (Carniol, 2010) My agency, John Howard Society, is a non-governmental organization that seeks to protect the vulnerable people in the society. My agency protects women and men who face family violence, orphans, the mentally disable and the aged. The protection against family violence act is very effective in handling the above scenario. How the legislation is implemented in the agency The threat emanates from the victim’s husband, who has a mental problem. The acts of the man results to infliction of injury, damage to the household’s property, and causing fear to the victim. An instance involves when the man holds a knife at the victim’s throat, and promises to kill himself if she leaves him. This action automatically causes fear to the victim and it qualifies as a family violence, as per the act. Basing on this, the act is efficient in providing a remedy for the violent actions of the suspect. The man sexually assaults the victim, and this action is forbidden under the act. He slaps her around and injures his son by pushing him to the wall. The two people are married and they have children together. Under the family act, this constitutes a family and any violence meted in this situation qualifies as a violent against the family, and the victim can seek protection from the law. The victim can apply for the emergency protection order to restrain her husband from making contacts, and abusing her. She can request the order from the judge at the provincial court. She can get the order at any time, because it is an emergency. The police can assist her get the order, only after she explains the situation to them, and they find it prudent to assist her. She must give consent to the officers to pursue the order, and they can do this through telephone or other electronic communication procedures (Carniol, 2010). Through the order, the victim can minimize violence against her from the husband. The judge has the responsibility to issue the order, and he has to consider the victims vulnerability, the interest of the victim and children, and the history of the violence. The behavior of the victim in relation to her response of the violence is also under scrutiny. The judge accesses all relevant pertaining to the case, and the victim must take an oath while giving information. This ensures reliability of the information at hand. This ensures reliability of the legal procedure in offering assistance and protection to the victim, therefore enhancing the effectiveness of the legislation. The order is effective in preventing the assailant from reaching the victim in specific areas, and it can include the institution where she obtains shelter. It will restrain the offender from initiating communication to the victim, be it by himself, or through a third party. The order will provide a place of residence for a regulated time period to the victim and her children, and police protection in case she wants to collect her belongings from her former house. The order will require that any weapon the assailant uses to threaten and intimidate the victim is seized, thus ensuring the safety of the complainant. Once a judge agrees to issue the order, it takes immediate effect, and has a provision for an evaluation by the Queen’s Bench Judge. This must be done within nine working days at the issue of the emergency protection order. Because of this provision, the suspect has a chance to contest the order, affording justice to him, and the victim at hand. To effectively provide a review of the order, a judge must outline the date, time and location of the evaluation. Once the order is issued, it must be served to the victim’s husband to notify him of the situation. This is because the order is not enforceable if the suspect is not aware of it (Vine et al, 2006). The person who served the order, must then sign a sworn statement, known as an Affidavit of Service detailing how and when he notified the suspect of the existence of the order. This action enhances the efficiency in implementing the order, since a sworn affidavit provides a proof of the issue of the order to the suspect and thus the administration of justice. The act has numerous strengths and weaknesses. The first strength is that is provides remedies against family violence and conflict through a series of restrain and protection orders. For example courts in Canada can issue emergency protection orders, restraint orders, warrant authorization entry order and a Queen’s Bench protection order. The act creates a sense of awareness of the existence of family violence, and by doing this; it removes a sense of stigma to the affected individuals (Carniol, 2010). This is because the victim feels protected, and an action is taken to enhance their security. The law also protects the vulnerable, in situations where the police do not have evidence to sustain a criminal charge against the suspect. However, the legislation has its own weaknesses. An instance involves when a person is commited to a community home, and the police are not always there to provide protection. This makes the person vulnerable from an attack. The order is difficult to attain since a victim needs to proof instances where she came under threat, and proof their occurrence. The process of applying for an emergency order is tedious, since it involves lots of paper work, for the victim, and law enforcement officers to fill. The act fosters social inclusion, and lends itself to anti-oppressive (Carniol, 2010). Social workers can the anti-oppressive model in implementing the legislature. The model advocates for empowerment, equity and inclusion. Through this belief, social workers can educate the vulnerable on the provisions of the legislature, empowering them in terms of knowledge on their legal rights (Carniol, 2010). This will limit violence in the family set up. The model requires social workers to support and encourage the vulnerable in the society, and support their knowledge base through policies and practice. A requirement in enforcing this legislature involves a situation where a victim has to fill forms and affidavits. Social workers can support this initiative, ensuring effective application of justice. Conclusion In conclusion, the family protection against violence act is an important piece of legislation in Canada. The act provides remedies against violence, despite the challenges it faces. However, there are problems with various definitional concepts the act employs, and this includes issues such as risk and emergency. There is a limitation of enforcing the emergency orders, since majority of the law enforcement officers do not have training on family issues and violence. To overcome this challenge, the government needs to set up gender and family training institutions with the responsibility of training law enforcement officers on family violence and legal remedies. The legislature should provide concrete definition of the terms risk and emergency in relation to family conflicts and issues (Carniol, 2010) . This will help the judiciary to come up with acceptable judgment’s and remedies against the conflict at hand. The judiciary ought to limit the process of acquiring the emergency order, since it is a factor in preventing the vulnerable from accessing justice. It should do this by scrapping the procedure as it is, and conduct a fact finding mission on how to effectively develop a procedure that will efficiently serve the populace. Finally, the act allows the vulnerable to stay in their homes, and the accused asked to leave. The government ought to initiate a monitoring agency, to monitor the movements of the accused in relation to accessing the home in question. This will prevent further violence. References: Carniol, B. (2010). Case critical: Social services & social justice in Canada. (6th ed.) Toronto, ON: Between the Lines Read More