New Jersey’s Prevention of Domestic Violence Act and Sexual Assault Survivor Protection Act provide survivors of intimate partner violence and sexual assault with robust legal protections. Nevertheless, systemic and implicit bias in the courts and law enforcement results in less protection for marginalized survivors. Partners supports:
- Reducing barriers to court ordered protection.
- By making restraining orders available in other languages so that the parties can understand their terms.
- By ensuring that victims have a right to their own police records and creating uniform procedures to access them.
- By communicating to victims no-contact orders in effect during the critical interval between arrest and trial and training law enforcement to enforce violations.
- By addressing long delays in serving defendants with restraining orders, resulting in restraining orders that offer limited protections to victims.
- Allocating more funding for mental health services.
- Improving training of law enforcement to ensure that every survivor feels protected, heard, and respected.
- Expanding economic support and compensation for survivors without regard to whether they report crimes to law enforcement.
