Eve s buzawa and carl g buzawa have incorporated a wealth of new empirical research on how the criminal justice systems responses to domestic violence have changed in the seven years since the. This article surveys the history of domestic violence as a criminal offense and the justice system response to woman battering incidents it first discusses the definition of the offense including debates around the offense definition and the prevalence and reported frequency of the behavior termed woman battering. Coordination among criminal justice agencies has often resulted from the involvement of high level officials for example when the county prosecutors office began reviewing all domestic violence cases for state charges staffing constraints made it difficult for the police to process the increased number of state cases in response the . Stanford libraries official online search tool for books media journals databases government documents and more