© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com DIFFERENTIAL PUNISHMENT OF SIMILAR BEHAVIOUR: SENTENCING ASSAULT CASES IN A SPECIALIZED FAMILY VIOLENCE COURT AND ‘REGULAR SENTENCING’ COURTS Ronald Kramer* Based on feldwork conducted in a large, urban district court, this article explores legal responses to domestic and non-domestic assaults. It fnds that men who assault intimate partners receive sen- tences that emphasize their rehabilitative needs and often result in discharges without conviction. Conversely, non-domestic assaults are met with relative severity. These fndings are not necessarily inconsistent with a ‘focal concerns’ framework, which suggests that judges rely on racial stereotypes and focus on ‘family costs’ when sentencing violent male partners. They do, however, add nuance to this theoretical frame by suggesting that sentencing processes are likely to be informed by cultural logics that are consistent with a wider array of social power asymmetries, such as those based on gender. A comparison of the narratives that accompany assault cases suggests that men, regardless of racial status, are likely to receive a ‘punishment beneft’ for assaulting an intimate partner. Keywords: focal concerns, sentencing, domestic violence, specialized courts, punish- ment, assault Introduction Over the last 30 years or so, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have seen an increase in the use of specialized, ‘family violence’ courts by their respective criminal justice systems. New Zealand’s frst family violence court was established in the Waitakere District Court in 2001 after Waitakere Anti-Violence Essential Services (WAVES), a third-sector organization focused on victim advocacy, began working with the court to address growing concerns around domestic violence. Such concerns were a product of research showing the extent of domestic violence and its economic consequences (Boshier 2011 ). Like its counterparts in other countries, the court was based on three key principles: ensuring victim safety, effcient resolution of cases and holding offenders accountable. The pursuit of these objectives would ensure that the court took a holistic approach to the problems that undergird domestic violence. Since 2001, seven additional family violence courts have been established on the same principles. These courts have not attracted much scholarly attention, but the lit- erature that is available suggests that they have not been very effective at preventing domestic violence (Knaggs et al. 2008; Boshier 2011; Mills et al. 2013). Nevertheless, they are now an entrenched component of the criminal justice landscape in New Zealand. Closely related to the issue of effectiveness, specialized courts have also generated concerns about their ability to preserve consistency in sentencing (Hessick 2007; Bond and Jeffries 2014). Drawing from 16 months of unobtrusive observations conducted in *Ronald Kramer, Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand; r.kramer@auckland.ac.nz. Ronald Kramer teaches courses in criminology and sociology at the University of Auckland. His current research explores how neoliberal inequalities shape contemporary practices and procedures within criminal justice systems. doi:10.1093/bjc/azv064 BRIT. J. CRIMINOL Page 1 of 20 British Journal of Criminology Advance Access published June 23, 2015 at University of Auckland on June 23, 2015 http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from