ABSTRACT
Two decades ago, a landmark case in New York federal court seemed to signal change. In January 1999, Sharwline Nicholson, a thirty-two-year-old Black mother of two young children, waited at her Brooklyn apartment for Claude Barnett, the father of her three-year-old daughter, to arrive from South Carolina. In July 2001, federal judge Jack Weinstein heard testimony in a class action lawsuit brought by Nicholson and other survivors of domestic violence who alleged that New York City child welfare officials violated their constitutional rights by taking custody of their children. The fear of police intervention also corresponds to Black feminists’ opposition to relying on arrest, detention, and prosecution as solutions to interpersonal violence. Black women in the antiviolence movement have warned against participating in a regime that is eager to incarcerate large numbers of Black men but will not invest in resources like housing, education, and employment that would make Black women less vulnerable to violence.
