AS THE TERM implies, family violence affects the entire family. Yet experts are only beginning to acknowledge this, and most efforts to address abuse have not focused on the whole family. As a result, laws designed to prevent child abuse fail to take into account the possible presence of domestic violence in the family. For their part, advocates trying to prevent domestic violence often have not considered the effect of their efforts on other family members.

Failure-to-protect laws

One example of well-intended efforts gone awry is failure-to-protect laws. These laws, which are designed to combat child abuse, can have a severe impact on victims of domestic violence.

As the name implies, failure-to-protect laws impose penalties on a parent who does not protect his or her child from abuse. The rationale is that good parents will do whatever is necessary to prevent abuse. Under these...