Groggel: Rural Civil Protection Orders

In The Role of Place and Sociodemographic Characteristics on the Issuance of Temporary Civil Protection Orders, Anne Groggel (Sociology, North Central College) examines whether extralegal factors—including rurality—impact whether victims of intimate partner violence receive civil protection orders.

Groggel analyzes over 1,000 civil protection order cases from all counties in Nebraska in 2015 and finds that “victims who file their petitions in metropolitan counties were significantly more likely to be granted temporary protection orders compared to those in nonmetropolitan ones.” This disparate treatment of rural and urban victims existed even though the judges in both types of counties were applying the same statewide law and even controlling for other legally relevant differences between the cases. Overall, Groggel found urban victims had a 9% greater chance of receiving a protection order than rural victims in the same state, applying the same law.

Groggel also found gender differences were more pronounced in rural counties. Urban female victims had an 11% higher probability of receiving a protection order than urban male victims, whereas rural female victims had a 15% higher probability of receiving a temporary order than rural male victims.

Groggel also examined other extralegal factors and also found other statistically significant differences in the granting of protection orders by the gender of the victim, the relationship status of the victim and abuser, and whether the parties shared children.

While Groggel acknowledges limitations of this study including restrictions of the sample and the possible impact of unavailable information like victims’ race, social class, or access to legal assistance, this study is an important contribution to ongoing evaluations of what factors affect victims’ access to justice—and the role of place in particular.

This digest was produced with significant contribution from Aurora Kenworthy, UNL Law Student.