Leigh Goodmark
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Leigh Goodmark is a lawyer, author, and professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law whose research focuses on intimate partner and domestic violence. She is a feminist and a prison abolitionist.[1]
Goodmark has advocated for legislative changes that affect the sentencing outcomes for criminalized survivors and for policy changes that affect how domestic violence cases are handled.[2][3] She has spoken at an Oklahoma interim study alongside others like Colleen McCarty to advocate for sentencing reform for their incarcerated survivors.[4][5] Goodmark argues that current systems fail to decrease or prevent violence and instead often punishes the victims.[6] She has published work highlighting that legislative change is often not enough for criminalized survivors, who at best get reduced sentencing but does not correct the systemic problems.[7] Goodmark believes that intimate partner violence can't be addressed through a carceral system.[8][9] She believes that "abolition feminism" is what can challenge and upend "the notion that carceral structures, such as policing and prison, can still be used to address gender violence".[10]
She has offered free workshop trainings for other domestic violence advocates.[11]
