What Are California’s Laws on Domestic Violence?

What Are California’s Laws on Domestic Violence?

When a person is interacting with someone that they care about and love, they typically want what is best for them. After all, they love that person. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. Sometimes the people that someone cares about most hurts them for no good reason, and it wasn’t an accident. Loved ones attacking and hurting one another is more than just shocking and mentally damaging, it is also illegal. This is illegal within the state of California, just like it is illegal to attack anyone.

California’s Domestic Violence Laws

There are two laws within the state of California that layout what counts as domestic violence and what kind of penalties a person will face for committing the crime. The two laws are California Penal Codes (PC) 234(e)(1) and 273.5. PC 234(e)(1) is known as the state’s Domestic Battery Law. Under this law, it is a crime for a person to willfully and unlawfully touch a certain person in a harmful or offensive way. The type of people that are included in this are:

• A person’s spouse or former spouse.
• A person’s cohabitant or former cohabitant.
• A person’s fiancé(e) or former fiancé(e).
• A person’s significant other or ex-significant other.
• The parent of a person’s child.