REPORTING ON VIOLENCE
Michael Paymar, training coordinator, Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project. "Domestic Assault: Building a Coordinated Community Response," presented to the American Medical Association, March 1994.
Thirty percent of women with injuries in hospital emergency rooms were identified as having injuries caused by battering.
Nearly one in every three adult women experiences at least one physical assault by her partner during adulthood. Police find twice as many male batterers were intoxicated at the time of their arrests as battered women.
Twenty-three percent of pregnant women seeking prenatal care are abused by their partners.
Each year, an estimated 3.3 million children are exposed to violence by family members against their mothers or female caretakers. Family violence and abuse are among the most prevalent forms of interpersonal violence against women and young children (both boys and girls). Men are the most frequent abusers of children, but when neglect is included in the definition of child abuse, the proportion of men and women abusers equalizes.
In Santa Clara County, California in 1995, domestic violence caused 19 deaths out of a total of 57 homicides in the county, and 33 percent of Santa Clara County's emergency room patients were domestic violence victims.
In Santa Clara County, California, domestic violence cases rose 65 percent between April 1994 (1,850 cases) and December 1995 (2,853 cases). In April 1996, the number of cases stood at 766. Of these 766 cases, 433 offenders had prior arrests for assaults, 138 had prior arrests for weapons offenses, 439 had been previously arrested for drug possession or sales, and 37 had a prior criminal history of child abuse offenses. (The numbers add up to more than the total number of cases because some people have been arrested more than once or on more than one charge.) Of the 766 cases, 379 had minor children living at home.
A study of 222 intraracial domestic homicides in Atlanta, Georgia found that when black and white populations were unstratified economically, the relative risk of homicide in black populations was 5.8; when black and white populations were stratified by rates of household crowding, the relative risk of homicide in black populations was no longer significantly elevated. The findings are replicated in a study in New Orleans. In both cities, six-fold differences in black and white rates of intraracial domestic homicide are entirely accounted for by differences in socioeconomic status between the respective black and white populations. There are no significant residual differences requiring cultural explanations.
In a study of assaults in Atlanta, Georgia, firearm-associated family and intimate assaults were 12 times more likely to result in death than family and intimate assaults with other weapons, including knives, blunt objects or body parts.
Lucy Carlton
Chief of Police
Los Altos Police Department
One North San Antonio Road
Los Altos, CA 94022
415-948-8223
e-mail: dvteam@growing.com
Domestic Violence Council, Santa Clara County
Dr. Maria Allo
Chief of Surgery
Santa Clara Valley Medical Center
751 South Bascomb
San Jose, CA 95128
408-885-6070
e-mail: mdallo@earthlink.net
Michael Paymar
Training Coordinator
Domestic Abuse Intervention Project
202 East Superior Street
Duluth, MN 55802
218-722-4134
The information for this case study was principally derived from interviews with Chief Lucy Carlton and Dr. Maria Allo and materials provided by the Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project, Duluth, Minnesota.
In 1989, Santa Clara County founded the Domestic Violence Council in an effort to curb family violence. The council coordinated a multi-agency program to serve the cities at the southern end of California's San Francisco Bay, the largest of which is San Jose. The program was modeled after one in San Diego, which had modeled itself after a similar program in Duluth, Minnesota, the first in the United States, established in 1981.
The council comprises representatives of the district attorney's office, local judges, probation officers, social services, batterers' treatment centers, women's shelters, transitional housing programs, the Asian population, the Hispanic population, schools and police departments. The council, which meets once a month, organized subcommittees to develop protocols for members of the medical community and police departments to respond to family abuse incidents. These protocols are reviewed every year.
The police protocol was instituted in 1990. "We didn't start out with a pro-arrest policy," said Chief Lucy Carlton. But after a state domestic violence law went into effect that holds an abuser accountable at every stage of the legal process, the county had one of the tools that "collectively, the Santa Clara law enforcement community is most proud of," said Carlton, despite the fact that the policy has been a subject of much debate.
This is how it works: When a 911 call goes into the police department, an officer who goes to the scene must make an arrest if there is indication of any type of abuse. The abuse can range from something as simple as a red mark or a bruise on an arm to substantial injuries and can include the victim reporting that she had been imprisoned in a room of the house. If there is cause, the officer arrests the perpetrator - in 90 percent of the cases the husband or man with whom a woman lives - and takes him to county jail, where he usually spends at least one night.
He is not eligible for release on his own recognizance. He will appear before a judge within 48 hours. He is advised at this time by a representative of pretrial services that to be released from jail before a preliminary hearing he must agree to enter a batterers' treatment program. The judge decides whether to release him under supervision and assigns bail. If the man cannot provide bail or refuses to enter the batterers' treatment program, he goes to jail until the case comes to court, which may take 30 days or more. If the accused can make bail, the arresting officer will obtain an emergency protective order that is immediately effective and good for two days. This prevents an abuser from coming within a certain distance of a woman or even making telephone contact, except under supervision.
The complaint goes to the district attorney, who administers a "no-drop" policy. Even if the victim calls to say that she does not want to press charges, the attorney continues prosecution. If a case goes to court, the woman is called as a hostile witness, if necessary. This component was included because many women in the past have dropped charges under threat of their husbands or are caught in a cycle of violent incident, apology, conciliation and repeated abuse. In a majority of cases, the batterer, if convicted, must go to jail and undergo batterer treatment for one full year.
At the time of the battering incident, if the victim fears for her life, even if her husband is under a restraining order, the police will take her and her children to a temporary shelter. If she feels that she cannot return home, she may enter a long-term shelter where she can obtain job skills, long-term personal therapy, counseling for her children and have the opportunity and support to put her life back together.
Even with these procedures, the council continually discovers problems and designs solutions to solve the problems. "We're adding new aspects," said Carlton, including a computerized Domestic Violence Registry that all police departments in the county can access so that a batterer cannot move to another jurisdiction to escape detection, a Victim Information Network and a method to issue emergency protective orders online. Last year, the state law was changed to mandate treatment for batterers, who had been able to get off on a promise of going to counseling and education classes. If they fail to complete the program, they must spend more time in jail.
Another area that needs improvement is in the medical community. California law requires physicians in hospitals and private practice to report abuse to local law enforcement. Women who show up in emergency rooms usually have injuries that are not subtle, and if police have not brought the woman in, physicians will call police to start the domestic violence response process.
The challenge has been to educate physicians who see abuse in their offices, said Dr. Maria Allo, chief of surgery at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. If a woman comes in with two black eyes and says she bumped into a door, many physicians will not ask further questions because they do not want to get involved, especially if they have been treating all members of a family. However, the Domestic Violence Council is increasing efforts to help physicians educate their patients about abuse, to offer them resources and to encourage them to alert authorities when abuse continues.
The recidivism rate - the rate at which women return to a relationship in which they continue to be abused - for women who are fortunate enough to enter and graduate from the few long-term shelters available in Santa Clara County is very low, said Carlton. In Duluth, of the victims whose partners had undergone education in the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project two years prior, 69 percent experienced no physical abuse during a three-month period about a year after their spouses participated in the program, and 41 percent experienced no psychological abuse. More abuse was reported before or during their spouses' participation in the program when only 7 percent reported no physical abuse prior to their partners entering the program, and 13 percent reported no psychological abuse during the program.
However, the recidivism rate for batterers is still high. A five-year study of batterers in Duluth found that 40 percent of the men who had gone through the Duluth batterers' education and counseling program were back in the justice system for battering the same partner, a different woman or had a protective order taken out against them [Predicting Batterer Recidivism Five Years After Community Intervention (1985-1990). Dr. Melanie Sheppard, assistant professor, Department of Social Work, University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN 55812. 218-726-8859].
"Batterers are finding another partner or returning to a relationship" in which the woman continues to be battered, said Carlton. "We're moving into getting at the root causes and behavior mode. Alcohol - especially binge drinking - plays such a strong part of the cycle. Using excessive amounts of alcohol makes it much easier for a man to strike a woman."
Another challenge arises in Santa Clara County's cultural melting pot, said Carlton. In the Asian community, many women refuse domestic abuse intervention services because they'll be shunned by their relatives and community if the police become involved. Many East Indian women consider themselves property of their husbands, "even if she makes more money than he does, even if she's a doctor," said Carlton.
In 1995, 19 women died as a result of domestic abuse in Santa Clara County. The council has set up a death review committee to find out where families slipped through the cracks in the domestic abuse prevention project and to devise methods to improve prevention.
"Early intervention is important," said Carlton, and not just to save a woman's life. She advocates counseling for the children who witness domestic abuse. "We are raising a generation of victims and abusers," Carlton said. "If we don't change the situation, we will continue to raise more generations of victims and abusers. We also have to connect the dots from domestic abuse to juvenile violence."