Chapter 12
Covering Domestic Violence: Story Ideas
By Sarah Huntley

Mandatory arrest
Mandatory arrest has become a difficult issue in many communities. Some advocates worry that victims may be more reluctant to report crimes because they fear their loved one will go to jail. Get arrest statistics and domestic violence offense report statistics from your local agency for the past several years and see what the trends are in your community. Talk with advocates and critics of the approach, to victims and offenders and law enforcement about the difficulties they face determining if there has been probable cause when they arrive at a home in crisis.

The effect of court rulings on domestic violence prosecutions (Crawford, for example)
Talk to prosecutors in your community about the effects of the 2004 Crawford ruling (discussed earlier in this chapter). Have any cases been approached differently? What strategies have prosecutors, defense attorneys and offenders adopted as a result of the ruling? Has your state’s high court weighed in yet to clarify any ambiguities in the Supreme Court’s decision?

Violations of protection and no-contact orders
Despite the occasional high-profile tragic case, advocates say protection and no-contact orders continue to be effective in bringing an end to domestic violence. Is that true in your community? Pull statistics on the number of protection orders sought and the number of violation charges filed. Talk to victims, judges, law enforcement and victims’ advocates about the trends you discover.

Batterer’s treatment programs
What are the treatment requirements in your community? Who regulates treatment providers – and what are their thoughts about the regulations and the consistency of their application? Is any agency in your state tracking recidivism of batterers who have gone through the programs? What do those numbers show?

Shelter demands and trends
Although there are more shelters today than ever, there still aren’t enough beds to keep up with the demand. In 2004, Colorado safe havens turned away as many women as they were able to help. What is the demand – and the capacity – in your community? Have shelters been seeing an increased need for women? How about children? Once the women are there, are they in need of new or different kinds of services than in years past?

Non-traditional demographics: teen dating violence and violence in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, for example
Two issues have started gaining particular momentum in the movement: violence among the young, and violence involving same-sex partnerships. Both these groups face special challenges, and there have been calls for new ways of reaching these populations. Talk to high school counselors, advocates, gay community leaders, victims and offenders about the problem – and the possible solutions.

Illegal immigration and domestic violence
Local law enforcement agencies committed to helping victims of domestic violence are keeping a watchful eye over the ongoing debate about illegal immigration. Some worry that a federal push to make local law enforcement agencies responsible for enforcing federal immigration law could have a devastating effect on victims reporting domestic violence. Many police agencies have policies, usually unwritten, to help all victims in crisis – whether they are here legally or not. The theory is that this population is already reluctant to trust and call police. If the new requirements are adopted, will they make victims even less willing to reach out for help? Also, women who are not here legally are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain government aid for housing, health care and other necessary services. As a result, they may feel even more trapped by a relationship that puts a roof over their heads. What are advocates saying and doing to help women overcome what may be becoming an even bigger hurdle?

Explore the challenges that make women stay
Why didn’t you leave? If there is any question that makes victims and advocates bristle, it is this one. Yet it’s a question the public asks time and time again. Reframe the question to one that takes away the blame: What challenges made it hard for you to leave? Give victims a chance to explain them, maybe even in their own words.

The effect of domestic violence on children
According to the Family Violence Prevention Fund, research suggests that between 3.3 and 10 million children are exposed to domestic violence each year. Whatever the actual number is, there’s little doubt that violence has an effect on the children who experience it. A 1990 study by Murray Straus, Richard Gelles, and Christine Smith showed that men who were exposed to their parents’ violence as children were twice as likely to be abusive than sons of nonviolent parents. There are statistics that suggest pregnant women are at a higher risk for abuse, leading to problems for their unborn children. School and social workers will likely tell you they see more behavioral and physical health problems among kids who are exposed to domestic violence. Explore the research and talk to children’s advocates and pediatricians about what they have seen. In particular, what happens to children who lose their parents in murder-suicides? How do they rebuild their lives?

Women as defendants
The mandatory arrest philosophies that have swept the country have had at least one unintended consequence. Women, some of them victims, are finding themselves behind bars, accused of domestic violence. In 1998, the Department of Justice conducted a survey that indicated women are perpetrators in 5 to 7 percent of all nonfatal domestic violence cases nationwide. In many jurisdictions across the United States, the number of female arrests is much higher. Traditional advocates are extremely disturbed by the trend. They argue that officers are misinterpreting the evidence and not recognizing that women who hit or injure their partners may be acting in self-defense. They worry that the court system is not equipped to help sort out actual offenders from victims. And they say women, even if they lash out, don’t typically hold the power and control that underlies true domestic violence. In their minds, women can rarely be an actual abuser. Others, however, see the issue differently. They say women are becoming more violent, and they, like men, should be held accountable. Even if the violence doesn’t rise to the level of abuse, proponents of this view say, their violence puts women at greater risk of unhealthy relationships and should be addressed. What are the arrest figures in your community? What do officers and advocates have to say about them? And what efforts, if any, are underway to determine the cause of the problem?

Grant funding
It is not unusual for domestic violence programs to base a high percentage of their budgets on federal grants, making competition for scarce resources fierce. In 2004 and 2005, as the country began to face economic strains, many grant-funded and social service programs began experiencing cuts that some feared could cripple the movement. Many of the domestic violence programs across the country rely upon grants under the Violence Against Women Act, a federal law passed in 1994 that gives states, localities, and private agencies federal assistance to combat domestic violence and other crimes that victimize women. Like most government aid, VAWA funds, which are administered by the U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women in Washington, D.C., can be subject to economic and political forces. How have services in your community fared over the past few years? Were their increases? Or cuts, and if so have they continued? Have state or local governments stepped in any to help?

Dissent in the movement
After nearly 30 years, the domestic violence movement is facing some of its biggest challenges yet, and some of them are coming from within its own ranks. A growing number of advocates, researchers, and batterer-treatment providers are questioning mandatory arrest, the effectiveness of treatment, aggressive prosecution and other principles that have come to define the criminal justice system’s approach to domestic violence. There are also rifts between traditional, mostly white, advocates and those who represent communities of color. In February 2005, my former colleague, Lou Kilzer, and I explored some of the dissent in a series of articles in the Rocky Mountain News. The first day’s article gives the best overview. It can be found, along with our coverage on subsequent days, at: http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/news/justice/