Domestic violence measures enhance police response

With only six reported cases of domestic violence on Virginia Commonwealth University’s campus since February 2005, one might assume that VCU Police rarely worry about the problem.

Capt. Tina Buck of VCU Police, who has been helping victims and bringing abusers to justice for 26 years, said she thinks about domestic violence every day.

Domestic violence is defined as a pattern of physically, sexually or emotionally abusive behaviors used by one individual to assert power or maintain control over another in the context of an intimate or family relationship.

According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, out of Virginia’s 21,982 reported violent crime offenses in 2004, more than 10 percent were committed against a family member, boyfriend or girlfriend. As recently as 1999, there were 57,662 people enrolled in domestic violence programs in Virginia. Family violence victims also made an estimated 21,000 calls to police departments across the commonwealth in 2004 alone.

“It should be a concern because home is where you’re supposed
to feel safe.”

– Sarah Huggins, member of Virginia’s Clothesline Project

Despite these statistics, domestic violence remains an underreported crime that crosses all economic and social lines. In Buck’s opinion, things are improving since Virginia’s laws enhance police response by mandating that an arrest is made when someone calls to report an incident.

“They are improved now,” Buck said of the domestic violence laws. “Back several years ago.the general police response was to simply separate the disputants and advise the victim.”

After the incident, Buck said police might get a warrant for arrest at the victim’s discretion. However, the current laws, Buck said, provide more uniform justice and increased safety.

“Instead of the victim being the person in the place of having to bring charges against the perpetrator, the police step in and do that for them now,” she said.

One prominent organization that tries to push the harsh reality of domestic violence into the public eye is the Clothesline Project. The project, which was founded more than a decade ago in Massachusetts, displays shirts that victims made by channeling the pain and powerlessness of their incidents into images and words.

“I’ve gotten shirts in all kinds of ways-from groups, from people who did them privately, workshops,” said Sarah Huggins, a member of Virginia’s Clothesline Project, which has been in existence for more than a decade. “We were showing the clothesline at a shopping mall and a woman just walked up and gave us a shirt that she had made on her lunch break.”

Some of the public places where Huggins and other Clothesline coordinators have shown the shirts include VCU and the University of Richmond. While spectators might think the purpose of making the shirts was to help victims cope with their past, Huggins said the reason is not quite so simple.

“First of all it gets their stories out there; ‘this is what it’s like being in this situation,'” she said. “It makes people aware. I don’t know if closure is the right word exactly, but I can see where it might make someone feel better.”

Without the work of police departments across the state, victims would never reach the happiness that might come with freedom. When police respond to a domestic violence call, Buck said they will speak to any witnesses, examine physical evidence on the scene, and look for obvious signs of physical abuse such as scratches and bruises. An important part of this procedure is determining who is the “predominant aggressor,” or person most capable of inflicting damage. Although Buck was quick to mention that the aggressor is not necessarily the male, her constant references to the victim as a “she” reaffirms that men are more likely to inflict harm than women.

Since the perpetuation of domestic violence is often rooted in the victim’s fear of leaving the aggressor, officers hand out a “victim rights” card to inform victims of their legal rights. Next, Buck or another officer of similar rank will sit down with the victim to talk about a plan to keep the person as safe as possible. Sometimes, this involves considering if the victim should go to a safe house or making a plan for how to react in the workplace. This planning, Buck said, can often be a delicate process.

“We try not to re-victimize the victim,” she said. “We don’t want to punish her because she was assaulted at work or in the classroom.”

The police also try to inform neighbors and co-workers about the aggressor’s appearance so they can react if the person arrives.

One of the most powerful legal defenses comes in the form of protective orders. While an initial emergency order only lasts for 72 hours, other orders that can be obtained last from 15 days up to two years.

“Even though it’s just a piece of paper, we can arrest him immediately,” Buck said. “He doesn’t have to do anything, he just has to show up.”

When strategizing the victim’s plan for safety, the police also consider the aggressor’s history. Buck said this goes beyond a simple background check because they ask the victim questions about whether the aggressor owns any guns, if the person is a substance abuser or even if the person has been shot.

“If they’ve ever been intimate, that’s another red flag and raises the threat level,” she said.

The last aspect of the police response involves preparing the victim for a court appearance. Often, police will try to have the victim talk with the commonwealth’s attorney prior to the case since he will be the prosecutor. They may also bring the victim into some of the courtrooms so he or she will know what to expect.

While many of us have never been victims of domestic violence, Huggins wants everyone to take the problem seriously.

“It should be a concern because home is where you’re supposed to feel safe,” Huggins said. “It’s a really, really basic concern.”