Family Protection and Domestic Violence (8/16/05)

How far can a woman go to protect herself and her children against an abusive partner? How much police protection can she expect? Where can she go for help? The answers are startling. Women terrorized in constant siege and fear have sometimes reacted by killing their abusive partners. Yet unlike a person who defends himself against physical assault in other circumstances and is lauded for protecting home and family, domestic violence victims who fight back are likely to be prosecuted for murder and end up in prison. Police protection varies by jurisdiction. And, as funding drops for domestic violence prevention and protection programs, victims often have no recourse.

85% of domestic violence victims are women. Nearly 4 million of them are assaulted by spouses or partners each year; 1,200 are killed. 31% of all female homicide victims in the U.S. were slain by their husbands or boyfriends. Women who flee the violence or are pregnant are at even greater risk. A 2001 study in the American Medical Association Journal showed that a pregnant woman is more likely to be murdered by her partner than to die of any other cause. 555,000 serious injuries are caused by domestic violence; 145,000 women are hospitalized for those injuries. And 73% of domestic violence incidents go unreported because victims think the police won’t believe them.

Jennifer Gonnerman and Sara Catania, writing in Mother Jones’s August issue, put a human face on the horror of domestic violence. Gonnerman tells about Shelley Church, who endured 14 years of abuse. Her husband beat her, choked her, and threatened to kill her with his hunting knife; when she said she’d leave with the four children, he said, “I’d rather see you all dead than leave.” One night her husband grabbed her by the hair, smashed her head against a headboard, tied her wrists to the bed and raped her. After he fell asleep, she freed herself and shot him. Shelley Church is now doing 15 years in prison.

Sara Catania describes counselor Patty Prickett’s efforts with the West Los Angeles police to educate officers, help domestic violence victims get services, and increase arrests and prosecutions of batterers. Prickett held training sessions on rape, determining the dominant aggressor in domestic violence situations, and writing effective reports for prosecution; she wrote manuals for the officers and guides on how to identify a batterer; she went with officers on calls. In the end, Prickett’s suggestions fell on deaf ears at the station.

Police are given wide discretion to respond to domestic violence calls. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a landmark June 27 decision (Town of Castle Rock versus Gonzales), ruled that federal law provides no guarantee of a specific police response to domestic violence complaints, even when a restraining order has been issued against a potential killer. In this case, Jessica Gonzales had sued the town of Castle Rock, Colorado because the police refused to act on her order of protection. She had called them fearing her husband was a threat to their daughters; he later abducted and murdered all three girls. Supreme Court Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, said Gonzales had not been denied a benefit of police protection because,”Colorado has not created a personal entitlement to enforcement of restraining orders.”

Our nation claims family values are a top priority, so why is the family not protected from domestic violence? The dismal answer seems to be that it’s still okay to beat your wife. How horribly ironic that some states allow people to carry concealed weapons to protect themselves from a perceived threat, but women who rely on an order of protection are not entitled to its enforcement nor can they use a weapon to prevent themselves and their children from being killed.

- Judith Kohler

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