The insanity must stop. Protect the victim. Fix the perpetrator. Get to root causes.
I recently attended a debate among local political candidates. One of the questions posed was “What would you do about the scourge of domestic violence?”
Of course, they all professed abhorrence to domestic violence. They emphatically expressed support for the abused. They all demanded punishment for the abuser. Everyone agreed there needs to be more prevention, more therapy and consequences for abusing. The audience was served a full round of generalities and platitudes.
This motivated me to offer the following observations and suggestions:
Harden the target:
Provide the abused person with a panic button akin to the commercial in which the woman shouts the phrase “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”.
Provide the abused person with motion activated video camera surveillance of the perimeter of their residence and alarm all doors and windows of the residence. Make sure monitoring systems are active and monitored in the event of any security breach. Make sure video cameras are installed and activated in the victim’s vehicle. Costly yes, but not compared with the hospital and funeral costs to the victims. The repeat offender syndrome and the revolving door frustration experienced by police responding to the same locations strains public safety budgets and morale. Lastly, consider the intangible and astronomical costs associated with the traumatized children of domestic abuse situations.
Have the restraining order on file at all appropriate locations (courts, police, place of employment, etc.) and register this notice with all appropriate persons (family, friends, school authorities if there are children involved, etc.). This notice should include a photo of the abuser and description of perps’ vehicle so there will be no question or hesitation when trouble is near. I offer this suggestion based on my years working as a mall cop, public housing manager, mental health advocate and neighborhood organizer. In all these circumstances, there was a sense of danger and uncertainty but it was rarely clear what I was “on the lookout for” and the specificity of threats and circumstances generally remained vague.
Set in place a protective escort system so the abused party can shop and keep appointments without fear of physical abuse and abduction. This system of volunteer escorts could be comparable to the volunteers who provide safe passage to visitors to abortion clinics. Having volunteer escorts (or possibly providing them with a small stipend) would keep costs down. Combatting domestic violence is certainly a cause that would be supported by motivated volunteers. It will require advance scheduling and require a restrictive, inconvenient lifestyle for the abused party but unfortunately this may be the only way to increase the level of safety. This is particularly important when the abuser is served with divorce/separation papers because that’s when the threat level escalates.
The abused person will need to agree to all of the aforementioned terms and conditions of living in a more restrictive and heightened security environment. It’s unfortunate and unfair but it’s necessary to keep the victims children shielded from the trauma of abuse and keep the victim from physical harm and possibly even death.
And now for some protocols and procedures concerning the abuser.
I’m recommending isolating, tracking/monitoring and treating until there can be reasonable assurance that the pattern has been broken.
Get to the root causes of abusive behavior and don’t let up until the abuser is fixed.
How?
If the abuse involves violence (or the imminent threat of violence), the abuser must be isolated in a therapeutic center for intensive therapy until it can be certified that the abuser presents no further threat. Don’t send this perp to jail, where nobody gets rehabilitated and prisoners only get worse. In the “therapeutic center”, the abuser is treated to intensive therapy either in an in-hospital setting or out-patient clinic depending upon the severity of the abuse. If there are co-occurring circumstances such as addictions, add that treatment to the therapeutic regime. This should be in-patient for severe situations or out-patient for less severe incidents.
Slap an ankle monitor on the abuser so whereabouts are constantly monitored and an alarm is activated if the physical parameters of the restraining order are breached. The duration of attachment of the ankle monitor will be determined by the frequency and severity of the abuse. Ankle monitor should only be removed when there is a clinical, professional certification that therapy treatments have been completed and it can be reasonably determined that root causes have been addressed and behavior has been modified. In sum, keep the ankle monitor on for as long as it takes. A side benefit to this strategy would be to alert any new persons entering a relationship with this abuser that a “buyer beware” policy might be prudent. This might cut down on the repeat offender, multi-victim syndrome which in turn might cut down on police/courts/criminal justice costs. Lastly, by not tossing the abuser in jail (unless circumstances necessitate it or if there is flagrant, repeated violation of the protective order), the abuser can still be employed and remain a productive member of society while getting the counselling that’s needed.
As far as firearms restrictions are concerned, I recommend a full restriction until such time it’s determined that the ankle monitor can be removed. That’s because this coincides with therapy and behavior modification demonstrating reasonable improvement. There are no guarantees that the abuser has been “cured” but this would certainly be preferable to the arbitrary short-term restrictions to firearms whereby the abuser might just “wait out the waiting period” and open fire thereafter. Restricting firearm access without coupling to ongoing, intensive therapy might only create a pressure cooker of pent-up demand for retribution by the abuser.
Some might accuse me of being harsh and draconian for both the victim and abuser when I make the aforementioned proposals. Some might consider this a totalitarian approach. However, consider the harm inflicted by the abuser and the life of fear and trauma that the victim and the victims’ family must endure. On the contrary, I assert that this is the best long-term, cost-effective scenario for all parties involved including the affected children and society in general. Only if we take these tough-love tactics will the cycle of abuse be broken, Only then will we tackle this problem with a practical no-nonsense approach. Maybe there might be one less woman (usually it’s women) who is found dead clutching her restraining order in the misguided optimistic hope that somehow this piece of paper will somehow save her from a beating or death.
There may be higher upfront costs to implementing these proposals but in the long run there may be a cost saving with fewer calls for service, less revolving door repeat offender situations and more long-term solutions by getting to the root problems. Beat up spouses rack up hospital bills. Dead spouses leave children orphaned and traumatized. Theraputic isolation for abusers is preferable to having them sit in jail costing taxpayers’ money and becoming more likely to terrorize all of us upon their release.
If I was on that debate stage, this is the long answer I would have made to that short question about domestic abuse. Other questions in that debate pertained to education and housing so stay tuned for my next blogs where I try to offer some tough-love, no-nonsense, cost effective, outside-the-box suggestions. As always, I look forward to any and all feedback.
Dunn Writes Well 