Home > Issues > Domestic Violence > Is the hysteria over domestic violence finally cresting?
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Is the hysteria over domestic violence finally cresting? © Charles E. Corry, Ph.D., F.G.S.A. http://www.ejfi.org/ 2005

 

For decades Colorado, and particularly Denver (<http://www.ncadv.org/>NCADV, <http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/walker.html>Lenore Walker and "battered woman syndrome," <https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/183781.pdf>NVAWS, etc.) has been at the core of the hysteria surrounding the human problem of domestic violence.

This hysteria has led to the tyranny of arrests without a warrant, forcing citizens from their homes and children with nothing more than the clothes on their back without even the pretense of due process, searches without a warrant, seizures of their property without redress, mandatory arrests often based on nothing more than hearsay, assuming the accused is guilty until proven innocent, mere allegations that suffice as proof, denial of the right to confront the accuser and obtain witnesses in one's defense, denied the assistance of counsel, punishment and imprisonment that occurs before a trial or without one, public censure for crimes men have not committed, indentured servitude and often outright slavery. Erin Pizzey, who started the shelter for battered women movement in 1971, has famously noted that "Any country that has tried to create a political solution to human problems has ended up with concentration camps and gulags."

Incredibly, the basis for such tyranny is undefined. Even today domestic violence advocates, researchers and scholars have yet to agree on:

• Just what "domestic violence" is - In the extreme every man is a "batterer" and every woman is a "victim";

• What "violence" is - Normal couples commonly roughhouse, and congress frequently results in scratches and bruises on both male and female, all accompanied by screams and other loud noises; What is an "injury" - A faint reddening of the skin or something that requires immediate medical attention?

• Or what "abuse" is - A man threatening his wife's lover as in the <http://www.ejfi.org/emerson.htm>Emerson case?

  Underlying the DV hysteria is a real human problem for some couples. At issue is the magnitude of the problem. The best estimate I've found is by <http://www.criminologyandpublicpolicy.com/search/abstrDugan.php>Prof. Laura Dugan based on <http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/NCVS/>National Crime Victimization Surveys (NCVS). She found that one-half of one percent (0.5%) of households surveyed reported an act the citizen regarded as criminal domestic violence, whether they reported it to police or not.

  In <http://www.dvmen.org/dv-101.htm#pgfId-1099527>Table 56 I have compared reported DV incidents with the 0.5% of households NCVS estimate for the years 1999-2003 in Colorado. For 2003 there were <http://cbi.state.co.us/dr/cic2k3/supplemental_reports/domestic.htm>7,108 reported DV incidents compared with an estimate of 8,850 including reported and unreported cases, as compared with 55,548 <http://cbi.state.co.us/dr/cic2k3/state_totals/statewide_offense.htm>major crimes (homicide, rape, burglary, etc.), among a total population of 4,550,688. Thus, domestic violence is affecting ~0.2% of the population in a given year versus ~1.2% of the population impacted by a major crime, though there is some overlap. While domestic violence is a tragedy for those involved, it is far from the most common crime a citizen is likely to encounter.

  Unbelievably, with only <http://cbi.state.co.us/dr/cic2k3/supplemental_reports/domestic.htm>7,108 DV incidents reported by police statewide, in 2003 there were <http://www.dvmen.org/dv-97.htm>16,159 DV court cases in Colorado excluding Denver, which likely had at least 2,000 additional DV cases. And <http://www.dvmen.org/dv-100.htm#pgfId-1109958>more restraining orders are now issued in Colorado than marriage licenses.

  In the face of the court overload created by this hysteria, district attorneys have been trying to find ways of handling so many cases. Confronted by what they consider a legal problem, and as <http://www.dvmen.org/dv-159.htm#18-6-801>"no drop" is embedded in Colorado law, district attorneys have tried a number of extralegal means including <http://www.dvmen.org/dv-59.htm>"Fast Track" and, most recently, diversion programs. Colorado has a one-size-fits-all <http://dcj.state.co.us/odvsom/Domestic_Violence/standards.html>36-week treatment program for "batterers" convicted of a crime involving domestic violence. Battering in a relationship involves beating or verbally abusing an intimate partner over a long period of time and is aimed at controlling one's partner or children through the use of terror, confusion, and disabling the target's ability to think and reason for themselves.

  The prosecutor's problem is that "batterer" describes very few of the defendants in DV cases they handle. And significant violence is found only in an estimated 3% of the cases before the courts because <http://www.dvmen.org/dv-159.htm#18-6-803.6>"shall arrest" leaves police officers little discretion. In practice most men and women are before the bar for little more than a loud argument. Roughly 50% of DV arrests in Colorado are based on hearsay where a neighbor hears some loud noises and calls the police.

  As the EJF has noted for years, virtually any defendant in a DV case who pleads not guilty, demands a jury trial, and has the wherewithal to hire a <http://www.dvmen.org/dv-9.htm>competent criminal defense attorney, will eventually go free as it is commonly impossible for the prosecutor to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury. Additionally, most "victims" don't want the case prosecuted in the first place, and frequently don't show up at trial, forcing the prosecutor to dismiss the case after the <http://www.dvmen.org/dv-56.htm>Crawford v Washington decision in early 2004.

  When DV cases are brought to trial, jurors commonly complain to judges and prosecutors that their time is being wasted by bringing such trivial incidents before them. But district attorneys are paid to prosecute and naturally want to win. And everyone agrees that real domestic violence must be corrected.

  Recognizing that many DV cases were unwinnable before a jury, but faced with public hysteria and "no drop" standards, district attorneys came up with diversion programs wherein typically a defendant would be told if they took some sort of anger management classes for 8 hours or so, their case would be dismissed. That made the prosecutor both judge and jury and punished innocent and guilty alike while feeding some crumbs to the DV industry. Aside from the moral and legal issues of district attorneys acting as both judge and jury without court oversight, the DV industry was unhappy that their <http://dcj.state.co.us/odvsom/Domestic_Violence/standards.html>treatment standards were not being met.

Thus, DV treatment providers who supplied abbreviated diversion programs were in danger of losing their certification and practice. They, in turn, spoke with their district attorneys, who, in the circumstances, were forced to drop their diversion programs.

As a result, on Friday, April 8, 2005, a number of district attorneys met with the Colorado <http://dcj.state.co.us/odvsom/Domestic_Violence/meetings.html>DV offender management board to discuss options. Surprisingly, many of these prosecutors feel the laws need to be changed to deal only with actual cases of "battering." Rocky Mountain News reporter Lou Kilzer attended that meeting, as did I, and his observations are at:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3687637,00.html

Certainly if we are going to make needed changes in the domestic violence laws we will need the cooperation of the state's district attorneys and this is a very welcome development. Whether the hysteria of domestic violence has crested, and we can now begin to fix the problem, not the blame, is yet unknown.