Deterring Domestic Violence Progresses
In Warwick and elsewhere, calls about domestic incidents are one of the most frequent kinds of calls the police department receives. New findings and collaborative strategies are changing outcomes.
Arguments between family members or intimate partners in Warwick result in calls to police about every other day, on average. Warwick Police Department had 193 calls for “domestic incidents” in 2021 and 183 in 2022, according to Police Chief John Rader. The incidents start as family arguments, whether between spouses, parent and child or other combinations of family members, he said.
“It gets to a point where they can no longer resolve it themselves,” said Rader. “We generally refer domestic incidents to family court.”
Asked about prevention, he said, “We’ll offer county services and advice, but there’s no program to prevent arguments.”
As for getting support from Fearless! Hudson Valley, Inc., the local organization dedicated to addressing domestic violence, Rader said, “We work with Fearless! in training. We try to grab whatever training we can to broaden our ability to help people. But there’s no program to prevent issues.”
New York State has one of the lowest rates of domestic violence of any state in the U.S. Yet 31.7% of women and 29% of men in New York experience some form of domestic violence in their lifetime, while it remains one of the most underreported crimes, according to Kellyann Kostyal-Larrier, executive director of Fearless! Hudson Valley, Inc.
All police officers trained at Orange County Police Academy receive training from Fearless! for handling domestic violence incidents, according to Greg Metakes, Academy director. However, now efforts are afoot in some Orange County police departments to reduce domestic violence using new findings and collaborative strategies with Fearless!, focusing on violence between intimate partners. A few police departments have invested in implementing them, as in Port Jervis.
“Serving as a police officer in the community where I was born and raised, I have witnessed the trauma experienced by survivors of domestic violence and their children and families,” said Port Jervis Police Chief William Worden, when asked what prompted his interest in collaborating with Fearless!. “During my career, our community has grieved the loss of multiple residents who were murdered because of domestic or intimate partner violence. Each of these cases has had an impact on our community and on me.”
He also noted the impetus to depart from police department norms.
“In the past, law enforcement agencies tended to work in silos,” he said. “However, our missions are very similar, and developing a strong partnership with Fearless! has enhanced our ability to proactively respond to domestic and intimate partner violence to provide a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary coordination of services to improve the community’s response to domestic violence, working cooperatively towards our common goals of enhancing victims’ safety and holding offenders accountable for their actions. I believe this partnership is proactive and serves as a model approach that is improving safety and outcomes for survivors of intimate partner violence.”
Evidence of that improvement has surfaced in statistics. The “benchmark” year was 2018, he said, with 199 domestic violence offenses, versus 125 in 2021. The 2017 intervention credited with the improvement was the launch of “co-located services.”
In 2016, Fearless!, which at that time was called Safe Homes, received funding for the collaborative project from the state Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence. The result was the Risk Reduction Response Program (RRRP), which requires cooperation between the staff of Fearless!, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, the Orange County Probation Department and police. RRRP first launched in the City of Newburgh and then expanded to Middletown and Port Jervis in May 2017.
The collaboration begins when police officers are dispatched to address a domestic violence incident between intimate partners. They ask the victim a series of questions found to be predictive of the risk of injury or death to domestic violence victims. If their answers indicate high risk, or if the officer sees other indications of high risk, the victim is given a Fearless! hotline number to call immediately to make safety plans, including getting information for a safe contact. A plan is also made for follow-up services. The officer sends the victim’s contact information to the RRRP project coordinator.
A Fearless! project coordinator works with Port Jervis Police Department full time. The coordinator reviews the risk assessments daily and plans who to visit with an officer. If the abuser is at home during the visit, the officer may engage them.
The victim decides whether or not to work with the team and what the objectives will be. When the program began, helping the victim leave the abuser was the focus, but now the goal is up to the victim.
“Regardless of whether or not the officer is able to make an arrest, the victim is still able to connect to services, know their options, and make an informed choice on what their next step may be,” said Kostyal-Larrier.
In 2018, Port Jervis had 199 domestic offenses, 139 in 2019 and in 2021, the city had only 125, amid 448 domestic calls for service, which ranged from a disturbance in the house to an argument. In 2022, domestic calls were down to 409, and 44 high risk cases, as determined by the questionnaire, were referred to the district attorney and probation, including cases not involving intimate partners. One third of domestic violence reports involve parent-child disputes, Worden said. This year, a change in statistics recording made comparison difficult, as all offenses in an incident were counted individually.
Meanwhile, Fearless! hotline calls have increased an average of 33% over the last five years, a good sign, according to Kostyal-Larrier.
"Domestic Violence is one of the most underreported crimes. A key goal in our partnership with Port Jervis Police Department is to connect victims to our programs and services. Advocates can support the wide variety of victim and survivor needs, including, among others, safety planning, emergency food and court accompaniment. Port Jervis officers ensure that victims have access to a Fearless! advocate when responding to a domestic incident."
When police respond to domestic violence calls, they ensure that victims have information about Fearless! Amid Covid-19 restrictions, hotline calls increased by 41%, as orders of protection were denied because of the need to isolate, Kostyal-Larrier said. Many victims called 911 for police support.
At this point, the police departments working in full collaboration with Fearless! are in the City of Newburgh, Town of Newburgh, City of Port Jervis, Town of New Windsor and City of Middletown.
“We have worked closely with Crawford and are deepening our relationships with departments in Deerpark, Montgomery, Monroe and the Orange County Sheriff,” said Kostyal-Larrier. “We have also partnered with Washingtonville. Fearless! welcomes any opportunity to work collaboratively with law enforcement.
“These relationships enhance victim safety and offender accountability. We’re viewed as integral to team work, doing assessments on the hotline. Sometimes we suspect more goes on when we’re not there. When the officer works with the Fearless! advocate, they see challenges better. An arrest could go right or not. Keeping an advocate connected, they can deal better with legal limitations.”
Legal Obstacles to Safety
Some recent legislation supports victims of domestic violence and holds abusers accountable, Kostyal Larrier said, noting that State Senator James Skoufis sponsored the original standalone bill S.6076 that was passed in this year's state budget, prohibiting the issuance of an appearance ticket upon arrest for any family offense, reinforcing mandatory arrest laws.
“But we still need to ensure that law enforcement, attorneys and judges have the tools they need,” she said. “Some of those tools include amending bail reform to allow judges to consider 'dangerousness', mandating annual training for attorneys and judges and passing Kyra's law,” which would protect children from violence in custody. As the bill lingers, 22 more New York State children have been murdered in custody since Kyra’s murder by her father in 2016.
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Thank you for this important article. Much more needs to be done about preventing and addressing domestic violence.