by Sandra J. Clark, Martha R. Burt, Margaret M. Schulte and Karen Maguire of the Urban Institute for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation, October, 1996.
Exhibit 2.1 Site Selection Criteria.
Exhibit 5.1Use of Specialized Staff, Units and Dockets for Domestic Violence.
The past two decades have seen dramatic changes in the response to domestic violence in states and communities throughout the United States.(1) To date, a great deal of the change has occurred within the criminal and civil justice systems. In many communities the justice systems have experienced a number of important changes in their laws and agency practices related to domestic violence. As a result many justice systems now respond to domestic violence in a way that is more likely than in the past to hold perpetrators accountable and to protect and support battered women. At the same time, social services for battered women have become more widely available with substantial growth in domestic violence hotlines and shelter services, and batterer intervention programs have been developed and made available in many communities. While problems of execution and service availability still remain even in the most progressive jurisdictions, shifts in public knowledge and attitudes have occurred that, at the local level, seem to support better responses to domestic violence in many communities.
There is also a growing awareness that the problem of violence against women is complex and requires comprehensive service responses involving agencies and services beyond the justice systems. A number of coordinated efforts have grown up over the recent past, as some communities have moved beyond changes in individual agencies, usually those in the justice systems, to respond to domestic violence in a more comprehensive and coordinated way. Many of the early efforts focused on coordination among agencies within the criminal justice system, or between these agencies and domestic violence service providers. In recent years, however, a "second generation" of coordinated responses has developed as some communities have expanded their efforts to include a broader array of agencies and stakeholders, including health care providers, child welfare agencies, substance abuse services, clergy, and business. Some communities have gone a step further and worked to involve the community as a whole in responding to domestic violence through prevention and education efforts aimed at raising community awareness and reshaping attitudes about this issue. Many of these more expansive efforts are quite new; only limited information has been available about them and the broader community and legal contexts in which they have occurred.
This report presents the results of a project to examine coordinated community responses to domestic violence, with a special focus on communities that are trying to incorporate into their response services and stakeholders beyond the justice system. The study was designed to understand the different approaches taken to coordinating a response and how these have developed not only in relation to the needs of battered women but in the context of other policy influences. All of the communities in the study have coordination efforts dating back a number of years that began with the criminal justice system and, in many cases, with domestic violence service providers or advocates. These communities' efforts to expand their response to include other agencies or stakeholders are more recent and much less developed than their criminal justice response. This study describes how the communities coordinate criminal justice responses and examines the issues that they have encountered as they have begun to move beyond the justice systems. Since most of these efforts are in their early stages, the findings do not provide definitive answers about the best approach to broad coordination or the likely outcomes. The study does, however, raise a number of important issues for communities to consider as they seek new and better ways to address this complicated problem.
This report is organized as follows. Chapter 2 describes the study design including site selection and site visit procedures. Chapter 3 provides descriptions of each community's efforts, including the history, features and outcomes of the coordination. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 discuss important cross-cutting issues about how the sites created change, the mechanisms they used, and opportunities for further efforts. The report concludes with a summary of the important issues for communities and various agencies to consider in coordinating a response to include a broad range of organizations and stakeholders. The remainder of this chapter provides a brief discussion of the diversity of the service needs of battered women and batterers and issues involved in developing a coordinated response.
Each year more than two million women are seriously assaulted by their male partners (Council on Scientific Affairs, American Medical Association, 1992). Countless others suffer less serious physical abuse as well as verbal or emotional abuse. The needs of battered women and their batterers span several service systems, and may require interventions by one or more of the criminal and civil justice systems, social service, health, or mental health care agencies, and support systems for battered women and their families.
Battered women sometimes seek relief through the criminal justice system, which historically has served as the main vehicle in a community's formal response to domestic violence. The National Crime Victim Survey (NCVS) found that 56 percent of women who had been victims of a violent crime committed by an intimate partner reported the incident to the police (Bachman, 1994). Women have different reasons for contacting law enforcement agencies. In the NCVS, half of the victims of domestic violence called on law enforcement as a means to punish the perpetrator while 28 percent wanted to stop the violence or prevent it from occurring again (Bachman, 1994). In recent years, the criminal justice system has moved toward a proactive approach in which the response to domestic violence is not dependent on the victim's participation. Mandatory arrest, probable cause arrest, and pro-prosecution (i.e., "victimless" prosecution) policies are efforts to take the responsibility off the victim for determining whether or not to pursue legal remedies. The relief available through the civil justice system has also improved in some communities with changes in the use of and remedies available through protection orders.
Battered women may also access domestic violence shelters and services instead of, or in addition to, criminal justice measures. Until the late 1970s, few shelters or services existed specifically for domestic violence. A decade later there were more than 800 shelters for battered women in the United States (Gelles and Straus, 1988). These programs frequently provide a number of services in addition to shelter, such as counseling, legal assistance, and advocacy. Despite their wider availability, shelter services are not used by most battered women. Gelles and Straus found that less than 2 percent of women who were severely abused reported seeking help from a battered women's shelter during the prior year, and no victims of minor violence sought help from shelters (Gelles and Straus, 1988). A couple of factors may contribute to the small proportion of women using shelter services. In many communities, the services may be inadequate to serve all battered women who request services from the shelter (Gelles and Straus, 1988 and Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, AMA, 1992). Also, leaving the abuser and going to a shelter, or seeking help in obtaining a protection order are major decisions used as a last resort by many women.
The health care system often unwittingly provides another important source of services for battered women, although traditionally it has not played an active role in identifying or intervening in domestic violence. Battered women seek treatment for traumatic injuries resulting from the abuse (e.g., bruises, cuts, broken bones, etc.), and for primary care complaints related to the abuse (e.g., chronic headaches, abdominal pains, sleeplessness, depression, etc.) (Council on Scientific Affairs, AMA, 1992). Research indicates that more than one-fifth, and perhaps as many as one-third, of women receiving care in hospital emergency departments have symptoms related to domestic violence (Council on Scientific Affairs, AMA, 1992). Most commonly, women seeking such health services do not identify themselves as battered women and the health care providers do not identify them as such. Most women using health services in relation to symptoms caused by battering are not in touch with any other services where they do self-identify. Therefore, the health care system provides an access point to battered women who are not being served by other systems. In recent years some health care providers have become increasingly aware of this issue and have developed policies to screen for domestic violence and to intervene in these cases. Some jurisdictions require health care providers to report domestic violence to law enforcement agencies. Thus, health care systems represent important intervention points for expansion of community-wide systems of response to domestic violence, but attempts to use them this way will raise many important issues that do not surface when women themselves identify battering as the problem.
Other service systems such as alcohol and drug treatment programs, child protective services, and programs for the homeless are also very likely to have clients who suffer from domestic violence, and may also have clients who are perpetrators. At this time these systems are even less likely than health care systems to identify the existence of domestic violence among their clients, or to intervene and offer services if domestic violence issues become apparent. However, a few communities are beginning to work with one or more of these systems to bring them into the domestic violence service network. In addition, a few of the communities we visited are taking steps to broaden their network further to include businesses and corporations through their employee assistance programs, and clergy as both opinion-setters and potential first points of supportive service contact (through pastoral counseling). To the extent possible, this study tried to identify communities in which some of these more expanded networks were in the process of development so we could explore the issues involved.
We can conceptualize an idealized "coordinated community response" as one that "covers" both a community's service and support systems and its population of battered women in potential need of assistance. Given that efforts to establish a coordinated systemwide response are trying to raise the consciousness of a number of different agencies and stakeholders at the same time that it is trying to change agency behavior toward a response that addresses the service needs of all battered women, it is not surprising that issues arise pertaining to both services and people. Since the focus to date has been on bringing new services into a network, more thought and experience has accumulated about service-related issues. But as communities are successful in drawing in different kinds of services, they will inevitably face issues related to the fact that the clients of these newly-integrated services often have quite attitudes and motivations than the women who traditionally have sought shelter and other domestic violence services on their own.
In this study we have sought to understand what issues arise as communities strive toward a coordinated response to domestic violence, and how communities have tried to resolve these issues. With respect to bringing in new types of agencies or services, we wanted to examine issues that arose when agencies had not historically worked together, or when there had been antagonistic relationships in the past; what happened when the different missions or legal obligations of agencies conflicted; what happened when the traditional goals of different agencies for their clients did not match or correspond; and what happened when professional orientations were incompatible. With respect to the populations covered, we wanted to know who the different agencies were likely to see, including: what types of women, with what levels of consciousness about domestic violence and what levels of commitment to extract themselves from it; ever- or currently married to abuser or not; with or without children; whose children were or were not themselves in danger of or experiencing abuse; with or without complicating personal problems such as substance abuse. We wanted to know how communities had approached the problems of offering services to women who had not voluntarily sought help for domestic violence, who might not want help with it, might deny its seriousness or frequency, might have fewer or no social supports for ending it, and might in general be in circumstances with few or no resources at their disposal to deal with it.
In the chapters to follow, we hope to provide the reader with some of the experiences of six communities facing these issues and beginning to grapple with them. Although the communities we visited are among the most progressive in working on these issues, even they are still at the stage of learning by doing. Their experiences can be informative to others who are thinking about creating a broader community response to domestic violence.
The purpose of this study is to understand the approaches taken to coordinating responses to domestic violence in different communities, and how each community's system developed in response to client need, and in the context of other policy influences. Specifically, the study was designed to examine the following issues:
To address these issues, the study used a formative evaluation approach involving case studies of model community systems. The study was not intended to evaluate the effectiveness of comprehensive service delivery systems, although it offers some preliminary ideas about issues for future evaluation efforts. Six sites were selected for in-depth study: Baltimore, Maryland; Kansas City, Missouri; Carlton County and Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota; San Diego and San Francisco, California. This remainder of this chapter discusses the process used to select these sites and the procedures used to conduct the site visits.
We developed a list of site selection criteria to fulfill the study objectives based on a review of the relevant literature and discussions with HHS and members of the project's advisory group composed of representatives of federal agencies with responsibilities in the area of domestic violence. The selection criteria were divided into two categories--those considered essential and those to be used for obtaining variation across the sites (Exhibit 2.1).
Three characteristics were considered essential for this study. First, we wanted to look at coordination efforts that include agencies from different service systems, rather than a single agency providing comprehensive services (i.e, one-stop shopping approach). Communities in which a larger number of agencies coordinate their efforts are considered to represent more extensive and better-developed examples of a coordinated community response. This approach also has wider applicability than one that relies on a single agency to deliver comprehensive services, since a program of that type does not exist in many communities and would be hard to develop. Second, we wanted the coordination efforts to have been in existence for several years and to be relatively stable at the time of the study. This project is considering the history anddevelopment of a coordinated response, so we thought it was important to focus on communities whose efforts have been underway for some time. Also, because it is difficult to assess the features and outcomes of a coordinated response that is undergoing major changes, we wanted the effort to be relatively stable at the time of the study. Finally, we wanted sites that were able and willing to accommodate a four-day site visit by project staff during the study period.
There are a number of different approaches to coordinating a response to domestic violence. In order to obtain information on different models, the selection criteria included five characteristics for variation across communities. These characteristics were selected based on the overall study objectives and specific HHS interests to obtain variation in: the lead agency, the model of interagency coordination, the location and population served, and the context of the coordination effort. There was also a particular interest in community responses that include health care providers as part of the efforts.
Essential Characteristics |
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Characteristics for Variation |
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After developing the selection criteria, we compiled a list of potential sites using information from Family Violence: State-of-the-Art Court Programs (National Council of Juvenile & Family Court Judges, 1992) and consultation with knowledgeable people in the field. The publication provided program descriptions and contact information for model court programs dealing with family violence, which often include joint efforts with criminal justice agencies or domestic violence service providers. We also consulted HHS, the advisory group, and several domestic violence experts in completing this list. Based on these resources, we assembled an initial list of 16 different sites for possible inclusion in the study.
We conducted a phone interview with a key person in each site to assess how well the community's efforts met the various selection criteria. The sites were then grouped according to their strength as candidates, and final sites were chosen in consultation with HHS and members of the federal advisory group.
Six sites were selected for in-depth study: Baltimore, Maryland; Kansas City, Missouri; Carlton County and Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota; San Diego and San Francisco, California. Initially, Duluth, Minnesota had been selected as one of the study communities. However, since the Duluth model has been extensively studied, we decided to include two rural communities in Northern Minnesota (Carlton and Northern St. Louis Counties) whose response to domestic violence has been influenced by the Duluth model. All of the sites selected have established links between criminal justice agencies and service providers in the community and, in every site, the coordination effort has been in existence for at least five years (in some cases, for more than a decade).
The selected sites provide a number of interesting examples of coordination efforts and contexts for the coordinated response. Baltimore is a large urban area with a significant African American population. It reflects a model that is dominated by one primary domestic violence service provider, the House of Ruth, which provides comprehensive services for battered women. There are also several examples of health care responses in Baltimore.
Kansas City does not have a long tradition of interagency collaboration, but the community has made a number of significant changes in the criminal justice system, particularly in the courts. The city does not have a longstanding coordinating committee for domestic violence, but it has strong leadership on the issue from within the criminal justice system. Advocates are currently less active in Kansas City, although they heavily influenced the earlier changes in the criminal justice system. Two hospitals in Kansas City have recently developed on-site programs for battered women.
Carlton and Northern St. Louis Counties provide examples of coordination in rural communities. Northern St. Louis County has a service network that has been in place and evolved since 1978. Carlton County includes the Fond du Lac Indian reservation and has a sizable Native American population.
San Diego County has a well-developed coordinating council and several examples of interagency collaboration including a joint program between probation and child protection. The Children's Hospital operates the Family Violence Program which provides primary prevention and intervention services for battered women and their children.
San Francisco has a long history of interagency collaboration on a number of issues including domestic violence. Advocacy efforts are particularly strong and the community features several coordinating committees with different objectives. The population is very diverse with large numbers of immigrants, non-English speaking persons and gays and lesbians. The city also was selected because of recent initiatives in the health care community.
Information on the coordinated response was collected during in-depth site visits to each community. In each site, we conducted semi-structured interviews with key staff in relevant agencies and programs. An initial list of respondents was developed through discussions with the key contact person in each site. As we contacted each person, we asked them to identify additional people who were involved in the community's efforts. In each community, we interviewed people from the following agencies, programs and organizations:
We tried to identify links with programs that provide public assistance, housing assistance, employment and training services, and child support enforcement services. In a couple of cases, individual service providers had worked with these agencies on occasion. However, we did not find any well-developed links or routine coordination with these agencies in any of the communities that we visited.
In most cases, we interviewed the person at each agency or organization who was most directly involved in the coordination efforts. In cases where more than one person from the agency was actively involved, we tried to interview staff at different levels who were involved either individually or in groups. However, given the time constraints, it was not always possible to interview both senior management and front-line staff from every program and agency.
We also made an effort to schedule site visits to overlap with a meeting of the site's coordinating committee or other key events when possible. In two sites (Baltimore and Kansas City) we attended and observed a coordinating committee meeting during the site visit. In San Diego, we attended a full-day summit on violence against women that was also attended by many of the coordinating council members. We also observed the docket for protection order hearings in Kansas City and accompanied a child protection worker on home visits in San Diego. These activities provided useful information about each community's coordination efforts.
This chapter presents descriptions of the responses to domestic violence in the six communities that we visited. The descriptions of the two rural sites in Minnesota have been combined into a single report that begins with an overview of the Minnesota community and legal environment. The description of each community is organized into the following sections:
Following this chapter, three chapters describe the important cross-cutting issues drawn from comparisons across the sites.
With a population of more than 726,000, Baltimore is the 14th largest city in the United States, and is by far the largest city in Maryland, accounting for nearly 15 percent of the state's total population. Baltimore is an independent city surrounded by Baltimore County, but the two are very distinct communities. The city has experienced a shrinking population over the past decade, with the number of Baltimore residents declining by nearly 8 percent since 1980. A majority of Baltimore City residents (60 percent) are African American, and nearly all of the remaining residents are white.
Baltimore faces relatively high rates of unemployment and poverty; the 1991 unemployment rate was 9.4 percent compared to 6.7 percent nationally, and nearly 18 percent of all Baltimore families live in poverty compared to 10 percent of all families in the U.S. At $24,045, the 1989 median household income in Baltimore was well-below the national median of $30,056 for all households. Like many cities, Baltimore is struggling to keep up with the service needs of the community. In recent years, the community has been called upon to address increasingly serious social problems with fewer resources. However, within this context, the city has made strides in developing a coordinated response to domestic violence.
The coordinated community response to domestic violence in Baltimore centers around the Domestic Violence Coordinating Committee (DVCC). While the DVCC has existed since 1985, funding in 1995 and 1996 from a federal Violence Against Women Demonstration Program and Technical Assistance (VAW) grant has enabled the committee to intensify its efforts in recent years. DVCC members include senior staff from criminal justice agencies and judges. Two social service agencies also serve on the DVCC. The House of Ruth, which is the only domestic violence shelter and service provider in Baltimore, has been a DVCC member for many years. Last year, the Sexual Assault Center, which provides counseling and other services for victims of sexual assault, also joined the DVCC. The DVCC has several subcommittees and ad hoc committees to address specific issues including protection orders, training, and the proposed Domestic Violence Court. There is also a DVCC workgroup that provides a forum for frontline workers, particularly police and probation officers, to keep them informed of legal and policy changes and to identify impediments to coordination between agencies.
The criminal justice response in Baltimore is characterized by special units and staff to handle domestic violence cases. Currently, the Baltimore Police Department, Pretrial Release Services, the State's Attorney's Office and the Department of Parole and Probation have designated staff and implemented procedures to handle domestic violence cases. The specialized staff often serve as a resource for other staff within their own agency and provide a link to other criminal justice agencies and domestic violence service providers as well.
In Baltimore, the House of Ruth is widely recognized as the only agency that specifically provides domestic violence services. Since the House of Ruth provides comprehensive services for battered women, coordination between other social service, mental health, and health care providers is not well-developed in Baltimore, and there is no domestic violence coordinating body primarily for social service or health care providers. Instead coordination between these agencies typically occurs on a case-by-case basis. For example, when another agency has a client who is a domestic violence victim, they tend to also refer the person to the House of Ruth for domestic violence services. When a battered woman needs services beyond what the House of Ruth provides, the House of Ruth coordinates with other agencies to obtain the services. In addition, the House of Ruth provides training and outreach programs to community centers and other agencies.
The coordinated effort in the city of Baltimore began in the early 1980's when Kurt Schmoke, the current mayor, was running for State's Attorney. After speaking with an attorney at the House of Ruth, he made domestic violence part of his campaign platform, and once elected, he established a domestic violence unit within the State's Attorney Office for misdemeanor domestic violence cases. He hired the House of Ruth attorney as the first head of the new unit. Mr. Schmoke also helped initiate a domestic violence task force in 1984 under the auspices of the Mayor's Coordinating Committee on Criminal Justice. The task force included representatives from criminal justice agencies and the courts, the media, social service providers, health providers, and private citizens. The goal of the task force was to examine domestic violence issues in Baltimore and make recommendations to: improve the criminal justice response; direct and support services to victims and perpetrators; and increase community awareness. After one year of meetings, guest speakers, and a public hearing, the domestic violence task force produced a report with general and specific recommendations in the areas of criminal justice, direct service, community education, and legislation.
To fulfill the general recommendation of the task force, the Mayor's Coordinating Council on Criminal Justice instituted a Domestic Violence Coordinating Committee (DVCC) to implement the specific recommendations in the report. Unlike the initial task force which was broader in scope, the DVCC focused primarily on criminal justice issues. Members attributed this shift in focus to the commitment among criminal justice agencies to improving the response as well as to the belief that the DVCC would be more successful if it worked on one area at a time. Members also felt they were able to discuss criminal justice matters more freely because the membership was limited. As one person noted, the criminal justice response is as "strong as its weakest link," therefore appropriate policies and the commitment of all the agencies are needed. In 1989, the DVCC fulfilled another task force recommendation by working with the various criminal justice agencies and the courts to produce a Policies and Procedures Manual on domestic violence. This comprehensive manual outlined domestic violence policies for the police, court commissioners, pretrial release services, the State's Attorney's Office, clerks, judges, domestic and juvenile masters, and parole and probation officers. The manual also included background information about domestic violence and the House of Ruth.
Just prior to receiving the federal VAW grant in 1995, the DVCC sponsored a Domestic Violence Summit which was attended by DVCC members and other top community officials. This summit produced a strategic plan and mission statement for the DVCC, and brought the issue of domestic violence to the attention of a number of high ranking criminal justice officials. As a result, many agencies became more receptive to the idea of specialized units or designated personnel. Several people felt that the summit was an important factor in the decision by the police, pretrial release services, and parole and probation to create specialized units. The VAW grant reinforced the commitment to developing specialized units.
The first specialized unit in Baltimore was established in the State's Attorney's Office many years before the Domestic Violence Summit. Over time the unit has grown to include 3 staff attorneys and 2 legal assistants. The domestic violence unit is housed in one of the city's several courthouses and handles only the cases from police districts in that court's jurisdiction. Although the domestic violence unit's jurisdiction has changed over time, the unit has never handled all domestic violence cases for the entire city. There are currently plans for a special citywide domestic violence docket in District Court and the domestic violence unit would prosecute all cases assigned to the new docket.
Cases prosecuted by the unit are handled somewhat differently than other cases. Unlike other prosecutors who are in court every other day, prosecutors in the domestic violence unit are only in court 4 out of 10 days, thereby allowing more time to prepare cases. The staff also try to speak with every victim, if only by phone, prior to the first trial date. The unit has a pro- prosecution policy and will prosecute a case if there is sufficient evidence, even if the witness will not cooperate. While the unit will subpoena a reluctant victim, they do not issue warrants for the victims arrest if she does not testify. As one person indicated, they prepare these misdemeanor domestic violence cases as thoroughly as if they were prosecuting a jury trial. Because this unit was the first specialized domestic violence unit in the city, it has a long history of training and consulting with other agencies about domestic violence issues and assisting victims with systems advocacy.
The Baltimore Police Department's response has changed in recent years through new policies and designated staff. In 1993, the department instituted a policy to code all 911 calls for family and domestic violence and to require the responding officer to write a report for all domestic violence calls. Since 1994 the state of Maryland has required police to give domestic violence victims a card describing their legal rights and identifying local service providers. Baltimore, however, had followed this practice for many years previously. Currently, police are considering adopting a mandatory arrest policy for domestic violence. This would expand their current policy of preferred arrest, whereby the officer arrests the perpetrator if there is probable cause.
Designating police officers for domestic violence began several years ago when a commanding officer began an unofficial domestic violence unit in one district. The Domestic Violence Summit, the VAW grant, and a new Police Commissioner all contributed to the department's recent decision to designate domestic violence officers in all nine police districts. The designated officers follow-up with domestic violence victims by mail or in person in a way that does not compromise the victim's safety. The districts vary in the number of designated staff, the level of services, and their experience with domestic violence. However, the officers are intended to be easily-identified contacts for domestic violence and therefore to serve as "consultants" to fellow police officers and the community.
Pretrial Release Services started a specialized unit in 1994. The deputy director pushed for this change because he felt that perpetrators of domestic violence need the highest level of supervision during the pretrial release period, when there is risk of further abuse. Two case managers handle domestic violence cases and maintain a smaller caseload to enable them to supervise the cases more intensively. The case managers closely monitor the perpetrator's participation in batterer intervention or addiction treatment programs, and keep in contact with the victim via mail or telephone calls. One person noted that the increased contact with persons involved in the case provides Pre-Trial Release Services with more information to make better recommendations at trial. Staff feel they have the most effect on first time arrestees, and thus far, no person has been rearrested while under the supervision of the domestic violence unit.
Staff in the Baltimore City Division of Parole and Probation considered a specialized unit several years ago, but state officials were not favorable to the idea until after the Domestic Violence Summit. At present, there is only one specialized unit, although initially the division hoped to establish two units. The Family Assault Supervision Team (F.A.S.T.) consists of between six and eight agents who provide more intensive supervision for domestic violence cases and have a significantly smaller caseload than other officers. F.A.S.T. agents receive additional training in domestic violence and are familiar with the local batterer intervention programs. As soon as a case is assigned, the F.A.S.T. agent sends a letter to the victim with contact information, details about the probation order, and guidance about what to do to if problems arise. Approximately 90 percent of the unit's caseload is court ordered to batterer intervention programs. The F.A.S.T. unit caseload has a much higher percentage of probationers in violation of their orders than the overall probation population, and the agents attribute this to two factors. First, victims will frequently contact the agent about violations by probationers, so the agents have more information about the case. Also, since the agents know the potential victim in advance of a further instance of abuse, they feel compelled to report violations of probation more quickly than they might otherwise.
The DVCC has played an important role in facilitating communication between the various law enforcement agencies and special units. The regular monthly meeting ensures that the special units receive the latest information about coordination efforts and domestic violence funding. The meetings also provide information about policy or procedural changes in the criminal justice agencies, such as the changes in arrest procedures with the development of the new Central Booking Facility.
The DVCC membership has been fairly consistent over time, giving the group a "small town" feel according to one member. Many of the representatives have served on the committee since its inception. In addition to their DVCC involvement, members interact regularly on other criminal justice matters. A number of members said that they participated in the DVCC because they wanted to and because they are committed to improving services. The active involvement of the judiciary has also been an important feature of the DVCC. Judge Rinehardt, the administrative judge for Baltimore City District Courts, co-chairs the DVCC and has been active for several years. The DVCC's efforts are also reinforced by the Mayor's continued support.
The DVCC has begun to play a larger role in training criminal justice agencies. For many years, the House of Ruth has been the primary provider of domestic violence training in Baltimore. However, the VAW grant allowed the DVCC to begin to provide training as well. For example, the DVCC coordinator did a large scale training for police officers before the designated personnel were assigned and has worked with other agencies including court commissioners. As part of the VAW grant, the DVCC will sponsor a training on stalking issues for police district commanders and members of the DVCC workgroup. In addition, the current DVCC manual contains a training curriculum.
DVCC members are very excited about the proposed Domestic Violence Court for criminal domestic violence matters, which is being planned under the latest VAW grant. An ad hoc committee is currently working out screening issues and other logistical matters for the new court. Under current plans, the Baltimore District Courts will provide a judge and the courtroom for this docket. Centralizing the prosecution of domestic violence cases may prove useful in many ways. As one committee member stated, the court should have an "evenhanded" approach to these cases, and the consolidated docket would help to accomplish that end. The State's Attorney's Domestic Violence Unit would also be able to prosecute cases from throughout the city, rather than from a limited number of the districts. While the screening issues have not been finalized, the court will most likely handle the serious misdemeanor cases. A couple of agencies have applied for funding to help cover their costs associated with the specialized docket. The city has already gained some experience with a consolidated docket through the Civil District Court's docket for protection order hearings.
At present, the DVCC is perhaps at its most productive stage thus far. The VAW grant enabled the DVCC to hire a part-time coordinator and gave the committee the authority to allocate funds. In addition, the grant provided an impetus for agencies to set specific goals and a timetable for completing them. As one member stated, the grant "upped the stock value" of the Committee. However, Baltimore will not receive additional grant funding in 1997 and, as a result, is likely to eliminate the coordinator position for the DVCC. While people agreed that the DVCC would continue without the funding, many felt that with the loss of the coordinator the level of activity will drop, particularly efforts aimed at improving data collection and linking criminal justice databases..
The DVCC is the major coordination effort in Baltimore. Because the membership is predominantly criminal justice oriented, this is the strongest area of coordination. As previously noted, members know each other well from the DVCC and other professional contacts. As a result, they have developed informal relationships and trust that some people felt were key to the DVCC's success. At times, however, this closeness makes it difficult for the committee to address conflicts among its members.
A number of people stressed the importance of the DVCC coordinator for the committee's effectiveness. Because her sole focus is the DVCC, she can follow up with members to ensure that issues brought up during one meeting are addressed before the next meeting. This is extremely important for quick turnaround on projects, and can be critical for initiatives like a joint grant proposal. She also serves as a link between the main DVCC group, the ad hoc committees, and the workgroup. The coordinator provides continuity to the community's efforts by ensuring that issues raised by one committee are brought to the attention of another committee and are not simply dropped. She also identifies positions that are not represented at the DVCC meetings and tries to bring these issues into the discussions. DVCC participants agree that the coordinator's efforts over the past two years have had a remarkable impact on the productivity of the committee, and that the DVCC will be affected by the loss of a coordinator.
The DVCC workgroup plays a unique role in the coordination effort because it is the sole forum where, on a regular basis, front-line workers keep informed about policy changes in other agencies and address coordination issues. Most workgroup members are the designated personnel or staff from the specialized units in the various criminal justice agencies; however, a wider number of agencies participate in the workgroup than are represented on the DVCC, including court commissioners, court clerks, and the division of juvenile services. The number of members has grown so large that the workgroup now meets in a courtroom, and one workgroup member described the meetings as "powerful."
Most of the DVCC's current initiatives are outlined in the VAW grant, with the Domestic Violence Court being one of the major grant objectives. Under the direction of Judge Rinehardt, the Ad Hoc Committee on Domestic Violence Court is developing criteria to select cases, since one docket cannot handle all domestic violence cases. The importance of a judge on this committee cannot be underestimated. Another ad hoc committee is examining problems with protection order service, since many requests for orders are dropped because the party cannot be served. With the assistance of Judge Caplan, the committee has been researching alternatives for service and will make recommendations to the full DVCC shortly.
DVCC members are also working on several levels to improve information systems. Each criminal justice agency has its own database, and the DVCC's goal is to link these data to provide comprehensive information on domestic violence cases from arrest to post-conviction. The VAW grant provides funding for computers to allow specialized units to monitor their own efforts. The DVCC is also working to improve the comparability of information across the various criminal justice agencies. They worked with the new Central Booking Facility to identify statistics they would like the facility to generate from its database. The DVCC is now able to receive information on domestic violence related arrests broken down by the demographic characteristics of the perpetrator and the victim.
There are also ongoing initiatives to provide training and technical support. For example, the DVCC has hired four national domestic violence experts to meet with the workgroup and the police district commanders this summer. The committee is trying to fund more "train the trainers" sessions to enable individual agencies to train new staff. The DVCC also provides technical assistance to other jurisdictions in Maryland and other states. Many visitors attend the DVCC meetings or meet with specialized units to learn how they could implement a similar effort in their communities. The DVCC has also identified a goal to expand its current focus beyond domestic violence to other forms of violence against women. To this end, the DVCC recently added the Sexual Assault Center to its membership and is also funding a manual for employers on violence against women in the workplace.
The DVCC facilitates joint fundraising among member agencies. Members inform each other about proposals that they submit and sometimes work together on joint projects. For example, House of Ruth and Baltimore District Court explored the possibility of jointly applying for funding for their involvement in the proposed Domestic Violence Court.
Within the criminal justice agencies, specialized units serve as "consultants" both within and outside their own organizations, in addition to handling their own cases. Other agencies know to contact staff in these specialized units about domestic violence cases. For example, pretrial release services, the police department, and the F.A.S.T. Unit all contact the domestic violence unit in the State's Attorney's Office for information or advice about domestic violence cases. Social service providers sometimes contact designated police personnel in their districts about a particular case. Since the agencies have instituted special domestic violence units, staff reported receiving more calls for coordination or advice about domestic violence cases.
Batterer intervention programs in Baltimore often interact with probation agents, particularly members of the F.A.S.T. unit. The two primary intervention programs are run by the House of Ruth (a 22 week program based on the Duluth model) and Harbel (a group specifically for substance abusers who batter). Staff at both agencies know the F.A.S.T. agents by name, and the open communication between the program staff and probation officers helps to ensure that batterers attend the programs or are held accountable if they do not. F.A.S.T. unit agents stated that because their knowledge of the intervention program rules, enables them to better identify and address probationer noncompliance.
To date, Baltimore's coordination efforts have not been extensively evaluated. However, both the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges as well as the American Prosecutors Research Institute have contacted the DVCC about evaluating their Domestic Violence Court once it is in place.
There is no formal coordination among social service providers in Baltimore. In general, if an agency has a client who needs domestic violence services like legal assistance, crisis counseling, or shelter, they refer the person to the House of Ruth, which is widely recognized as the primary domestic violence service provider for the area. In fact, standard police procedures provide a card to domestic violence victims containing information only about the House of Ruth. If a client needs services other than those provided by House of Ruth, particularly substance abuse treatment or intensive mental health services, the House of Ruth will refer the client to other agencies in the community. House of Ruth staff are also involved with a couple of citywide organizations that deal with homelessness, although domestic violence is not a primary focus of these meetings.
Historically, child welfare agencies and domestic violence service providers have different philosophical orientations which strain relationships between these service providers. In Baltimore, the House of Ruth and Child Protective Services (CPS) have a "good faith" agreement to work together. While this signed agreement does not give specific protocol for interagency case management, CPS staff reported that it facilitates a continuing dialogue between the agencies by reminding each party to respect the other's different goals. According to CPS staff, many of their cases have a current or past history of domestic violence, and while not all these families seek services from the House of Ruth, there is clearly a significant overlap in the populations that both agencies serve.
Several medical providers in the Baltimore community are working to develop and implement protocol for screening and responding to domestic violence. The Baltimore City Health Department, Sinai Hospital, and Healthy Start (a program to address health issues among pregnant women and mothers with young children) are presently developing responses to domestic violence. While these agencies did not jointly develop their protocols, they have all contacted the DVCC coordinator to discuss their projects.
The Health Department, recognizing domestic violence as a public health issue, has been formulating a domestic violence response for public health clinics as part of their special initiative on injury prevention. The department is currently developing a mandatory screening policy for public health clinics, which they plan to implement shortly. The project has compiled a guide of approximately 30 resources in the city and county that provide services to battered women, which clinic staff can use to refer battered women to services. To date, this effort has been carried out almost entirely by one Health Department staff person and an intern, with little involvement by clinic staff. However, the Health Department consulted with at least five service providers in the area in developing the protocol. The project coordinator hopes to obtain funding soon to train clinic staff and to produce the resource guide.
Although not a direct health care provider, Healthy Start, which is a program under the Baltimore City Health Department, addresses health care issues among women who are pregnant or have children under the age of three. Healthy Start, in conjunction with the House of Ruth, currently provides three hours of domestic violence training for all staff at Healthy Start centers. Healthy Start has also developed domestic violence screening protocol for case managers to use during home visits, but the protocol are not yet fully implemented. Under these protocol, staff will mostly refer women identified as domestic violence victims to the House of Ruth for services, although they may also refer to a Healthy Start social worker, if one is available. These efforts seek to promote client well-being and worker safety. Since the case managers often visit clients in their homes, they need to pay special attention to the family dynamics and potentially volatile situations. Healthy Start also addresses domestic violence issues with their clients' male partners as part of the men's services groups provided in the Healthy Start centers.
Sinai Hospital is one of four Maryland hospitals participating in a state pilot project for domestic violence screening programs. The Domestic Violence Medical Response and Advocacy Project involves a direct service component financed by the individual hospitals and a formal evaluation component to be conducted by domestic violence experts and medical researchers. Sinai Hospital's program was not fully implemented at the time of the site visit, but it was expected to begin shortly. Under the planned program, staff in the emergency room and several other departments will screen for domestic violence and refer battered women to the project coordinator. The project coordinator will conduct the client assessment, which is used for research purposes, and also provide short-term counseling services and case management for battered women during her working hours. The coordinator will also train hospital staff in the new protocol and will train other staff to work with victims when she is not working. Eventually, the program plans to provide support groups and community outreach and also to work more with the police department and State's Attorney's Office. The project is in its first of three years, and if it proves successful, it may be expanded to other hospitals in the state.
While several respondents cited improvements that could be made to existing laws, many felt that better enforcement of existing laws was a more important issue. They felt that the lack of adequate resources and coordination is not unique to domestic violence but is systemic and results from funding shortages.
One recent case in neighboring Baltimore County has drawn community attention to domestic violence. Judge Cahill in Baltimore County recently sentenced a man to 18 months of work release for murdering his wife. Court transcripts revealed that the judge sympathized with the defendant and alluded to the fact that he would have taken the same course of action himself. This instance disturbed many people and initiated a judicial review process by the Judicial Commission in Maryland. Not only is the Cahill case being evaluated, but the judicial review process has also come under public scrutiny. Many people use this example to illustrate the need for more training, education, and attitude change among the judiciary.
Many respondents discussed the importance of the protection order, particularly among battered women who prefer a civil rather than criminal remedy. They stated that women may prefer that the abuser not be arrested for a number of reasons, such as their own physical safety or the need for continued child support. However, in Maryland, a civil protection order can be issued only to persons who are currently married, or who have lived together for 90 days over the past year, or who are related by blood, or who have a child in common. Thus, many intimate partners who do not meet any of these criteria, are not eligible for a protection order in Baltimore, which may stipulate no contact, temporary child custody, and family maintenance.
Service of protection orders is another problem in Baltimore. Court hearings on the petition for a protection order are held within one week after it is filed. The police, who serve all orders, are supposed to make three attempts to serve the order within the week before the hearing. If the order is not served, the petition can only be renewed three subsequent times and then the application is dropped. Thus, if the person is not served within one month, the case leaves the system with no action taken. The Ad Hoc Committee on Protective Orders is investigating this issue and will make recommendations to the DVCC about how to improve service.
In Baltimore, the majority of domestic violence cases are prosecuted in District rather than Circuit Criminal Court. Cases move to Circuit Court if charges are increased to a felony or if a jury trial is requested by the defendant. Assault, the most common charge in a domestic violence case, is a common law crime in Baltimore. Because few domestic violence cases are tried as felonies, prosecution efforts have been concentrated in the District Court. However, in the future, a special team may be created to prosecute domestic violence cases in Circuit Court.
According to DVCC members, the laws concerning harassment and stalking are also problematic. The maximum sentence for harassment is only 90 days, compared to stalking convictions which carry a maximum sentence of several years. Stalking cases are extremely difficult to prosecute because the statute requires that the victim be in fear of death. In many cases, the victim may know the stalker and simply want to be left alone, but not fear death. These cases cannot be prosecuted for stalking under Maryland's law. Under the VAW grant, the DVCC has been working to fulfill a grant objective to improve training and information about stalking issues.
There are a couple of statewide organizations in Maryland that work on domestic violence issues. There is the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence and the Maryland Alliance Against Domestic Violence. According to one respondent, the differences between these organizations are political and often divisive in the domestic violence community. The Family Violence Council, a statewide task force headed by the State Attorney General and the Lieutenant Governor, is another initiative that may improve the domestic violence response in the state.
Baltimore City is adjacent to Baltimore County; therefore, clients may move between the two communities for services. For example, since the House of Ruth is the only domestic violence shelter in Baltimore City, battered women sometimes seek shelter in the county when the House of Ruth is full. In 1991, the DVCC and the Baltimore County domestic violence coordinating committee signed an interjurisdictional agreement that set standards for criminal justice agencies and social service providers in the two jurisdictions. For example, the agreement stipulates that the police in both the city and the county will develop and share a list of the top 50 repeat domestic violence offenders in their jurisdiction. Mainly, the agreement serves as a good faith effort that the jurisdictions will work cooperatively when necessary, and, in practice, the two DVCC's do not often work jointly on projects. While the two committees are similar in overall structure, the county committee has a greater number of domestic violence service providers than the City does, but they do not have an active member from the judiciary.
Since the mid-1980's , the DVCC has improved Baltimore's response to domestic violence. The DVCC has played an important role in establishing specialized units or designated personnel, as well as in training and coordinating the activities for these agencies. Several DVCC members felt that the community's greater awareness about domestic violence has also contributed to their success. The DVCC is a committed group of individuals, mainly from criminal justice agencies, who have worked together for many years. Since the city cannot require employees of state agencies to participate, membership on the committee has always been voluntary. With the VAW grants, the Committee has expanded its efforts to improve coordination among criminal justice agencies. The DVCC is also beginning to expand its scope to include more social service and health care providers.
A number of different issues make the future of Baltimore's coordinated effort to combat domestic violence somewhat unclear. Since its inception, many of the same people have worked together on the DVCC. There are not as many "new" people who have expressed an active interest in this issue, and it is not clear who will step in when some of the current members leave. A House of Ruth member, for example, who had been a key member since the beginning, recently changed jobs. The loss of this long-term member has had an effect on the committee and now DVCC members must develop a relationship with a new representative from the House of Ruth. One member explained that the established relationships and closeness of the DVCC members can be viewed as both a strength and a weakness. Meetings are able to run smoothly because there is a great deal of respect among the members. On the other hand, if a particular agency is not working as other members feel it should be, it may be more difficult to raise this sensitive issue.
The presence of an advocacy organization on the DVCC has on occasion caused tension within the DVCC. While the criminal justice representatives must juggle several competing priorities, an advocacy organization has a single and clear objective. The House of Ruth has served at times as a willing collaborator and at other times as an advocacy group pushing criminal justice agencies to do more. In one case, the House of Ruth publicly released statistics that DVCC member agencies had shared at a meeting without the consent of the agencies. As a result, DVCC member agencies were put in an extremely awkward position and have been hesitant to share data since then. Because the DVCC members respect and trust each other, a conflict such as this has a very significant impact on the group's dynamics.
Another unresolved issue is what course the committee will take once the VAW grant ends and the coordinator is gone. The grant provided an incentive to accomplish a number of goals and provided resources for these efforts. A major resources has been the part-time coordinator, who has been the key contact person for the Committee and the community at large. Once that position ends, it is not clear that anyone will have time to take on the demanding organizational work that has made the DVCC so productive over the last couple of years.
The specialized units and designated personnel are in place, but a number of people expressed concern that they could be eliminated if agency leadership or funding changed. Staffing these units can be costly since the staff spend more time on each case and have smaller caseloads. New agency heads may place less emphasis on domestic violence and shift resources from these efforts. The State's Attorney's DV Unit has the longest tenure, and is perhaps the most institutionalized of Baltimore's specialized units.
The House of Ruth remains the main service provider for domestic violence victims in Baltimore, which has both advantages and disadvantages for service delivery. They are considered the experts in the community and have gained a good reputation for their work. Several providers, however, felt that the community could benefit from having more agencies involved in domestic violence, in order to give people more service options. However, it is difficult for other organizations to compete with House of Ruth for funding. Other agencies experience a certain degree of frustration because they would like to expand their services to target domestic violence victims but are unable to obtain funding do so. One service provider also acknowledged that it would be a challenge to expand its services to cover domestic violence, given the House of Ruth's predominant role in the community. This provider felt that many issues, in addition to funding, would need to be worked out before other agencies could begin to provide domestic violence services.
Criminal justice agencies and service providers cited concerns about "underserved" populations in the community. Respondents noted that battered women in the African American community may be reluctant to pursue a criminal justice remedy for domestic violence given the history of strained relations between this community and law enforcement. Service providers felt that language barriers and transportation problems may exist for some women, particularly among women from the Asian, Hispanic, Native American and Orthodox Jewish communities. The House of Ruth has begun working with other community agencies that work more closely with certain groups. A House of Ruth staff member helps with a group in the Jewish community and is also trying to secure funding to work in a couple of African American communities. A Hispanic community center has also expressed an interest in collaborative efforts for training and perhaps support groups on domestic violence issues. Several respondents also noted the need for services targeted at individuals who are illiterate or who have mental and physical disabilities.
Respondents cited several areas where social services could be improved. Lack of shelter space was the most frequently cited problem. The House of Ruth shelter currently has only 12 rooms with a total of 24 beds for both women and their children, although they are in the process of expanding. Services for children who witness domestic violence was also identified as a gap. Transportation and child care can also be a problem, particularly for persons who also need mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment, or other services. Some respondents would also like to see community education receive more resources, for both children and adults. While the public school system does not have a specific domestic violence curriculum, some issues concerning appropriate behavior are discussed in school programs.
Health care providers have recently begun to take a more active role in the coordinated response to domestic violence, with several hospitals and health clinics implementing domestic violence screenings. A couple of people stressed the importance of making domestic violence a public health issue to improve identification and treatment. With the increased attention in the medical community, social service providers anticipate receiving more referrals from medical professionals. The health care response to domestic violence may be affected by the move to managed care for Medicaid clients. One respondent noted that Medicaid managed care sometimes presents difficulties for victims of domestic violence, particularly with respect to accessing mental health services. In some cases, managed care organizations are thought to not be able to meet the mental health needs of domestic violence victims because their services do not adequately address the specific needs of the client population. One service provider has helped clients disenroll from the managed care plan to which they were assigned to enable them to access providers who provide more specialized services to these clients.
The proposed Domestic Violence Court could significantly improve the judicial response. Many community members felt that the courts are not always sensitive to domestic violence, particularly when the case involves a reluctant witness. The docket will most likely focus on serious misdemeanor offenses. Because the cases will come from all nine districts in the city, the domestic violence unit will be able to prosecute domestic violence cases from throughout the city and provide more consistent treatment to victims. In addition to a consolidated docket, the prosecutor's office hopes to flag all domestic violence related cases to track and compare domestic violence cases that are prosecuted by the specialized unit to those handled by other prosecutors.
The greater Kansas City metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a sprawling area that encompasses 11 counties (7 in Missouri and 4 in Kansas), and has a total population of nearly 1.6 million. Jackson County Missouri is the largest county in the MSA and contains the city of Kansas City, Missouri. With about 630,000 residents, Jackson County accounts for 40 percent of the MSA's total population, and it has a population that is about 75 percent white, and 20 percent African American; less than 3 percent of the population is of Hispanic origin. The outlying counties are much smaller and more rural than Jackson County.
This study focuses primarily on Jackson County, which has been at the center of the coordination activity, particularly within the criminal justice system. The Kansas City Police Department and the Kansas City Municipal Court have jurisdiction over part of Jackson County in addition to parts of several surrounding counties. The Missouri Circuit Courts' jurisdiction corresponds to counties, with each county having its own elected county prosecutor. The Jackson County Prosecutor's Office, the Circuit Court and the Kansas City Police Department and Municipal Court have worked together to formulate a response to domestic violence primarily within the Jackson County community, although in some cases the agencies' jurisdictions extend beyond Jackson County. The coordinated response of the area's seven shelters covers a broader geographic area, since these providers serve the entire metropolitan area.
Coordination activities in Kansas City stem largely from the leadership and initiative of a few key people in the community, rather than the ongoing work of a coordinating committee. The extent and nature of the coordination have fluctuated over time as leadership for this issue has changed; one person described this process as occurring in "fits and starts." While Kansas City currently does not have an active coordinating committee focused on domestic violence, there have been several task forces over the years that have improved the criminal justice response.
Historically, most domestic violence arrests in Kansas City have been prosecuted in the Municipal Court as a violation of a city ordinance. The maximum penalty for a conviction is either 6 months in jail, a $500 fine, or both. During the past several years, the city has placed greater emphasis on increasing the number of state charges for domestic violence, that is, misdemeanor or felony charges that are prosecuted by the county, rather than the city. To further improve the criminal justice response, special domestic violence units have been formed in several agencies including the Kansas City Police Department, the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office, and the City Prosecutor's Office. The Civil Circuit Court and Kansas City Municipal Court both have consolidated dockets with full-time judges to handle domestic violence cases. In addition, the Criminal Circuit Court has a consolidated docket to arraign domestic violence cases. While staff at the various criminal justice agencies interact through their work, they do not meet regularly as a group to discuss their progress or address specific coordination needs.
The metropolitan Kansas City area has six domestic violence shelters--four in Missouri and two in Kansas--which together have more than 240 beds for battered women and their children. In 1989, the shelters formed the Domestic Violence Network (DVN), a not-for-profit organization, to improve coordination among themselves. To date, their efforts have focused primarily on developing a shared hotline and an integrated computer system.
Project Assist, a program of Legal Aid of Western Missouri, provides legal representation for battered women seeking protection orders, and also assists with other civil matters such as child custody or divorce. For many years, Project Assist also played a leading role in systems advocacy in Kansas City by initiating and coordinating many of the community's efforts. However, in recent years, Project Assist has focused more on legal services rather than systems change. This shift was attributed to staff turnover as well as to the feeling that there is less of a need for strong advocacy since many reforms have been institutionalized.
One of the earliest efforts to improve the community's response to domestic violence came out of Legal Aid of Western Missouri in the mid-1980s. Legal Aid's Domestic Unit provided legal services for women obtaining protection orders and for divorce cases in which domestic violence or child abuse was involved. Legal Aid staff were concerned about the way domestic violence cases were handled by the police and courts, and in 1985, they established Project Assist to do broad-based systems advocacy and to work with law enforcement agencies on domestic violence issues. Initially, Project Assist monitored and documented the way domestic violence cases were handled in the Kansas City Municipal and Civil Circuit Courts. In addition, Project Assist obtained funding to train police in Kansas City and throughout Missouri.
In the mid 1980's, a statewide committee helped draw attention to domestic violence, particularly within the Kansas City Police Department. In 1984, the Governor of Missouri served on the U.S. Attorney General's Task Force on Domestic Violence, and the following year he initiated a Domestic Violence Task Force for the State of Missouri. The Kansas City Police Chief chaired the state task force and became very interested in domestic violence through his involvement with this group. One outcome was that the Chief changed his position to support mandatory arrest for domestic violence, which he had previously opposed. As a result, Kansas City adopted a mandatory arrest policy before this change was made statewide in 1989.
Community support for a better response to domestic violence grew in 1986 when a woman, Sherrie Stewart, was murdered by her husband on Christmas eve in front of their children. This case highlighted several weaknesses in the judicial response. The perpetrator had multiple convictions for domestic violence at the Municipal Court. In addition, the victim's request for a protection order was denied because she could not afford the $66 filing fee. Although the court did not require the fee from applicants meeting certain income guidelines, the judge did not waive the fee in this case because the victim made an error in filling out her application. The judge had not met with Ms. Stewart, so he was not aware that she had misunderstood the application.
The attention to the incident resulted in several changes in the Circuit Court's protection order process, and a task force was subsequently formed to integrate those changes into the system and to identify additional changes to be made. The Order of Protection Task Force was Kansas City's first coordinating committee and included representatives from Project Assist, the court clerks, shelters, and a Circuit Court judge. The fee to file a protection order was eliminated within days of Sherrie Stewart's death, and a new policy was adopted that required the judge to meet with the victim before issuing a judgement. A six-month consolidated protection order docket was also established within the Circuit Court, whereby a single judge would hear all petitions for protection orders for a six-month period. Although not a direct outcome of the task force, a judge who was very sensitive to domestic violence issues became the presiding judge for the Circuit Court during this time.
In 1988, a new domestic violence task force was formed largely due to the leadership of the police chief. The new task force expanded its scope beyond the earlier committee and included judges from the Municipal and Circuit Courts, representatives from the police department, the Jackson County Prosecutor, the City Attorney for Kansas City, Project Assist, and the shelters. One key feature of this committee was that the members had the authority to make decisions for their agency. The task force began looking for examples of criminal justice responses that might serve as models for Kansas City. Several people from the police department and Project Assist attended a national conference on police training in Washington, D.C. The task force members also studied the criminal justice response in other jurisdictions, particularly Denver whose system was comparable to Kansas City, and visited Denver to learn more about their response. This interaction with other jurisdictions was credited with bringing focus to the task force.
Around this same time, a number of community organizations formed a Court Watch in the Municipal Court to demonstrate the need for a consolidated domestic violence docket. Because domestic violence cases were heard in all eight of the Municipal Court courtrooms, they were often handled inconsistently by different judges. In addition, it was difficult for advocates to assist victims with cases pending in multiple courtrooms. The Court Watch Coalition formed for this effort included the domestic violence shelters in addition to influential and highly-credible community groups such as the Junior League and the National Council of Jewish Women. Project Assist provided oversight and training for the Court Watch. For a several weeks, the "court watchers" monitored the courtrooms and found that, in general, domestic violence victims had very bad experiences in the court system. The project documented judges making inappropriate comments and treating the victims quite poorly. The Court Watch also analyzed data on the disposition of domestic violence cases and found that the outcomes were very unpredictable, both within and across courtrooms, as compared to other types of cases which had more predictable outcomes. For example, 60 percent of shoplifters were convicted of an offense and that percent did not vary significantly across courtrooms. In domestic violence cases, however, less than 30 percent of offenders were found guilty, and the outcomes varied widely.
The Court Watch prepared a report for the domestic violence task force and recommended changes in the community's response. In late 1988, the Court Watch held a press conference and released their findings to the media. This report provided the support needed for the Circuit Court's presiding judge to order the Municipal Court to dedicate an entire docket to domestic violence cases. Since the Municipal Court falls under the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, it had the authority to make this change. Initially, the Municipal Court was not receptive to the idea, and threatened to take the issue to the State Supreme Court. The Municipal Court eventually complied with the order and a judge agreed to take the docket. However, one person noted that even today many judges remain opposed to the consolidated docket.
After the consolidated Municipal Court docket was created, the task force continued to meet for a while. It did not, however, undertake any major new initiatives and eventually it "lost momentum" and stopped meeting. One person noted that there was never again the same strong task force that had existed in the beginning. Currently, the city has an Adult Abuse Committee with members from the courts, the City and County Prosecutor's Offices, the police, in addition to advocates, clerks and the public defender's office. However, this group does not meet regularly or have a well-defined agenda.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Project Assist had initiated and been actively involved in many of the community's efforts. Following this period, it undertook a major effort to train law enforcement agencies and received federal funding for regional trainings throughout the state. Recently, Project Assist has further scaled back its advocacy role to refocus its efforts on providing legal assistance to domestic violence victims. This shift was attributed to turnover of key staff members. In addition, several people felt that many reforms had been institutionalized, and a strong independent advocate was no longer critical to the community's efforts.
The criminal justice system has continued to make a number of important changes over the past several years, with the impetus coming largely from top officials within the criminal justice agencies. In 1993 Jackson County elected a County Prosecutor with a strong commitment to domestic violence. The new County Prosecutor was concerned about the small number of state charges filed in domestic violence cases. Since the police determine what the charge is in criminal cases, the County Prosecutor met with the chief of police to draw up a plan to increase the number of state charges filed. The County Prosecutor established a policy to review all domestic violence cases for state charges, which required the police to hold perpetrators for up to 20 hours while the case was being reviewed. A prosecutor was assigned to go to the police station at 3 a.m. every day to review all domestic violence reports for state charges. Shortly thereafter, the County and City Prosecutor's Offices met with the police and these agencies jointly developed guidelines for charging domestic violence cases. The County Prosecutor's Office stopped reviewing all police reports, and focused on those cases that the police charged as state offenses.
The County Prosecutor's Office has a domestic violence unit which is currently staffed by three attorneys and an advocate. The unit vertically prosecutes all misdemeanor and felony domestic violence cases, which means that the same prosecuting attorney handles the case throughout the process. In some cases, the unit will prosecute a domestic violence case even if the victim is reluctant or uncooperative. Most domestic violence cases are arraigned on the consolidated docket for Criminal Circuit Court, although the trials are allocated to different judges. Over the past few years, the number of cases prosecuted by the county has risen substantially from only a handful in 1993 to several hundred by 1995.
In 1994, the police department created a specialized domestic violence unit to respond to the increased work involved in state cases. Unlike municipal cases, state cases require a more extensive police investigation. The responding officer in a domestic violence case contacts the domestic violence unit who then decides whether to investigate the case further. Since it was created, the unit has doubled in size to include two sergeants and ten officers who staff the unit 24-hours a day.
Within the past few years, the Municipal Court has made further changes in its procedures for handling domestic violence cases. In 1994, the city hired a full-time prosecutor to handle all domestic violence cases. Prior to this, domestic violence cases were assigned across all of the city prosecutors, some of whom only worked part-time. The full-time domestic violence prosecutor provided more continuity for domestic violence prosecutions and more consistency in how the cases were handled. The prosecutor has a "no-drop" prosecution policy and will make every effort to prosecute the case including issuing warrants to arrest victims who do not appear for court hearings. The prosecutor handles a high volume of cases; last year, more than 10,000 cases were docketed in the Municipal Court Domestic Division. The City Prosecutor's Office also employs several court advocates to assist the prosecutor and victims in domestic violence cases.
When the Municipal Court's domestic violence docket was first created, it rotated every six months. As a result, the handling of domestic violence cases varied depending on the judge, and one person noted that certain judges set back progress made by the courts. In response to this problem, a full-time judge was assigned to the docket to improve the consistency in handling domestic violence cases. The current judge has a reputation for treating domestic violence cases seriously, and often sentences defendants to jail.
In 1993, the Civil Circuit Court also assigned a full-time judge to handle the consolidated docket for protection orders. The statute for protection orders is fairly generous in Missouri and allows the Court to address a number of issues including custody, child support, substance abuse counseling and domestic violence counseling. One person felt that having a knowledgeable full- time Judge was especially important since many petitioners are not represented by attorneys at protection order hearings, and because the orders cover such a wide range of issues. The court's response has also improved through training such as a conference held for judges by the Missouri Judiciary last spring on "How to Craft an Appropriate Order of Protection."
Shelters in Kansas City have worked through a coordinating body since the late 1980s. In 1989, the Domestic Violence Network (DVN) was incorporated as a nonprofit agency, with a board of directors that includes the executive director from each shelter in addition to other community representatives. The DVN meets monthly to work on joint initiatives and to discuss service issues. The Court Advocacy Program was one of the DVN's first collaborative projects. This program, which is currently entering its seventh year, began when one shelter took the lead and wrote a proposal for advocates at the Kansas City Municipal Court. The four Missouri-based shelters take turns staffing the program with each shelter providing advocates on certain days.
Since the early 1990s, the main focus of the DVN has been on creating a shared hotline, consolidated intake procedures, and an integrated computer system called Open Hands. All three changes were implemented within the past few years, and the DVN is currently refining the systems based on the early experience. Eventually, the DVN hopes to have the computer system on-line so that the shelters have up-to-date information about available beds. Through these coordination efforts, the DVN also hopes to improve the quality of data available on the use of shelter services.
Within the past year, two hospitals in Kansas City have collaborated with other service providers to establish hospital-based programs for domestic violence victims. The Phoenix Project was established at Children's Mercy Hospital as a joint project between the hospital, Legal Aid of Western Missouri and a shelter. This program serves battered women who bring their children in for medical services at Children's Mercy Hospital. Project Bridge began at Truman Medical Center in 1995 as a collaboration between the Medical Center, the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) School of Medicine, and one of the area's shelters. The program provides advocates to battered women in the hospital emergency room.
The DVN has been the main vehicle for coordination between the area's six shelters since it was formed in the late 1980s. One of its first activities was to establish the Court Advocacy Program for the Municipal Court. This program, which is currently funded by a state grant, is jointly staffed by the four Missouri-based shelters. While the Municipal Court is the primary focus of the program, a team of volunteer advocates also provides services at some Circuit Courts. At the Kansas City Municipal Court, advocates set up signs directing victims where to go, check the victims in, and provide an orientation on what to expect in the courtroom. The advocate monitors the progress of the case and, after the hearing, explains what happened and makes referrals for shelters, hotlines and other services. The advocates may follow up with the victim by telephone to see how things are going. In addition, the advocates sometimes approach the police or prosecutor on the victim's behalf to obtain information about the status of the case.
In addition to the shelter advocates, court advocates also work with victims at the Municipal Court. The court advocates are employed by the Kansas City Prosecutor's Office and serve as a liaison between the prosecutor and the victim in domestic violence cases. The role of these advocates differs from that of the shelter advocates whose first priority is the victim and whose focus is more service-oriented. This difference has, at times, caused tension between the advocates.
All six shelters in the metropolitan Kansas City area serve battered women from throughout the entire community, although each program targets a specific catchment area surrounding the shelter. Given the differences in the various communities, clients often prefer to seek services from a shelter in their own neighborhood. For example, women from the outlying rural areas are often reluctant to go to a shelter in an urban area of Jackson County. However, if one shelter is full, the client may be referred to another shelter in the area. One shelter operates an inpatient substance abuse program and receives more referrals from throughout the area of women needing this specific service.
Given the overlap in the populations served, there is a need for communication and coordination among the shelters. Since the early 1990s, the DVN has focused its efforts on creating a shared hotline, a consolidated intake process, and an integrated computer system for all six shelters. The goal of these efforts is to obtain consistent data and to coordinate screening and referrals across the shelters. This initiative was prompted by concerns from funding agencies about the community's service needs and the role of multiple shelters. Having multiple shelters makes it difficult to assess accurately the community-wide demand for services. For example, if a woman calls three different shelters but does not receive services from any, she is counted three times in the community-wide statistics of clients "turned away" for service, even though this represents a single case.
Since 1993, the shelters have operated a single, shared hotline and used consistent intake forms and procedures. Each shelter takes a turn staffing the hotline and does the intake on all calls received during its assigned time. The shelter answering the hotline has information about the availability of beds at each of the shelters and refers the caller to the appropriate shelter, based on location and service needs. This process eliminates the need for domestic violence victims to contact multiple providers to obtain services.
The consolidated hotline established a general policy for battered women to call the central number instead of calling individual shelters. However, if a client calls a shelter directly, the providers continue to do the intake themselves rather than referring the caller back to the main hotline. A couple of shelters estimated that about one-quarter of their clients continue to call the shelter directly. The DVN and its member agencies have made an effort to publicize the single hotline number through advertising campaigns and other means. The DVN also established a toll- free number to allow victims in rural areas to call the hotline without having the call show up on their long-distance telephone bill. As part of these efforts, the DVN also has coordinated how phone books publish the numbers for domestic violence services, having the central number listed rather than individual shelter phone numbers. According to one person, giving up their own phone numbers was initially an issue for some shelters, but most programs have become convinced of the benefits of a single hotline number.
Last year, the DVN implemented the Open Hands system, a computer database for the six shelters. This system, which took four years to design, collects standardized client information for each shelter. Since the shelters use a common intake form, the data in Open Hands are coded consistently to allow for better tracking and data analysis. At present, not all shelters are reporting data to the Open Hands network, even though the system has been in place for about a year. Based on the initial experience with Open Hands, the DVN is currently revising the intake forms and simplifying the system. One person felt that originally the project may have tried to collect too much information. The DVN is also modifying the computer system to correct problems and make the system easier to use. Eventually, the DVN hopes to put the system "on- line" to further improve the access to information across the agencies.
In developing Open Hands, the DVN had to address confidentiality issues in order to share client information across the shelters. Currently the Open Hands network blocks certain information if requested by a client, and releases other information only with a client's permission. Open Hands has also changed the intake process, by having staff enter data into the network as the interview is being conducted. Some staff have found it difficult to use the Open Hands computer system during a crisis situation.
At present, the DVN's primary mission is to operate the hotline and collaborate on fundraising and joint projects. According to one person, the DVN originally developed a broader agenda which included the shared hotline, a joint resource center, and joint training for each shelter's volunteers, staff, and board. However, the DVN was unable to address all aspects of the larger plan and decided, instead, to focus on a single project, the shared hotline.
Geography was viewed as an obstacle to coordination among the shelters for several reasons. The distance between shelters limits collaboration among the various agencies. Since Kansas City is spread out geographically, a provider may have to travel up to an hour each way to meet with other providers. The community also has limited public transportation which makes it difficult for clients to travel between the shelters for services. One provider felt that the shelters would collaborate more on joint services if the distance and transportation were not issues. The "state line" also serves as a major barrier to people working together in Kansas City. Since the metropolitan area falls in two different states, providers often operate under different state laws and regulations as well as funding restrictions. For example, providers are often restricted from serving Kansas residents with Missouri state funds.
Several people noted that the DVN has not done a good job of including criminal justice agencies in their efforts. In the past, people involved with the DVN were successful in bringing criminal justice agencies to DVN meetings, but these individuals left and criminal justice agencies stopped participating. One person was concerned that criminal justice staff are so overworked that involving them in the DVN would take away from direct client services. Another person pointed out that the multiple jurisdictions in Kansas City make it difficult to include criminal justice agencies in a larger coordinating effort like the DVN. Many shelters have a different set of police and prosecutors, and some already work with their own law enforcement agencies. For example, one shelter and local police co-wrote the police policy on domestic violence. The shelter also has a formal agreement with the police which stipulates that the police will transport women to the shelter and the shelter will provide training for the police.
Coordination of criminal justice efforts in Jackson County has been brought about largely by the efforts of key people, both within and outside of the criminal justice system, rather than by a central coordinating committee. While several ad hoc committees have been formed to address particular problems over the years, none has become a permanent feature of the community's response. The Adult Abuse Committee currently provides a forum for interaction among the various agencies, but it does not meet regularly or have a well-defined agenda.
Coordination among criminal justice agencies has often resulted from the involvement of high-level officials. For example, when the County Prosecutor's Office began reviewing all domestic violence cases for state charges, staffing constraints made it difficult for the police to process the increased number of state cases. In response, the County Prosecutor provided support staff to assist the police. Within the courts, some changes were brought about largely because someone with the authority to make the change supported the idea, including the Municipal Court domestic violence docket.
The courts, prosecutors and police in Kansas City all have designated special dockets and staff for domestic violence cases. Many people in the community recognize the importance of staffing these positions with people who are sensitive to domestic violence issues. For example, the police department's domestic violence unit was initially staffed with detectives assigned to the unit, rather than with people who requested the assignment. Some people felt that this resulted in an insensitivity to domestic violence victims among some of the unit's original detectives. Since then, a couple of detectives have been reassigned and replaced by people who requested the assignment.
After the County Prosecutor began reviewing all domestic violence cases for state charges, the County and City Prosecutor's Offices and the police department worked together to develop guidelines for charging these cases. In general, the guidelines stipulate that for state charges a case should involve a perpetrator with four or more prior arrests for domestic violence, a weapon, or serious injuries to the victim. This policy gave the police guidance for charging charge domestic violence cases. Currently, the County Prosecutor reviews only those cases that the police present as state cases based on these criteria, rather than all cases.
The Civil Circuit Court has coordinated efforts with criminal justice agencies. The judge for the protection order docket sometimes refers cases to the County Prosecutor's Office to review for criminal charges. In addition, the clerks photograph and document injuries in some domestic violence cases, and share this information with the City Prosecutor's Office. Currently, the judge for the protection order docket also serves as the head of the Adult Abuse Committee and periodically convenes this group.
The various criminal justice agencies do not meet routinely to share information, although several people noted that staff communicate informally. While the Police Department and the County and City Prosecutors' Offices were developing the guidelines for charging domestic violence cases, the three agencies met monthly. Eventually, the agencies stopped meeting regularly, which one person attributed to time constraints. The need for communication between the Circuit and Municipal Courts was downplayed by one person who felt that since the two courts have different jurisdictions, prosecutors from the two offices should not tell each other how to handle cases or how to do each other's jobs. Another person in the criminal justice system stressed the need for better communication and a "teamwork mentality" between these agencies that currently does not exist.
Probation has not been an integral part of the coordinated response in Kansas City. Many defendants in the Municipal Court receive probation, but it is currently unsupervised. The domestic violence prosecutor tracks attendance at batterer intervention programs to the extent possible, and also acts as a probation officer for reassault cases. Responsibility for notifying the court of noncompliance rests with the batterer intervention programs. The probation department supervises only misdemeanor and felony cases, and because most domestic violence are not misdemeanors or felonies, this involves a relatively small number of cases. One office estimated that 30 cases are specifically domestic violence cases. Since each probation officer has a caseload of about 100 cases, there are not even enough domestic violence cases for one officer to specialize. While probation officers do not routinely receive training on domestic violence, Project Assist held a statewide training for the probation department several years ago.
The Kansas City Police Department does not routinely offer in-service training in domestic violence. Several years ago, Project Assist did a statewide "train the trainers" session that provided one and one-half days of domestic violence training. Project Assist has also developed training videos for law enforcement which have been distributed nationally. Within the Kansas City Police Department, new recruits receive domestic violence training at the police academy, but the department has not done in-service training for the past few years. One person felt that the having a specialized domestic violence unit made people attach less importance to domestic violence training for front-line staff.
In the outlying areas, police training has been a problem because some departments have too few staff to assign them to training for an extended period. One member of the Kansas City Police Department worked with police chiefs in three smaller counties to offer domestic violence training. The chiefs agreed to four hours of domestic violence training for their officers. The person from the Kansas City Police Department, who worked on this project on his own time, collaborated with an area shelter to develop a curriculum and conduct the training.
Many of the shelters in Kansas City provide a range of services including counseling, outreach, support groups. One shelter also operates an inpatient substance abuse program for battered women, which was started with money from the portion of Kansas City's sales tax designated for substance abuse treatment and other drug-related activities. Since the program is not state-funded, it did not have to meet state licensing requirements, but it does have a state- certified substance abuse counselor on staff. Other shelters in the community often refer clients who need substance abuse services to this particular shelter.
Some shelters in the Kansas City area have also developed links with a community substance abuse agency. For example, one shelter works closely with a substance abuse provider who comes to the shelter to screen and interview clients for substance abuse problems. These two agencies have ongoing communication about the progress of individual cases, and they meet weekly to discuss cases and to provide informal support to each other.
Transitional housing is another area that has been somewhat integrated with domestic violence services. A couple of shelters operate their own transitional housing programs which rent apartments to clients. The waiting lists for these programs vary widely. Another shelter has established a close relationship with a housing project manager who will prioritize shelter clients for services based on an informal understanding between the two agencies.
There are some tensions between domestic violence service providers and mental health and substance abuse service providers in the community. Some domestic violence service providers felt that there was a lack of understanding of domestic violence within the mental health and substance abuse fields. Other agencies had previously questioned the shelters' need for money to provide mental health and substance abuse services. One person felt this attitude was due to the fact that domestic violence services are relatively new and are not as developed as the mental health and substance abuse fields. Shelters also reported problems with child protective service agencies who, they felt, do not understand domestic violence and often blame the victim.
Project Bridge grew out of a collaboration between Truman Medical Center and a domestic violence shelter, and was initiated by an attending physician in the emergency room and a faculty member at the UMKC School of Medicine who had done prior research on domestic violence. The goal of the program was to provide a "bridge" between the hospital and the community to lower barriers for battered women to access community resources. The program provides advocacy services for battered women identified and referred by emergency room physicians. The program is staffed by a full-time advocate at the hospital during business hours and on-call advocates during the evening and on weekends. The advocates meet the woman at the hospital and offer support, referrals and transportation. The program was recently expanded to cover other hospital departments including labor and delivery.
Since Missouri does not have a mandatory screening or reporting law for domestic violence, Project Bridge is based on the notion that doctors will identify and respond to domestic violence if they are give a resource (e.g., victim advocates), to provide to the victim. An emergency room attending physician directs the program, and a staff person from the shelter maintains an office at the hospital to supervise the advocates. Staff from four of the area's shelters initially served as advocates for Project Bridge, but recently additional advocates have been recruited from the community. Advocates receive a stipend for every consultation they provide to the program. Project Bridge includes an evaluation component and the staff hope to document the program's impact on the use of services and recidivism. Project staff are working with the police department and the DVN to obtain data for this study.
The Phoenix Project, which is modeled after the AWAKE program in Boston, is a joint venture between Children's Mercy Hospital, Legal Aid of Western Missouri, and a shelter. The Project is located within the hospital's social work department and targets battered women who bring their children into the hospital for medical services. Most referrals are made by hospital social workers, rather than by medical staff. Social workers refer battered woman to the Phoenix Project for counseling, legal services and referrals to shelter or other services. The project has one staff member who is a Legal Aid employee, and contracts with two attorneys to provide legal services to clients. While still in its early stages, the program has been serving between 10 and 20 women a month, and addressing mostly legal representation needs, since most women have not been interested in shelter or other services. The Phoenix Project and Project Bridge, which are located across the street from each other, have recently discussed the possibility of sharing advocacy and legal services.
Many people expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of batterer intervention programs in Kansas City. Over time the number of these programs has grown substantially. Up until about ten years ago, Kansas City had a single batterer intervention program which worked closely with the courts. The program had an office at the courthouse and initiated contact with the defendant as soon as he was assigned to the program. The program later lost its court-based office because of space constraints and because of the growth in new programs, in one person's opinion. Batterer intervention programs are not subject to state- or city-wide guidelines and the program's length and features vary widely. At one point, a provider allowed batterers to complete the program in a single weekend. Several years ago, Project Assist facilitated an effort to address concerns about the quality of these services, and met with the providers informally to develop standards for intervention programs. These standards serve as a guide to help referring agencies select a program, but they are not enforced.
Since probation is unsupervised for Kansas City Municipal Court cases, defendants who do not comply with orders for batterer intervention programs historically have not been charged quickly with noncompliance, if at all. For example, one man assigned to the batterer intervention program did not comply for six years and saw no repercussions. Recently, the Municipal Court judge established a policy requiring programs to report noncompliance within two months. For state cases, the batterer intervention programs deal directly with the probation officer, and one person felt that compliance on these cases is generally better. Some shelters in the area plan to begin their own batterer intervention programs in the near future in response to the perceived need for better quality services.
The Kansas City metropolitan area has many layers of systems to coordinate. The geography and multiple jurisdictions in Kansas City present serious challenges for collaboration among agencies. For example, the Kansas City Police Department serves all of Jackson County and parts of several other counties. Since Circuit Court jurisdictions correspond to counties, the police must interact with multiple county prosecutors, and the county prosecutors often work with police from different municipalities. Thus, coordinating the law enforcement response for the greater Kansas City area requires bringing many different agencies together. Since the area's shelters serve the community-at-large, these issues are somewhat less of a problem for coordination among these providers, although the multiple jurisdictions influence the coordination between service providers and criminal justice agencies.
The Kansas City criminal justice response, in which domestic violence is typically a violation of a city ordinance and prosecuted in Municipal Court, differs from many other communities. Prior convictions in the Municipal Court cannot be used to "enhance" cases to a higher charge. In the past several years, the community has emphasized prosecuting domestic violence as a misdemeanor or felony, but the overwhelming majority of offenses continue to be prosecuted at the city level.
The statute for protection orders in Kansas City is fairly broad and allows the judge to include custody and child support as part of the order. A number of people viewed this as an invaluable tool in the community's response. Violations of an order are charged as a misdemeanor for the first offense and as a felony for the second offense. However, several people noted that because of this broad scope, there have been cases of a parent filing for a protection order simply to gain custody of a child or to obtain child support. As a result, protection orders have received a "bad rap" among some people in the community.
A number of changes in Kansas City were made between the mid 1980s and early 1990s, and since then, the community has refocused its efforts on fine-tuning and maintaining those changes. The improvements in the community's response resulted, in large part, from the perseverance of particular individuals who sought change. For many years, leadership for these efforts came from both within and outside of the criminal justice system. Project Assist played a key role in highlighting problems with the system and in bringing people together to address these issues. At the same time, the commitment of the Chief of Police and Presiding Circuit Court Judge paved the way for much of the change. Currently, a number of key positions within the criminal justice system are filled by committed people who lead the community's efforts from within the system.
In the last few years, Kansas City has seen a shift in the community's approach. The leadership for this issue currently comes from high-level people within law enforcement and the judiciary. After making a number of sweeping changes, the community seems to have settled into the system that was created and is not currently engaged in major new initiatives. There has not been an ongoing effort to address coordination issues through a well-established coordinating committee, and without a mechanism for routine communication, problems are not always identified and brought to the attention of the appropriate parties. In addition, since the community relies on the leadership of a few key people, there is no institutionalized process to ensures that the agencies will continue to work together when individuals leave these positions.
The specialization within the criminal justice system and courts has brought consistency and continuity to the way domestic violence cases are handled. For example, the Municipal Court, which handles most domestic violence cases, has been transformed from a "chaotic" setting where cases were heard in eight courtrooms by different judges to a more streamlined process. Despite these improvements, concerns remain about the handling of domestic violence cases at this level. Some feel that this sends a message that domestic violence is not considered a serious offense. On the other hand, the current judge for the domestic violence docket has a reputation for treating domestic violence seriously. In addition to creating specialized positions, the community has worked to fill those positions with individuals who are sensitive to domestic violence issues, which has also contributed to the improved response.
The DVN has created a structure for coordination among shelters, and in the past few years the group has made great strides in consolidating the intake process and in establishing a system to share information. One person felt that this would greatly benefit service providers by allowing more rigorous research and evaluation of the services and also help them to provide "harder statistics" which will give legitimacy to the issue of domestic violence and the service needs of battered women.
Jackson County is exploring the possible of expanding its "drug tax" to cover misdemeanants, including domestic violence. Currently, a portion of the sales tax is designated as a "drug tax" and is used to fund substance abuse treatment services, the prosecution of drug offenses, in addition to other activities and services related to substance abuse. This represents a very collaborative effort among many different agencies; the $16 million is split among a number of agencies including law enforcement, prevention activities, treatment and services, the corrections system, and the courts. If this tax were expanded to cover domestic violence, it may lead to more funding and collaboration around this issue.
The Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (DAIP) in Duluth, Minnesota is a nationally- known model of coordinated community response to domestic violence. DAIP has received extensive publicity, is widely known, and conducts many trainings related to domestic violence for criminal justice and other agency personnel from all over the United States and abroad. Rather than conduct a site visit for this study to DAIP itself, from which we were unlikely to add to the extensive literature already available about the program, the decision was made to work through DAIP to reach two rural communities in Northern Minnesota whose response to domestic violence has been influenced by the DAIP model and whose efforts have been assisted through DAIP training and support. The two communities selected are Carlton County, immediately to the south of Duluth, and the northern part of St. Louis County known as "the Iron Range." In the remainder of this description of our Minnesota site visits, we will first discuss the legal context in Minnesota that enables programs in both communities to have a significant impact and then describe the unique aspects of the two communities separately.
Minnesota provides a significant amount of statewide direction and support to counties and regions in their efforts to address domestic violence, which has been a factor in both the Carlton County and Northern St. Louis County responses to domestic violence. There is a state level coordinating council and region-wide coordinating bodies as well. Many of the members of the Carlton County domestic violence community attend these regional quarterly meetings on a regular basis. The meetings provide exposure to ideas from other jurisdictions and an opportunity to network.
The state of Minnesota has a number of laws that directly affect how domestic violence is handled at different levels of the system. State law gives localities the option of adopting a mandatory arrest policy, and allows arrest on probable cause. Prior to this law, domestic violence offenses could be handled only as misdemeanors—requiring a citizen's arrest which placed the burden on the victim, or as felonies—requiring that the arresting officer be present at the assault itself and that the assault be severe enough to warrant a felony charge. The time frame for probable cause arrest was recently increased from the original 4 hours to 12 hours prior to law enforcement contact. Lengthening the period within which an officer can make an arrest from 4 to 12 hours was also a big improvement from the point of view of the law enforcement officials interviewed. Now the responding officer has time to investigate what has happened and find the offender if he has left the scene and make an arrest.
Criminal statutes also define domestic violence as a crime; prescribe levels and criteria for misdemeanor, gross misdemeanor and felony charges; and provide for enhancing a misdemeanor to a gross misdemeanor if it is a second offense. Other state laws allow judges to order offenders into treatment (batterers' intervention), which translates on the Range into courts ordering virtually all batterers into treatment, whether they are subject to civil orders for protection or to criminal charges. Case law, and subsequently state statute, says that judges must consider the presence of domestic violence in the home when deciding child custody cases, and must not order mediation for couples when domestic violence is a factor.
In addition to statutes affecting domestic violence cases, the Minnesota Supreme Court has been active on the issue in a number of ways. It has ruled that judges must grant advocates access to courtrooms, allow them to sit at counsel table with the woman and speak with her during court proceedings, and that this is not "the unauthorized practice of law." It has required all judges in the state to attend training specifically on domestic violence, spousal maintenance, custody, and divorce settlements, which advocates and judges alike say has had significant impact on judicial behavior in these cases. Further, it has charged judges in each judicial district to be active on violence issues (to "come out of chambers") and has asked judges to take the lead in setting up councils in their districts to address issues of family violence and violence prevention more generally. Finally, a statewide data system allowing judges access to information on current and pas