Help for Domestic Violence Convicts

No, you didn't read the title wrong. Yesterday, the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that state and local gun laws may not unconstitutionally infringe an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. NPR reports:

We have made clear, said Alito, that bans on handguns for felons and the mentally ill are permissible so, too, are laws barring the carrying of handguns near schools, in government buildings and laws that impose conditions on the commercial sale of guns.

These and other "reasonable"restrictions will be allowed; however, the amount of restriction that is reasonable is up for considerable debate. For instance, domestic violence advocates would argue that it is quite reasonable for those charged with or convicted of domestic violence, or those against whom a protective order has been granted, to have their gun rights restricted. After all, according to the Georgia Commission on Family Violence, women are more likely to be killed with a firearm than by all other means combined. This is not Georgia-specific, but is a nationwide truth.

However, other groups find this restriction less than reasonable. In fact, they find restricting the gun rights of batterers so egregious that batterers are the very first group whose gun rights they will fight to restore.

TOTENBERG: Herb Titus, counsel for the Gun Owners of America, agrees. He sees challenges as well to registration and licensing restrictions to age restrictions for gun ownership and to limits on the number of guns that can be bought at one time. But first in the pipeline of challenges, he says, will be the challenges to laws banning guns for those convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors.

Mr. HERB TITUS (Counsel, Gun Owners of America): I believe that the prohibition against people who’ve been convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence will probably be the area of litigation down the road.

Maybe you agree. Maybe you think that men who have committed domestic violence but have completed a batterer's intervention program or who otherwise have learned their lesson do not deserve to have their right to bear arms infringed upon. The US Department of Justice would probably disagree with you, given their stats on recidivism. Blue Wave News provides a summary:

According to a 2000 study which interviewed the former and current partners of male batterers referred to batterer programs by the court:

• 41% of participants reported that the men committed a re-assault during the 30-month follow-up period.
• Nearly 2/3 of the first time re-assaults occurred in the first 6 months.
• About 20 percent of the men repeatedly re-assaulted their partners and account for most of the reported injuries.

In an examination of 1,309 cases under a program mandate at the Bronx misdemeanor domestic violence court:

• 8% of the defendants were rearrested between the initial arrest and case disposition, 35% during the program mandate period, 31% during the one year following the end of the mandate and 44% during the two years following the mandate.
• Overall, from the moment of index arrest to two years post release, 62 % of all defendants were rearrested.

If the restriction of batterer's gun rights is deemed "unreasonable" by the courts, this will be a huge blow to the safety of women across the country.

Fishermen's Wives Face Post-Spill Trauma

An article today from Mother Jones describes the St. Bernard Project, a nonprofit founded in 2006 to provide rebuilding services to Katrina-ravaged St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana, as well as offer "psychological rebuilding" through a wellness and mental-health center. Since the oil spill started, the organization has been looking to vastly expand its services to meet the area's latest mental-health crisis: the unrelenting depression falling on families living and working on the Gulf Coast.

There are a myriad of things that contribute to domestic violence. One of the most common that we cite are a batterer's loss of control in others areas of his life, which causes him to seek to recapture that control where he can. People who feel out of control also often turn to alcohol use, which lowers inhibitions and might contribute to some people using violence who otherwise would not have considered it. Both of these things could be contributing factors to the rise in domestic violence seen in gulf areas since the spill.

"My husband's goin' drinkin'. My husband comes home and screams at me. The food's not good enough, the floors aren't clean enough. That's why I'm here, for him to take it out on me."

In next-door Plaquemines Parish, 11 domestic violence calls came in on one recent weekend, compared with 3 on a typical weekend. Cathy Butler, the woman who takes the calls, isn't ready to attribute the spike entirely to the oil spill; it's a hundred degrees outside, after all, and calls always increase a bit in the summer. The mayor of Bayou La Batre, Alabama, says they've had 320 percent more incidents of domestic violence since the spill. Whatever the cause, Butler is sure it's gonna get worse soon. "The more people are out of work, the more trouble we're gonna have," she says. "Plaquemines Community CARE is offering help now, but we're gonna need some more counselors. In the coming months, I'm gonna see a definite increase." She says she is also seeing an increase in child abuse calls.

Michelle tries to offer some perspective to the women by explaining that their husbands' anger is just a reaction against helplessness. He can't fix this, but he can fight.

These are not men who are accustomed to seeking therapy and, indeed, most therapy services in the area are aimed at the wives, hoping that some of the calm and coping strategies will make it back to the husbands. But when we as a culture place a man's value in how well he provides monetarily for his family, we cannot see that taken from him and expect him to know how to handle it alone. Anger, loss, depression, anxiety, and many other emotions are to be expected. That doesn't make family violence OK, but it does underscore the need for us to take men's emotional needs seriously, and to offer mental health services to them as well. If anything, they should be offering counseling to men to protect the wives, not the other way around.

Sylvester, GA Man Killed in Self-Defense

A Sylvester woman fatally shot her son after her held her and his girlfriend at gunpoint Tuesday.

Around 9 o'clock officers were called to a home in the 800 block of North Isabella Street.

Witnesses told investigators that 28-year-old Christopher Terrell Bunn was beating his girlfriend and his mother, 58-year-old Brenda Haire.

Haire shot Bunn in the chest with a handgun. Paramedics tried unsuccessfully to revive him.

Several people were taken in for questioning, but no charges have been filed.

Police say it appears Haire acted in self defense and that witnesses say Bunn had a history of domestic violence.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Haire and Bunn families.

Texting: the New Trend in Dating Violence

We've covered this before, but more media outlets are taking notice of use of text messaging in domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking.

The text messages to the 22-year-old Virginia woman arrived during the day and night, sometimes 20 or 30 at once. Her ex-boyfriend wanted her back. He would not be refused. He texted and called 758 times.

In New York, a 17-year-old trying to break up with her boyfriend got fewer messages, but they were menacing. "You don't need nobody else but me," read one. Another threatened to kill her.

The harassed often feel compelled to answer the messages, whether they are one-word insults or 3 a.m. demands. Texts arrive in class, at the dinner table, in movie theaters -- 100 or more a day, for some.

Harassment is "just easier now, and it's even more persistent and constant, with no letting up," says Claire Kaplan, director of sexual and domestic violence services at the University of Virginia, which became the focus of national attention in May with the killing of 22-year-old lacrosse player Yeardley Love.

Police have charged Love's ex-boyfriend, George Huguely V, also 22, with first-degree murder and allege that he removed her computer from the crime scene as he fled. Police were investigating whether Huguely sent Love threatening e-mails or text messages.

Text messages allow batterers and stalkers to get their message across whether or not their former partner answers the phone. Harassment can be constant and recipients cannot decline receipt of the message if the sender can just switch phones. They can delete messages, but sometimes can't do so without opening the message first. It can be very hard to open a message like this without reading it.

Batterers also use text messages to monitor their victims' whereabouts.

In Rockville, a woman in her 20s was so closely tracked that her partner insisted that she text him photos to prove her whereabouts -- each with a clock displaying the time, says Hannah Sassoon, coordinator of Montgomery County's domestic violence response team.

Katalina Posada, 22, a recent graduate of the University of Maryland, says one of her friends is frequently texted by a jealous boyfriend. "It's like the 20 questions a parent would ask," she says, adding that she finally told her friend: "This isn't right."

On the flip side, saving the messages can help a victim get a criminal warrant for threats or file a restraining order. Judges are more likely to grant such protections if the victim can provide proof of harassment or threats.

In the case involving the 22-year-old who received 758 messages from her ex-boyfriend -- all unanswered -- the harassment led to stalking charges and a protective order, Kirkland says.

It's very important for parents to educate their children about domestic violence, and for adults to share information about warning signs with their friends and family. Texting can be very private and others may not know about threats or harassment until it is too late.

In a recent survey, nearly one in four of those ages 14 to 24 reported that partners check in multiple times a day to see where they are or who they are with, and more than one in 10 said partners demanded passwords, according to a survey by the Associated Press and MTV.

One challenge is that many teens do not view excessive texting as a problem and may not recognize abusive behaviors. "If you're getting 50 messages an hour and you want 50 messages an hour, that's not a problem," says Marjorie Gilberg, executive director of Break the Cycle, which works to end dating violence. "But if you're getting 50 messages an hour and you don't even want one, that's very different."

These sorts of topics are addressed through a teen help line called Love Is Respect and several national awareness campaigns, including MTV's effort on digital abuse, A Thin Line, a joint effort on digital dating abuse called That's Not Cool and the initiative Love Is Not Abuse.

In California, Jill Murray says her cases have included a 16-year-old whose ex-boyfriend paid four friends to help him text when he was asleep or at work. "It was like psychological torture."

Murray urges parents to pay more attention to their children's texting lives, checking to see how many messages they get, at what hour and from whom. "Parents don't know this is going on whatsoever," she says.

That's why it's so important to make yourself available to friends or family members who may be experiencing domestic violence. Do not judge their choices but instead let them know that you are supportive of them but that you fear for their safety. Abusive partners will often try to isolate their victims from their support systems. If you let a woman know that you are there for her no matter what, she may be more likely to share threatening or worrisome text messages with you. You can then let her know how serious this behavior is and encourage her to reach out for help.

Quick Links

We have two quick links for you today:

Our partner organization Men Stopping Violence tipped us off to this great article at the Huffington Post entitled "Fathers Can Stop Violence, Too". We encourage you to read the whole thing.

Also, in a moment of self-promotion, we wanted to invite you to find us on facebook. Our fan list is growing strong, and we'd like our Facebook friends to become blog readers and our blog readers to become Facebook fans. You'll receive information and updates on our local work that you can connect back to our posts. Thanks!