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CAPE AND ISLANDS DOMESTIC VIOLENCE UNIT

Definitions     The Offender     The Victim    Summary

Introduction

Until recently, domestic violence was viewed as a private family matter. The response of the criminal justice system reflected this view. Police were trained to mediate and abate family "disputes," and to avoid making arrests except in the most serious cases. Prosecutors saw only the most serious violence cases because of the difficulties presented by these cases, and the belief that they would have little success with the prosecution.   The courts shared the view that these cases did not belong, in the criminal courtroom, and were best handled through mediation, marriage counseling, or civil proceedings. These traditional approaches left the victim, the children and the public unprotected from the devastating consequences of domestic violence.

Research demonstrates that without early and effective intervention, domestic violence increases in both frequency and severity.   To end violence within the family, a coordinated community response is required.   Each part of the community has a role to play: the criminal and civil justice systems, mental/medical health personnel, educators, clergy, social activists, the media, the business community, etc..

Massachusetts General Laws chapter 209A, entitled "Abuse Prevention," provides a statutory mechanism by which victims of family, household, or dating violence can enlist the aid of the state to prevent further abuse and avoid the extreme act of abuse.   Chapter 209A represents a legislative response to the troubling social problem of family and household abuse in the Commonwealth by providing for civil restraining orders, arrest protocols and criminal enforcement.

      For the past fifteen years, the Cape and Islands District Attorney's Office has been involved in developing appropriate responses to domestic violence.   The purpose of the District Attorney's protocol is to formally state the office policy and practice in handling domestic violence cases.   The policies of the District Attorney are aimed at reducing domestic violence in the Cape and Islands District by increasing the number of positive dispositions in domestic violence prosecution through probation, including batterer's intervention programs and incarceration.   It is the position of the District Attorney that the aggressive prosecution of misdemeanor domestic violence cases will ultimately reduce the significant number of homicides, sexual and other aggravated assaults, and related felonies that are presently attributed to escalating cycles of domestic violence.

         The Domestic Violence Unit (DV) was created in July, 1992 by the District Attorney.   The DV Unit has two specially trained prosecutors and three victim/witness assistants. In addition, the unit has utilized clinical legal interns and victim witness volunteers. The Director of the DV Unit prosecutes all Superior Court felonies and appeals. The other specially trained Assistant District Attorney is responsible for the more serious domestic violence cases pending in the Barnstable District Court. Cases in the other District Courts are prosecuted by the Assistant District Attorney assigned to that court under the direct supervision of the Director of the Domestic Violence Unit. The Director is also responsible for training the office staff.   The Director ultimately screens all DV cases for indictment.  

All cases should be vertically prosecuted.   Vertical prosecution refers to the assignment of the same Assistant District Attorney to a domestic violence case from pretrial hearing to trial. Prosecution by the DV Unit is focused only on domestic violence between intimate partners (as more fully defined below) rather than a broader category of family violence that involves violence between siblings, parents and children, or other relatives.

In addition to the direct prosecution of cases, the Director of the Unit is responsible for community outreach in the form of coordinating and otherwise working with community collaboratives and community education programs.   The District Attorney's office also provides ongoing training of the police departments located on the Cape and Islands.

Definitions of domestic violence

        Generally, domestic violence cases involve spouses, former spouses, cohabitants, or those in a dating relationship.   While domestic violence can be defined as a pattern of behavior of coercive control over an intimate partner, in criminal prosecution it is limited primarily to assaultive or threatening behavior. In the criminal context, "domestic violence" describes many kinds of criminal conduct ranging from murder under G.L. c. 265 §1 through stalking and other assaults contained in c.265, property crimes found in c.266, witness intimidation in c.268 §13b, and threats to commit a crime in c.275 §2-6.  

Nevertheless, it is important to remember the context of domestic violence represented by a single criminal event.   The context of behavior can take on many different forms of coercion and is grounded by the abuser's desire to control the victim.   The Power and Control Wheel, developed by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project, in Duluth, Minnesota, is a particularly helpful tool in understanding the overall pattern of abusive and violent behaviors used by batterers to establish and maintain control over their partner.   Very often, one or more violent incidents are accompanied by an array of these other types of abuse, less easily identified, but firmly establishing a pattern of intimidation and control.  

Throughout this protocol, victims may be identified as women because over 95% of the cases that the Domestic Violence Unit has handled involve male on female violence.   There is some evidence that domestic violence occurs just as frequently in gay or lesbian relationships as it does in heterosexual relationships.   Moreover, there have also been a handful of cases where a woman has engaged in coercive control over her male intimate partner.  

Goals of the prosecution

Domestic violence will be treated as a serious crime against the state and prosecuted fully to avoid continuation and escalation of the violence.   Special procedures shall be implemented to further the prosecution and achieve the goals of prosecution.   The goals are:

- To stop the violence.

-To protect the victim, children, and other family members.

- To hold the offender accountable for violent conduct and deter future violence.

- To manage any ongoing threat posed by the offender.

- To protect the public.

- To uphold legislative intent, as well as reinforce judicial guidelines, which treat domestic   violence as serious criminal conduct.

The domestic violence offender

Domestic violence offenders come from all ethnic, economic, and social categories.   They do not fit into a specific "personality profile." Their primary characteristic is that they batter their intimate partner as a means of maintaining power and control.

Usually battering occurs between a man and a woman, but gays and lesbians can be battered too.   Nevertheless, for a variety of reasons, 97% of the cases presented to the Cape and Islands District Attorney's office involve male defendants and female victims.   Below is a list of behaviors that are seen in people who beat their partners; the last four signs listed are battering, but many victims don't realize that this is the beginning of physical abuse.   If the person has several of the other behaviors (three or more) there is a strong potential for physical violence - the more signs a person has, the more likely the person is a batterer.

1.     jealousy

2.     controlling behavior

3.     quick involvement in or pressure to commit to the relationship

4.     unrealistic expectations

5.      isolation/cutting the person off from all support and resources

6.     blames others for his problems

7.     blames others for his feelings

8.     hypersensitivity

9.     cruelty to animals or children

10. "playful" use of force in sex

11.   verbal abuse

12.   rigid sex roles

13.   Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality/sudden mood changes

14.   past battering

15.   threats of violence

16.   breaking or striking objects

17.   any force during an argument

Without sanctions for the use of violence, the batterer will continue to use violence as an effective means of getting the victim to "behave" in a manner prescribed by the batterer.   Violence becomes the abuser's method of choice to achieve control because it works.

An abuser must first assume responsibility for his violence before he can stop it. Only then can he begin to develop a plan for changing his behavior. The batterer will not take responsibility for his violence if he believes it is caused by someone else.   Excusing a batterer's violence as something that may not have occurred if his partner had not made him so angry, or if he drank or drugged less only allows him to deny responsibility for his abusive behavior and continue his violence.   It also reinforces his belief that he is entitled to be violent.

The victim

Battered women, like offenders, come from all ethnic, economic, and social categories.   They do not fit into one specific "personality profile." Their common characteristic is that they are victims of assaults by their partners.   Contrary to popular mythology, many battered women are problem solvers and help seekers, as is evidenced by the numerous attempts they may have made in the past to stop the violence, or sever their relationship with the abuser.

A victim of domestic violence who calls the police has the same goal as the officer responding to the call, the prosecutor, and the court: to stop the violence.   While the court can attempt to stop the violence in the long run through its sentencing power and the issuance of civil protective orders, the victim's behavior during the criminal process may be aimed at avoiding the violence in the short term by stopping the batterer from carrying out his most recent threat.   Using a variety of strategies that may have worked in the past to avoid another physical assault, (i.e. agreeing with the perpetrator's denial and minimization of the violence in public, accepting promises that it will never happen again, requesting that all charges be dropped, that the court terminate any protective orders, not showing up to court hearings) the victim will again attempt to stop the violence, even if just temporarily.

The criminal justice system will be most effective if it anticipates concerns that the victim may have regarding testifying against the defendant, and provides her with the support she needs to address these concerns.

The reasons given by victims of domestic violence who are initially reluctant to testify are often the same as those given by victims of other types of violent crime.   These include:

- fear of retaliation by the defendant,

- unwillingness to face the assailant in the courtroom;

- feelings of shame or guilt that her own behavior may have caused the crime in some way or that the court may perceive the victim's behavior as causative.

- desire to put the whole incident behind her and move on with her life.

- denial, ambivalence, withdrawal and emotional swings as a result of being a victim of severe trauma.

The above reasons are often heightened for victims of domestic violence by the following realities:

- The defendant may be living, with the victim, be familiar with her daily routine, or have access to her at home, work, or at the homes of relatives or friends.   The existence of an intimate relationship between the defendant and the victim in these cases, creates a unique vulnerability resulting from the defendant's knowledge of details about the victim's life not found in cases where the defendant and victim are strangers.   The defendant may also have continuing access to the victim and her children through court sanctioned visitation.

- The victim may have nowhere to hide from the defendant.   Moving from home often means becoming hunted and homeless.   The victim may decide that life with the batterer is better than the unknown.

- The victim's past efforts to leave the perpetrator or to seek protection from the justice system may have resulted in further violence. The victim has learned that the defendant will follow through with his threats of retaliation for the victim's efforts to leave or to seek help from the justice system. Leaving is often the most dangerous time for a woman.  

- The victim and defendant may have children together, and she may believe his threats to kidnap the children if she testifies against him.   This is particularly true if the defendant is from another country or state and has threatened to take the children "home" with him.

- A victim/witness may not understand how the criminal justice system will respond to the violence, and may even be unaware that domestic violence is a crime.   Her only source of information may be the defendant.   The victim and/or children may be dependent on the defendant for economic support.   Thus, the victim may have conflicting feelings about the possibility that criminal justice intervention may result in incarceration of the defendant and the loss of support.   A clear explanation of the realities of the possible sentence and how prosecution can deter future acts of violence will alleviate some of the victim's anxiety about testifying against the defendant.   Appropriate referrals may alleviate some of the financial pressure.

- The victim may want to believe the defendant's promises that the physical abuse will never happen again.   In order for the batterer to change his behavior, however, he has to acknowledge that the violence is his responsibility, and he has to be willing to seek help from a domestic violence intervention program. The victim needs to be assured that her behavior will not change the defendant's behavior.   The defendant, and only the defendant, is responsible for his violence.   He determines if, and when, his abusive behavior will end.   Understanding this will help the victim separate her hope that the defendant will stop the violence from the reality of what is actually required for him to change his behavior.

- The victim's cultural or religious community, or family that have previously provided protection from abuse, may be threatening to withdraw their support and protection if the victim testifies. They may also share the erroneous belief that domestic violence is a private family affair that is best worked out privately between the victim and the batterer .

- In cases where the victim is an immigrant or refugee,

the defendant may be threatening to have her deported if she testifies.   Even when the victim's immigration status is not dependent on the defendant's petitioning for legal status, the victim may still believe his threats.   Immigrant and refugee battered women may not be familiar with the legal system in this country, and therefore may not understand that domestic violence is a crime.   They may not know that there are legal protections available here that may not exist in their country.

- The victim may believe that the intervention of the criminal justice system will not be effective in stopping the violence, or in protecting the victim and children.   This belief may be a result of past experience where the system failed to prevent the violence, or it may be based on the perpetrator's ability to convince the victim that "nothing" will stop him.   A domestic violence victim knows that law enforcement cannot provide constant protection.   She also knows that when she leaves the court she goes home alone without around the clock police protection.   She knows that even if the defendant is convicted he will someday be released from custody and may find her, her children, or her family.

Summary

The Cape and Islands District Attorney's Office Domestic Violence Unit is committed to the aggressive vertical prosecution of misdemeanor and felony domestic violence cases.   The use of victim /witness personnel with all victims of misdemeanor domestic violence is intended to increase positive dispositions through strong victim support and encouragement. We also work to impact public policy, increase public awareness, and develop community-based responses to domestic violence.   Domestic violence is not a private family matter.   It is not simply the result of alcohol or drugs.   Domestic violence is most often learned criminal behavior which society must condemn.   Through early intervention of community-based programs, law enforcement, and the criminal justice system domestic violence will be reduced with an overall reduction of other criminal behavior.