CRIME NEW POLICY HELPS BATTERED WIVES

The days when Dallas police officers turned a deaf ear to the screams of battered women may be over, say members of the City of Dallas Domestic Violence Task Force. It’s been a year now since the Dallas Police Department began to change its approach to family violence, and Donna Pope, executive director of the Genesis Women’s Shelter, says there have been marked improvements. Pope is just one member of the task force that was created when a lawsuit settled with the police department mandated changes in its policy.

Pope says her agency tabulates monthly how the police department handles calls. Under Texas law, police officers are required to give victims of family violence a “blue card” listing places to go for help. In June,’ she says, for the first time, 100 percent of the women who called the police on their bat-terer and who later contacted Genesis said they had been given a blue card.

“Initially,” says Pope, “we were having a problem with both parties [husband and wife] being arrested, but that’s been taken care of.”

Arrests of batterers have leveled off from last September’s high of 1,130 to July’s total of 998, while total calls for help from threatened women hit a new high in July of 2,748.

Dallas Police Captain Richard W. Hatler, a former member of the task force, says that on the average Dallas police are making on-site arrests in 39 to 40 percent of all domestic violence calls, which he believes is one of the highest rates of arrest in the country. The police department has created a Family Violence Unit staffed with eleven investigators and a sergeant. The case load is tremendous: each officer files reports on some 200 cases a month.

Though the criminal justice system has made headway, Pope and others still see room for improvement. Most batterers are still arrested for Class C Misdemeanors, a crime equivalent to petty shoplifting, which means they can pay a small fine in municipal court and be done with it. Few batterers are ever brought on more serious charges to criminal court, which is where many agency professionals who work with battered women maintain they belong.

“Still,” says Pope, “arrest has been shown to be the major deterrent. And in Dallas, on the average, these men are spending a day and a half in jail. Just the experience of being handcuffed and taken to jail can help.”

So can counseling, says Judge Randy Isenberg, whose County Criminal Court has been in a pilot counseling program since last September. To date, Isenberg has ordered twelve batterers into the counseling program for men at The Family Place as part of their sentence. Of those twelve cases from Isenberg’s court, there has been one “success’-one batterer who completed the twelve-week course and has not had another incident of battering.

“That may not sound like much,” says Isenberg, “but you do the best you can do. And if you can make one success story then you have made a difference.”