The John Locke Foundation’s Donna Martinez recently spoke with Beth Froehling, public policy director of the NC Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which reports that more than 50 people have died so far this year in North Carolina in apparent domestic violence incidents. (Go to http://carolinajournal.com/cjradio/ to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.
Martinez: Beth, I have to say I was very, very surprised when I started looking at these statistics. Does the number surprise you, or is this just information that I perhaps wasn’t aware of?
Froehling: Well, unfortunately, I think a lot of people are not aware of these numbers and our coalition has been tracking domestic violence homicides since 2002. And since that time, 354 people in our state have been killed as a result of domestic violence. And so this is something that we are really hoping more people will become aware of so that we can work on ending this problem in our state.
Martinez: Now recently there was a very high-profile, unfortunate and sad case that occurred in western North Carolina, where a lady was shot and killed while she was actually inside a shelter for battered women. Is there a typical profile of a typical victim of domestic violence? Are these things occurring in shelters? Is it occurring in homes? Give us a sense of this.
Froehling: There actually is no typical profile of a victim. Domestic violence can happen to anyone anywhere. It happens to all socio-economic levels, all races, and this is the first homicide that had ever happened inside a shelter in North Carolina, and we heard that the offender has been found and he apparently has committed suicide. Most homicides happen either inside the home or, most commonly, the homicide happens when the victim tries to leave the relationship. So the victim is at the highest risk when they try to leave the relationship. And I think that is important for people to understand because we often hear, “Why doesn’t the victim just leave the relationship?”
Martinez: Exactly.
Froehling: And that often is the reason why.
Martinez: I was very surprised by that piece of information as well because I think that in a lot of people’s minds that would solve a lot of the problem — hey, if someone is being that abusive to you, why don’t you just leave? So what is a person to do then, knowing that piece of information — that you are in danger if you stay, and you are in danger if you leave.
Froehling: Right. Well, there are approximately 90 domestic violence programs across the state that serve all 100 counties in North Carolina. And we would encourage people to reach out to those programs for services. There is crisis counseling 24 hours a day. As a matter of fact, last year in North Carolina over 104,000 crisis line calls were answered by those 24-hour hotlines. So there is crisis counseling available, there is court advocacy services, there are support groups, there are resources in every community that people can access, and so if there is safety planning put in place, then oftentimes that can make a real crucial difference in trying to plan out someone’s recourses and how they can leave that relationship safely. But a victim is going to know really what is safest for her to do in that situation. And every abuser is not going to be lethal, but it is very hard to determine which cases are going to be lethal and which ones aren’t.
Martinez: You mention the word “she.” Now I would say that, primarily, this does happen to women, but it happens to men as well.
Froehling: That’s correct, that’s correct. The majority of cases do impact female victims of domestic violence — probably 90 percent to 95 percent of the cases, the research shows. But men are also victims of domestic violence. Children are also involved in these cases. So it really does impact everyone, but primarily, women are victims of domestic violence.
Martinez: Let’s talk about this from a public policy perspective. The General Assembly created a committee to take a look at this. What was happening last session of the General Assembly in terms of progress in that committee? Was there any legislation that ended up being passed?
Froehling: The Joint Legislative Committee on Domestic Violence did introduce legislation last session. Unfortunately that did not pass. But just to back up a few years, North Carolina has made a lot of progress in legislation addressing domestic violence, and the Joint Legislative Committee on Domestic Violence was created through legislation that a special committee in the House passed in 2004. There was a House Select Committee on Domestic Violence that was created in 2003, and they passed a very comprehensive package of legislation in 2004 in House Bill 1354. And that had about 20 provisions included in it that really put North Carolina on the map in terms of addressing domestic violence. And one of the last things that they did, was pass a bill that created this permanent joint committee on domestic violence, and we are really looking forward to this next long session in 2007 to see what legislation the joint committee will introduce again in the long session. We are very optimistic that they will be able to pass legislation in the long session.
Martinez: Before we get to the long session, give us a quick sense of this. As I understand it, one of the things that was addressed by the General Assembly had to do with the issue of strangulation.
Froehling: Yes, that was one of the pieces that was included in that House Bill 1354 back in 2004. And that was a very significant piece of legislation that made strangulation a felony crime in North Carolina. And at that time, we were the third state in the country to pass such legislation. Strangulation is a very serious type of behavior that many abusers will use to terrorize or intimidate their victims that often leads to lethal behavior. And it was being treated as a misdemeanor in North Carolina — as a misdemeanor assault. This created a separate felony crime, so now this behavior is treated much more seriously by our courts, and we are seeing that it is charged much more often now as a felony crime, and the Administrative Office of the Courts has those statistics now. I don’t have that in front of me, but there have been many convictions now under that new crime in North Carolina. So we are very excited about that.
Martinez: Well Beth, as we wind down here, give us a sense of your top legislative priority for the next General Assembly session. Is there one thing that stands out that you really would like to see the General Assembly address?
Froehling: Yes. We would really like to see addressed — and this is something that the Joint Legislative Committee has already looked at — we would like to see violations of protective orders taken much more seriously and that a conviction, a subsequent conviction, be treated as a felony for violation of a protective order.