Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 17, 1995 TAG: 9503180014
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Should Virginia's laws also be toughened? Sure.
It was reasonable, nonetheless, for the 1995 General Assembly to ask a commission to study approaches adopted by other states. Some legislated strategies will be more effective, and less burdened with side effects, than others.
In at least 25 other states, police are now required to make an arrest when responding to domestic-violence calls if they have reason to believe abuse has occurred. They are required to take the suspect into custody, rather than wait for the situation to cool down.
Given past reluctance to make arrests in such cases, this policy makes a lot of sense. Too often, a suspect does not cool down, but becomes even more abusive the minute the patrol car pulls away. An immediate arrest gives a victim time to get away from the house, if necessary, to go to a relative's or a shelter for victims.
Immediate arrest might also convince abusers that law-enforcement officials view domestic violence as a serious crime. It would send a message that society no longer tolerates brutal, injurious behavior - whether on the streets or behind closed doors. This isn't always the message being sent today.
Some battered-women's organizations worry that automatic arrests of already-enraged individuals may in some cases drive them off the edge, possibly to even greater violence. Virginia's family-violence prevention study commission should look at this concern, and at what may be needed, such as special police training, to ameliorate mandatory-arrest policies.
Meanwhile, some law-enforcement officials and defense lawyers say it's not always clear who's the victim and who's the abuser. They argue it makes more sense for police to calm the combatants in their home enough to make an accurate assessment of who did what to whom. Mandatory arrest, says one opponent, ``is too simplistic of a solution. Whoever gets to the phone first and dials 911 is going to get the other person arrested.''
The commission should study this, too. But probable-cause requirements for making arrests would seem to lessen chances that the wrong person ends up in police custody. And it's important in any event that the criminality of violence, including within the home, be made clear.
Of course, mandatory-arrest laws deal mainly with domestic violence after the fact. They do little to get to the murky complexities of its causes. Because this is a growing problem in Virginia as elsewhere, the state study commission's focus is rightfully on prevention.
Yet, as Attorney General Jim Gilmore has said, one of the first challenges is to ``unlock the silence that shrouds this issue.''
The most pressing order of business on this issue in Virginia is for more education, and not just of the public. Police, prosecutors, judges and others within the criminal-justice system need to be brought up to speed on domestic abuse. Some changes in the law will be necessary, but even more necessary are attitude-changes among those on the safe side of the shroud.
by CNB