NEWSDOMESTIC VIOLENCE

The good news: domestic violence arrests were up by 7% in New York City between 2009 and 2010, while indictments were up by 36% over the same period.

Unfortunately, while more batterers being held accountable is undoubtedly a good thing, advocates say the higher rate of arrest corresponds with an increase in the overall occurrence of domestic violence. That's bad news. According to Ruth Villonga, spokeswoman for the Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence, the New York Family Justice Center currently sees a hundred more people a week seeking domestic violence services compared to last year.

West Virgina has something to celebrate: the passage of Celena's Law, which will provide new protections for domestic violence victims and tools for prosecutors to go after abusers. Nearly 700 Change.org members signed the petition to West Virginia lawmakers, and Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin finally signed the bill into law late last month, closing a loophole that allowed domestic abuse perpetrators to get off -- like Celena Roby's husband.

The bill's journey into law is an inspiring one: after watching her husband admit to confining her against her will, yet still walk out a free man because that offense wasn't covered by domestic abuse or kidnapping law (because he wasn't demanding a ransom), Celena Roby began mulling over a way to help women in her situation. Celena's Law began with a few notes jotted down on a post-it during her lunch break. Now, it's an official piece of law that creates a misdemeanor offense of unlawful restraint.

Last November, an Idaho court dismissed criminal charges against two men who were accused of raping a woman, due to the very specific and discriminatory wording in the state's rape statute.

At the time, subsection 7 of Idaho Code 18-6101 defined rape of a woman by deceit and concealment as unlawful if the she is penetrated after being tricked into believing that the perpetrator is her husband. The language of the law failed to include scenarios where rape by deceit occurred outside of marriage -- in the recent case, another man impersonated the woman's boyfriend. Thanks to one word in the law, a woman was denied the chance for justice, and must bear her injuries without fair legal recourse.

Shortly after this story broke on Change.org, thousands circulated and signed our petition urging Idaho legislators to correct this broken law, and the legislators listened.

Though it is sickening that such a case had to happen to bring about legal changes, it is heartening that such a change did occur in a relatively quick manner and without objection. On March 3rd, Idaho Governor "Butch" Otter signed Senate Bill 1014, which added more inclusive language to the rape statue.

With the West Virigina House in the bag, the next stop for Celena's Law is the state Senate. And it should power on through without much trouble.

Last week, the WV House of Delegates unanimously voted to strengthen law enforcement's ability to prosecute domestic violence perpetrators. "Celena's Law" is named for Celena Roby, a survivor of years of domestic abuse who sought to prosecute her husband after being held captive in their home. Yet though her violent spouse admitted to a judge that he'd held her against her will, he went free, due to the judge's decision that Roby didn't fear being harmed enough and a loophole in state kidnapping law. The new bill, originally penned by Roby on a Post-it, would create a new misdemeanor charge of unlawful restraint, pulling that loophole closed. Had this law existed previously, her husband would have been guilty.

When Bridgett Wright decided to end a relationship with Russell Swigart, he started bombarding her with threatening text messages. Then, one day, Swigart broke into Bridgett's Kentucky home, wielding a large hunting knife. He didn't find Bridgett, who had fortunately gone out of town, so he attacked her cats, stabbing the beloved pets to death. His text messages told Bridgett he wanted her dead and described his horrific deed. It seems likely that he intended her mutilated corpse to be the one lying on the floor. After being sentenced to twelve years jail for the pet killing, Swigart is up for parole after only two-and-a-half years — so Bridgett has launched a petition with almost 4,000 signatures thus far to keep him behind bars.

Domestic abusers use their victims' love for their pets against them, torturing or killing the cat or dog to hurt, intimidate, and threaten the owner. As Pamela Black writes on Change.org's Animals cause, the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has found that an animal abuser is five times more likely to go after a human target. And Swigart is a repeat offender: in another domestic violence conviction from 1997, he put his victim's cat in a shoebox and turned a shotgun on it after she moved out, then made her look at her pet's corpse while saying that he would killer her, too. In two other instances, he severely beat dogs or cats as an attack on the women owners. These are major warning signals that Swigart poses a serious danger to society

Celena Roby's abuser admitted to the judge that he had confined his wife and held her against her will, but he was nonetheless able to walk out of the courtroom a free man. Roby says the judge decided he was not guilty because she wasn't afraid enough of being harmed, even though this was a pattern of abuse, both physical assault and restraint, that had gone on for 11 years. "This is why women don't leave," Roby told the arresting officer. She said she was cut off from having friends, and felt like she was being kept in a "three-bedroom prison."

But Roby did leave, The Charleston Gazette reports, after her seven-year-old son, having seen her head smashed into the wall, thought that his mother should have just answered her abuser's question more quickly so as to escape harm. And then she decided to do something about this miscarriage of justice. That's when she came up with Celena's Law.

Celena's Law is modeled on legislation in 38 states that makes unlawful restraint a misdemeanor. In West Virginia, where Roby lives, kidnapping is a felony, but only applies to restraint intended to obtain a "concession" (ransom), which doesn't apply to domestic abuse situations. Which means that a domestic violence perpetrator, like Roby's husband, can stroll into a courtroom, admit to restraining his wife against her will, and walk out again a free man and confessed abuser. And it means that prosecutors have fewer ways to go after domestic violence perpetrators.

The Tennessean reports that the Nashville police force allows officers with domestic violence charges to keep their jobs.

The paper reports: "At least 10 Metro Police officers have been arrested on domestic violence charges in the last five years. Eight of those were allowed to keep their jobs after their arrests, and the remaining two cases are pending." The maximum punishment was an eight-day suspension.

If their convictions actually went through, then they would be kicked off the force, Nashville Police promised. This is probably true, because it's hard to get around: federal law prohibits anyone convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor to possess a firearm. But it's difficult to obtain a conviction in domestic violence cases, and all of these men got off. That doesn't make inaction by the police force acceptable: once under arrest for domestic abuse and with charges pending, an officer should not be able to continue to work and carry his gun.

Since domestic violence calls are common, it's worth wondering how a policeman who has been violent with this own family will respond to such a situation. It's especially troubling coming just months after a report that the Nashville police don't seem to take domestic abuse very seriously. As I wrote then, "In 2005, [Nashville] police cleared 211 cases without making an arrest. One year later, the number jumped to 3,866, and by 2009, it was 5,600." Clearly, there's something serious going on that is causing the department to prematurely close and dismiss thousands of cases -- sometimes with fatal results.

This case illustrates precisely how harsh anti-immigrant laws do so much harm: a domestic violence victim faces deportation because she called the police to report abuse. Instead of addressing the real crime — violence against women — this country would rather expend its resources to detain and deport a hardworking mother for the administrative offense of not being authorized in this country, in the process making domestic abuse victims even more vulnerable.

Bolanos is not a threat to anyone in this country, yet she was put into removal proceedings due to Secure Communities, a program under which local law enforcement reports on the immigration status of anybody charged with a crime to federal authorities. The program is supposed to protect the American people by removing dangerous criminals who happen to be undocumented immigrants from our country, except that few of these oh-so-scary criminals are actually serious offenders. In fact, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) admits that a major chunk of the deportees are guilty of nothing more than entering the country without authorization or overstaying a visa.

Bolanos' great crime? Concerned for her safety during a heated fight with her partner, 28-year-old Maria Bolanos called the police. Then, according to the Washington Post, law enforcement charged her "with illegally selling a $10 phone card to a neighbor." Oh my, what a criminal mastermind, I'm shaking in my boots. Bolanos denied the charge and it was dropped, but she was already entered into removal proceedings, to become one of the many immigrants deported with the aid of taxpayer dollars for simply being in the country sans authorization.

I hope you've all recovered from your tryptophan comas, because it's time to get back to work. While we were eating, celebrating, and watching my precious Pats stuff the Detroit Lions like a turkey, the Rutger's Center for Women's Global Leadership kicked off their 16 day campaign against gender-based violence. Did you know November 25 was International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women? Yeah, me neither.

Fortunately, we have a few more days to take action, beginning today with International Women Human Rights Defenders Day and culminating on December 10 with International Human Rights Day. The campaign ends on International Human Rights Day to link gender-based violence with human rights and to show that gender-based violence is a violation of human rights.

Across the world, participants will be holding vigils, marches, and other peaceful, nonviolent demonstrations to challenge militarism and end violence against women, strengthen women's leadership to promote peace and realize human rights for all to achieve genuine security. Event organizers are encouraged to add two additional, more locals goals. You can find local and online events at the campaign calendar.

Personally, I never thought much about militarism or the military industrial complex and how it might relate to gender-based violence. The global call to action explains that militarism is a way of looking at the world that influences how we see our families, neighbors, public life, and other people in the world. In essence, it's an ideology of fear that supports the use of violence to settle disputes. Sounds like our health care reform "debate," Republican/Tea Party, Fox "news," and that Alaskan woman with the dancing daughter.

When I was growing up, my mom's friends always assumed I'd end up a lawyer. It makes sense that a smart girl with a passion for justice might choose to fight for equality through legal means; however, disillusionment with the criminal (in)justice system quickly set in when I learned that many women in prison for murder are there because they killed their abuser. The courts simply refuse to see long-term physical and emotional trauma at the hands of another person as a justification for self-defense. As I recently told my mom's boss, "You have to believe the system works in order to fight within it, and I believe our system is broken beyond repair."

Filmmaker Olivia Klaus doesn't share my cynicism. But she does share my passion to advocate for systemic change. Her film Sin by Silence documents the stories of several women imprisoned in the California Institution for Women who participate in Convicted Women Against Abuse (CWAA), a group "created in 1989 to help women inside prison break the silence about abuse and learn more about what they need to do to help others stop the cycle of violence." I spoke with Klaus about the impact her film is having on the rights of these imprisoned women.

How did you come to make this film?

When I started this journey, I never intended to make a film. I intended to help a friend who had finally opened up about what was happening in her marriage. Until then, domestic violence was a problem that happened to other people. My mind started racing for ways to fix things, yet I realized I was completely helpless. I had no answers and no solutions, but knew I had to do something!

What started as a journey to help a friend transformed into an effort to help many. I learned about CWAA from my colleague Elizabeth Leonard, author of Convicted Survivors, and I learned more from the women of CWAA than any textbook could teach me. They are the real experts on the issues of abusive relationships; they lived, breathed, and survived violence. And what better way to reach people's hearts and minds than through the power of film?!

Your film mentions the link between the violence these women experienced at the hands of their abusers and the violence inflicted upon them by the state through incarceration. Can you talk about how the two are connected?

The women in Sin by Silence replaced the prison of their abusive relationship with an actual prison of incarceration. It has been estimated that up to 80% of female prisoners have suffered from some form of abuse prior to incarceration. These women experienced abuse in their childhood, dating relationships, and on through their marriage; now they continue to be abused by an unjust system.