Billions
have now been spent establishing
shelters for battered women. Such
shelters can presently be found in
virtually all metropolitan areas. We
think few begrudge money used to
provide a safe haven for women and
children in distress. Any society
that is to survive must make the
safety of pregnant women and
children one of its first
priorities. However, there are
increasing questions about the
effectiveness of battered women's
shelters, both in terms of cost,
results, and credibility.
In an
effort to rectify the abuses and
preserve the benefits of shelters,
the EJF presents an
extensive list of problems
in the hope that the
veil of secrecy
that covers and condones such
corruption can be lifted and the
problems corrected. Toward that end
the work, presented below, of True
Equality Network, and its president
Terri Lynn Tersak, is a very welcome
addition.
Charles E.
Corry, Ph.D., F.G.S.A.
Shelters Of Ill Repute
Used with permission of the
author
Jane Williamson (not her real
name) is just one woman who was
victimized by the failure of the
domestic violence support system.
Jane suffered repeated blows to the
side of her head. She went to an
abuse shelter, complained about
ringing in her right ear and blurred
vision in her eye. The shelter staff
was unable to detect any visible
signs of her partner's assault. They
told her the symptoms would soon
clear up, then sent her off to see a
psychiatrist.
Within a few days Jane became
deaf in that ear and blind in one
eye. She will never recover her
senses. Her attacker never saw a
single minute in jail, nor did he
pay a cent toward her medical bills.
Sadly, cases like Jane's are
common. Indeed, the majority of
nearly 10,000 women who work with
the
True Equality Network have been
in Jane Williamson's shoes
themselves - beaten and forgotten.
I encounter a frightening number
of victims of severe battery who
recount an eerily similar story;
they went through the courts and
almost immediately things got worse
for them.
I have experienced this myself,
personally. The way things operate
today you are better off leaving
town and changing your name than
dialing 911 after being beaten by an
intimate partner. An expansive
annotated list of government and
academic studies supporting this
concern is in the article
Domestic Violence Awareness Month
by Richard L. Davis.
Profiting from DV one way or
another
If a woman does seek shelter, as
so widely touted by the DV ads, what
is likely to happen?
True Equality Network conducted
an abuse shelter investigation in
twenty-one states. This
investigation involves having women
go to a shelter saying she needs
help. The laws
in most states permit women to stay
in a shelter for 72 hours without
filing a complaint to cover the
needs of those who "escape"
during weekend and holiday periods
when the courts are closed. This
open period of access was used to
learn how the shelter operates
without filing a complaint.
After only a few months this
investigation uncovered illegal
operations, including shelters
operating prostitution services,
drug dealing, and shelter staffers
arranging to have the shelter
clients provide sexual favors to law
enforcement officers in exchange for
the officers' perjured testimony in
court. In one eastern state our
investigator made an anonymous tip
to the local law enforcement agency
that resulted in the arrest of two
sheriffs deputies working as pimps
for a prostitution service.
The women of True Equality
Network have spent almost five years
in the courthouses of 97 counties
across 17 states. During this period
they have interviewed over 15,000
plaintiffs in domestic violence
cases just before they entered the
courtroom. The overwhelming number
of those interviewed did not attempt
to mask the real reasons they filed
a domestic violence charge: control,
money, and revenge - for everything
you could possibly imagine -
everything, that is, except acts of
domestic violence.
Subsequently, True Equality
Network asked prominent members of
the counties in which the plaintiff
surveys were conducted to interview
the judges who heard these cases.
Every single one of the judges
interviewed corroborated the study's
findings of pervasive levels of
false claims of domestic violence in
their court. These judges also state
they know that the attorneys in
these cases - including
Legal Services Corporation
grantees - are suborning perjury by
scripting the statements of these
women. Moreover, they expressed
concern that their district
attorneys were not prosecuting these
acts.
Violence Against Women Act: The
fast food of law
If misery loves company then the
one success of VAWA has been to make
sure victims of extreme domestic
brutalities have plenty of
company.
As I reflect on my own experiences
with domestic violence and the
pretense of help our abuse system
claims to offer, I find myself
grieving most for today's victims.
As the years pass, our domestic
violence systems under the
Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)
offer less and less help to the most
severely battered, but ever
increasing rewards for those who
manipulate the systems.
Why do we not only keep such a
failure operating, but also expand
its influence and funding year after
year? I believe it follows the same
logic as our society's affinity for
fast food - instant gratification.
It is quick, easy to get, and
satisfies an immediate desire.
However, that satisfaction is
hollow and short lived, and often
creates unintended, unexpected
problems for truly battered women
and men. Meanwhile, the promoters
make a fortune selling their
ineffective and often harmful
product. In order to keep the money
rolling in, they must actively
promote it to keep people believing
in it, wanting it, and convinced it
is a good thing for everyone,
irrespective of the facts. To these
ends, each year we dedicate a month
to promote everything the
Violence Against Women Act
pretends to bring us, under the
guise of protecting women from abuse
and providing help to those that
have suffered it.
Money is the root of this evil
American taxpayers support the VAWA and
other domestic violence programs to
the tune of more than $1 billion a
year. So what's gone wrong?
Individuals who file false or
trivial claims of domestic violence
are accorded the same standing by
the abuse shelters, law enforcement,
and courts as the most seriously
battered women. In a system rife
with fraudulent claims, it is easy
to understand why the Jane
Williamson's of the world are being
silenced while abuse shelters, law
enforcement personnel, and social
welfare programs are profiting
handsomely.
Prior to the July 19, 2005
Senate Judiciary Committee hearing
for the reauthorization of VAWA,
many people, including myself, tried
to tell our side about the failures
of VAWA. Several scientists with
decades of experience studying the
dynamics of intimate partner
violence also asked to testify at
this hearing. However, even after
running
full-page ads in the Washington
D.C. based newspapers expressing our
concerns, we were all denied time to
speak at the hearing.
So who did testify? A retired
NBA basketball legend, a movie star,
and a vice president of a cosmetics
company. If these are qualifications
the U.S. Senate considers
appropriate for someone to testify
as an expert witness on the subject
matter of VAWA, whom would they
invite to testify about violence on
prime time TV? A few Tibetan
monks perhaps?
The existing system must be
solving some concern or no one would
support it. Then whom does it help
and in what ways?
It is well known and
documented that false allegations of
domestic violence have long been the
tactical weapon of choice to gain
advantage in divorce and custody
cases. This provides financial
rewards not just to the women, but
also to the states through a vast
array of federal funding sources,
many of which have nothing to do
with domestic violence. Examples
include increased incentives from
federal child support collection
funding, TANF, HUD and many others,
giving the states as much incentive
to perpetuate the fraud as those
that are actually perpetrating it.
The bottom line is our abuse
support system seems to be
supporting everyone except the
severely abused. They have no
shelter.
_______________________________________
Terri Lynn Tersak is a
professional commercial
photographer, the President and CEO
of True Equality Network, and a
member of the Steering and
Legislative Committees for the
Maryland based think-tank, RADAR -
Respecting Accuracy in Domestic
Abuse Reporting.
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http://www.ejfi.org/Civilization/Civilization.htm
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______________________________________________
Charles E. Corry, Ph.D., F.G.S.A.
President
Equal Justice Foundation http://www.ejfi.org/
455 Bear Creek Road
Colorado Springs, Colorado
80906-5820
Personal home page: http://corry.ws
Curriculum vitae: http://www.marquiswhoswho.net/charleselmocorry/Default.aspx
The good
men may do separately is small
compared with what they may do
collectively.
Benjamin
Franklin
More on
domestic Violence:
A mega collection of studies
here:
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
There are some very interesting
numbers from the VAWA/DOJ study
here:
http://www.batteredmen.com/batrNVAWf.htm
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