Roanoke police initiative cracks down on domestic violence
Det. Frank Leftwich, left, and Sgt. Will Drake investigate domestic violence. Photo: Rebecca Barnett
The Roanoke Times | August 27, 2014 | PDF and PDF
By Amy Friedenberger
Sgt. Will Drake asked himself a year ago whether domestic violence offenders were resisting the Roanoke Police Department’s best efforts.
“We know domestic violence has no socioeconomic boundaries, no racial boundaries,” Drake said of the department’s special victims unit. “It’s everywhere and in every neighborhood. Our consistent that we see is domestic violence.”
According to police data, the city responds to about 2,800 domestic violence calls each year, although last year that number jumped to 3,800 because the city started adding to the tally domestic disturbances that didn’t necessarily include physical violence.
Roanoke averages about nine homicides each year. Of those, Drake said, three to four are usually related to domestic violence. In 2011, three homicides were classified as intimate partner incidents involving a married couple, boyfriend and girlfriend or others in an intimate relationship. The city hasn’t reported any homicides this year.
After taking a look at the city’s stagnant domestic violence numbers, Drake said something needed to change.
The police department is launching the Domestic Violence Initiative, and officers are getting ready to deliver notifications to known domestic violence offenders to tell them they have two options: change their behavior or go to jail.
Right now, officers who respond to a domestic violence call arrive with a checklist they use to assess the situation, including questions about whether the suspect possesses a weapon or the victim has been seriously injured. Officers use those criteria to determine whether there is probable cause to make an arrest and obtain an emergency protective order, regardless of whether the victim wishes to prosecute.
Officers will continue to use those criteria, but they’ll add another piece of paper to their arsenal. With the department’s new initiative, offenders will be issued a warning and entered into a database of other known domestic violence offenders.
“This isn’t an effort to go out and arrest a bunch of people,” Drake said. “We’re truly trying to change communities.”
The department received training this year from Michigan State University for the Domestic Violence Initiative — which the special victims unit is overseeing — so that all officers know how the procedure works and how to maintain the database.
Based on criminal history and actions, police will identify offenders in four levels, from the D list to the A list. The D list is for those with no previous charges for domestic violence, and the A list identifies the most violent offenders with three or more domestic violence charges.
Depending on the level, police will respond with a certain notification, with D-listers receiving a letter warning them that they are on notice, while someone on the B list will get a meeting with law enforcement and any other relevant community members, such as domestic violence service providers, to discuss their behavior and its consequences. The key, police say, is focusing on the offenders early and communicating with them face to face, eliminating the walls that keep domestic violence a hidden crime.
“We’ll approach the offender and say, ‘We know what you’re doing, and the violence needs to stop,’ ” Drake said.
Focused deterrence
Roanoke imported the Domestic Violence Initiative from High Point, North Carolina, which has experienced success with the strategy since the police department enacted it five years ago.
In 2008, before the initiative started, more than 5,000 disturbances were reported, and domestic violence was the leading type of call for service in High Point.
High Point Police Chief Marty Sumner wanted to curtail the violence and change the community’s attitude.
“There are a lot of laws intended to protect victims,” said Sumner, a 25-year High Point veteran. “We needed a realistic approach to make the offenders stop.”
It’s all about shifting the burden of addressing violence from victims to abusers and applying a focused deterrence, Sumner said.
The lead designer of the domestic violence initiative is David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, who describes focused deterrence as the idea that a small number of criminals are responsible for a majority of the violent crimes, and that offenders will react rationally when presented with options.
“If a woman is at chronic risk of someone whose name we know, then she should not be required to turn her life inside out and put herself at additional stress and risk to remove herself from him,” Kennedy said. “The responsibility should be for him to stop what he’s doing.”
He created similar systems for drugs, gang and drug violence, which have generated positive results and national attention.
Roanoke police applied the model to known drug trafficking areas toward the end of 2011 with its Drug Market Initiative. Police offer nonviolent drug dealers the option to stop dealing or go to jail. In 2013, crimes against persons, from physical assault to stalking, declined 32 percent in the Hurt Park neighborhood and 19 percent in the Melrose neighborhood — the two areas that have been the focus of DMI efforts.
Changing police response
Does telling offenders to stop the abuse work? High Point’s Sumner has a penchant for data, so he points to that as an indicator of the strategy’s success.
Before 2009, 33 percent of homicides in the city of 100,000 were related to intimate partner violence, nearly double the national average of 16.3 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Since the shift to the new strategy, that percentage has dropped to 6 percent.
From 2009 to 2013, after the initiative was implemented, only one of 16 homicides in High Point was categorized as intimate partner violence.
Of the roughly 1,000 offenders on the department’s list, the re-offense rate is about 9 percent, well below the national average of 20 to 34 percent for those types of offenders, Sumner said.
“It was about changing our response, taking it seriously at all levels, and earlier,” Sumner said. “I don’t see why all cities can’t replicate this because this is not a problem unique to High Point.”
The Rev. Jim Summey used to hit the streets of High Point himself, talking to drug dealers and other criminals.
That was before the city adopted the initiatives to address its gun, drug, prostitution and domestic violence problems. As executive director of the nonprofit organization High Point Community Against Violence, Summey represented a voice in the community.
“This city is so much different now because of all of these initiatives,” Summey said. “We’ll still have some trouble, but this city is so much more safe now than it was back then.”
Emphasis on help
Where Roanoke’s model will slightly differ from High Point’s is in a bigger nudge for offenders to seek help. The Roanoke Police Department will be connected with various resources, including Family Service of Roanoke Valley, so officers will know if offenders are being proactive about trying to change their violent behavior.
Karen Pillis, Family Service’s director of youth development, said the organization will be a point of contact for the police department when officers refer offenders to seek help, but she was uncertain whether many offenders would seek its treatment services.
“Oftentimes people who are involved in violent relationships — the offenders — need an incentive to get treatment,” said Pillis, who supports the initiative. “Sometimes it takes more encouragement to get them to understand the damage they’re doing to themselves and others.”
Annette Lewis, senior vice president of programs and the director of Total Action for Progress’ This Valley Works, was initially concerned that if the offenders were angered that police were keeping tabs on them, it would spur additional safety risks for victims. TAP provides a variety of services to domestic violence victims, including crisis intervention, legal assistance and emergency housing.
The police in High Point have assuaged Lewis’ fears. Sumner said they’ve worked with victim advocates and found that, with repeat calls to police, violence declined and women said they were more likely to call police once they knew officers would do something.
Sumner and Drake said it’s important that offenders are aware it’s not the victims who are attracting the police attention, but the offenders themselves.
“These guys do not like having it pointed out to them that they’re a domestic violence offender,” Sumner said. “The police will point out that it has nothing to do with the victim, because the offender needs to hear that the victim has nothing to do with the response and that their behavior is not acceptable.”
Roanoke Councilman Sherman Lea, who has been vocal about family violence, is already praising the police department for adopting the initiative to address domestic violence beyond its current efforts.
“Ultimately, we’re saying that if you continue to commit these crimes, we’re going to prosecute you,” Lea said. “You need to be in jail, and not in our community.”
By Amy Friedenberger
Sgt. Will Drake asked himself a year ago whether domestic violence offenders were resisting the Roanoke Police Department’s best efforts.
“We know domestic violence has no socioeconomic boundaries, no racial boundaries,” Drake said of the department’s special victims unit. “It’s everywhere and in every neighborhood. Our consistent that we see is domestic violence.”
According to police data, the city responds to about 2,800 domestic violence calls each year, although last year that number jumped to 3,800 because the city started adding to the tally domestic disturbances that didn’t necessarily include physical violence.
Roanoke averages about nine homicides each year. Of those, Drake said, three to four are usually related to domestic violence. In 2011, three homicides were classified as intimate partner incidents involving a married couple, boyfriend and girlfriend or others in an intimate relationship. The city hasn’t reported any homicides this year.
After taking a look at the city’s stagnant domestic violence numbers, Drake said something needed to change.
The police department is launching the Domestic Violence Initiative, and officers are getting ready to deliver notifications to known domestic violence offenders to tell them they have two options: change their behavior or go to jail.
Right now, officers who respond to a domestic violence call arrive with a checklist they use to assess the situation, including questions about whether the suspect possesses a weapon or the victim has been seriously injured. Officers use those criteria to determine whether there is probable cause to make an arrest and obtain an emergency protective order, regardless of whether the victim wishes to prosecute.
Officers will continue to use those criteria, but they’ll add another piece of paper to their arsenal. With the department’s new initiative, offenders will be issued a warning and entered into a database of other known domestic violence offenders.
“This isn’t an effort to go out and arrest a bunch of people,” Drake said. “We’re truly trying to change communities.”
The department received training this year from Michigan State University for the Domestic Violence Initiative — which the special victims unit is overseeing — so that all officers know how the procedure works and how to maintain the database.
Based on criminal history and actions, police will identify offenders in four levels, from the D list to the A list. The D list is for those with no previous charges for domestic violence, and the A list identifies the most violent offenders with three or more domestic violence charges.
Depending on the level, police will respond with a certain notification, with D-listers receiving a letter warning them that they are on notice, while someone on the B list will get a meeting with law enforcement and any other relevant community members, such as domestic violence service providers, to discuss their behavior and its consequences. The key, police say, is focusing on the offenders early and communicating with them face to face, eliminating the walls that keep domestic violence a hidden crime.
“We’ll approach the offender and say, ‘We know what you’re doing, and the violence needs to stop,’ ” Drake said.
Focused deterrence
Roanoke imported the Domestic Violence Initiative from High Point, North Carolina, which has experienced success with the strategy since the police department enacted it five years ago.
In 2008, before the initiative started, more than 5,000 disturbances were reported, and domestic violence was the leading type of call for service in High Point.
High Point Police Chief Marty Sumner wanted to curtail the violence and change the community’s attitude.
“There are a lot of laws intended to protect victims,” said Sumner, a 25-year High Point veteran. “We needed a realistic approach to make the offenders stop.”
It’s all about shifting the burden of addressing violence from victims to abusers and applying a focused deterrence, Sumner said.
The lead designer of the domestic violence initiative is David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, who describes focused deterrence as the idea that a small number of criminals are responsible for a majority of the violent crimes, and that offenders will react rationally when presented with options.
“If a woman is at chronic risk of someone whose name we know, then she should not be required to turn her life inside out and put herself at additional stress and risk to remove herself from him,” Kennedy said. “The responsibility should be for him to stop what he’s doing.”
He created similar systems for drugs, gang and drug violence, which have generated positive results and national attention.
Roanoke police applied the model to known drug trafficking areas toward the end of 2011 with its Drug Market Initiative. Police offer nonviolent drug dealers the option to stop dealing or go to jail. In 2013, crimes against persons, from physical assault to stalking, declined 32 percent in the Hurt Park neighborhood and 19 percent in the Melrose neighborhood — the two areas that have been the focus of DMI efforts.
Changing police response
Does telling offenders to stop the abuse work? High Point’s Sumner has a penchant for data, so he points to that as an indicator of the strategy’s success.
Before 2009, 33 percent of homicides in the city of 100,000 were related to intimate partner violence, nearly double the national average of 16.3 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Since the shift to the new strategy, that percentage has dropped to 6 percent.
From 2009 to 2013, after the initiative was implemented, only one of 16 homicides in High Point was categorized as intimate partner violence.
Of the roughly 1,000 offenders on the department’s list, the re-offense rate is about 9 percent, well below the national average of 20 to 34 percent for those types of offenders, Sumner said.
“It was about changing our response, taking it seriously at all levels, and earlier,” Sumner said. “I don’t see why all cities can’t replicate this because this is not a problem unique to High Point.”
The Rev. Jim Summey used to hit the streets of High Point himself, talking to drug dealers and other criminals.
That was before the city adopted the initiatives to address its gun, drug, prostitution and domestic violence problems. As executive director of the nonprofit organization High Point Community Against Violence, Summey represented a voice in the community.
“This city is so much different now because of all of these initiatives,” Summey said. “We’ll still have some trouble, but this city is so much more safe now than it was back then.”
Emphasis on help
Where Roanoke’s model will slightly differ from High Point’s is in a bigger nudge for offenders to seek help. The Roanoke Police Department will be connected with various resources, including Family Service of Roanoke Valley, so officers will know if offenders are being proactive about trying to change their violent behavior.
Karen Pillis, Family Service’s director of youth development, said the organization will be a point of contact for the police department when officers refer offenders to seek help, but she was uncertain whether many offenders would seek its treatment services.
“Oftentimes people who are involved in violent relationships — the offenders — need an incentive to get treatment,” said Pillis, who supports the initiative. “Sometimes it takes more encouragement to get them to understand the damage they’re doing to themselves and others.”
Annette Lewis, senior vice president of programs and the director of Total Action for Progress’ This Valley Works, was initially concerned that if the offenders were angered that police were keeping tabs on them, it would spur additional safety risks for victims. TAP provides a variety of services to domestic violence victims, including crisis intervention, legal assistance and emergency housing.
The police in High Point have assuaged Lewis’ fears. Sumner said they’ve worked with victim advocates and found that, with repeat calls to police, violence declined and women said they were more likely to call police once they knew officers would do something.
Sumner and Drake said it’s important that offenders are aware it’s not the victims who are attracting the police attention, but the offenders themselves.
“These guys do not like having it pointed out to them that they’re a domestic violence offender,” Sumner said. “The police will point out that it has nothing to do with the victim, because the offender needs to hear that the victim has nothing to do with the response and that their behavior is not acceptable.”
Roanoke Councilman Sherman Lea, who has been vocal about family violence, is already praising the police department for adopting the initiative to address domestic violence beyond its current efforts.
“Ultimately, we’re saying that if you continue to commit these crimes, we’re going to prosecute you,” Lea said. “You need to be in jail, and not in our community.”
