Report also finds system does not properly prosecute
offenders
By Lori Stuenkel
Gilroy – California’s criminal justice system is failing to enforce domestic violence laws and properly prosecute offenders, according to a report released by a state task force Wednesday.
Emergency protective orders are under-used, unnecessary burdens are placed on victims seeking protection, batterers are possessing firearms, and restraining orders are going unenforced, according to Attorney General Bill Lockyer’s “Task Force on Local Criminal Justice Response to Domestic Violence.”
Some counties in the state aren’t issuing restraining orders when domestic violence offenders are sentenced to probation, or ensuring that the orders are entered into the state’s restraining order system.
“The laws already on the books should be holding batterers accountable for their violent behavior, but the criminal justice system often fails to enforce them,” Lockyer said. “System fatigue is not an excuse for domestic abuse. We are going to shift a culture of complacency into a culture of compliance.”
Santa Clara County had 8,850 restraining orders in effect in 2003, according to the report. A year later, there were 9,576.
In some counties, as many as 50 percent of all domestic violence restraining orders issued are not served on the abuser, invalidating the order, the report said.
Chief Justice Ronald George blamed part of the problem on court system employees untrained in the law. Next month, George said, thousands of workers will receive Internet training about restraining orders and the state weapons database, among other things.
In Mono County, the worst violator, more than 52 percent of all domestic violence convictions did not find their way into the weapons database. Lake County was 33 percent. In the larger counties, San Francisco was 16.6 percent; Kern 16.1 percent and Santa Barbara 14.3 percent. Santa Clara was only 2 percent. Abusers are prohibited by law from possessing firearms.
“It was not possible to conclude whether the courts in these counties had failed to include firearm restrictions in their orders, or whether the recording agency, usually law enforcement, had entered the data incorrectly,” the report said.
When a gun is kept in a home where there is domestic violence, two-thirds of surveyed victims said their batterer used the gun to scare, threaten or harm her, according to a University of California, Los Angeles study cited in the report.
“Moreover, domestic violence is more likely to escalate to homicide when there are firearms in the home: domestic violence assaults with firearms are 12 times more likely to result in death than domestic violence assaults without firearms,” the report said.
George pledged the report “will not gather dust.”
The 26-member task force that included experts and leaders in law enforcement, the courts, victim advocacy, public health and the legislature, focused its investigation on 10 target counties, including Santa Clara.
Department of Justice domestic violence statistics show law enforcement agencies in the state received 186,439 domestic violence-related calls last year.
