Police: Estranged husband kills woman near shelter

[Mister Ed]

18. "We don't need any more battered womens' shelters!"

Every time I hear of yet another case like this, I'm reminded of the words of a police officer in Ohio who was quoted in a newspaper article I read about twenty years ago. This was before the days when everything was on the internet, so I can't provide a link. But his words lodged in my mind, and I can quote him so closely that it's almost verbatim.

A grizzled veteran of twenty years of working on battered-women's cases, he declared, "I'm sick and tired of always hearing about how we need more funding to build battered women's shelters. We don't need any more battered women's shelters.

"What we need is shelters for batterers. We need to get those shelters built and staffed, and we need to get the batterers into the shelters.

"Those shelters", he went on, "are commonly known as jails."

Ever since I read those lines, I've wondered to myself: why in the world - why in the world - do we confine the victims of a violent crime, and let the perpetrators roam free?