Police: Estranged husband kills woman near shelter

[happyslug]

21. Often is it the case of proving beyond a reasonable doubt a crime occurred.

Remember, in most abuse cases, the Defendant (the abuser) often says all he was doing was defending himself from what the Abused victim was doing. Thus you have no EVIDENCE beyond a reasonable doubt that any crime occurred. It is a simple she said, he said situation and since we are generally talking about co-owners or co-tenants of the home. To arrest one of them requires evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of some criminal act. 99% of the time you do not have that. You have evidence of hitting, but no evidence of any "Assault". In cases where the police do have such evidence they arrest the abuser.

Protection Orders are liked by Police for the burden of proof to get one is just preponderance of evidence, i.e. it is more likely then not that the abuser hit or otherwise abused the victim. Once the Protection Order is in place, all the police have to show beyond a reasonable doubt, is the following:

1. The Abuser KNEW of the Order
2. The Abuser was NEAR the victim.

Notice, if a Protection Order is in place, the Police do NOT have to have evidence of any actual abuse. All the Police has to show, beyond a reasonable doubt, is that the Protection Order has been issued, served on the abuser, and the abuser is near the victim in violation of that order. At that point the Local District Attorney takes over the case and sends the abuser to jail.

Remember we are dealing with people who have had a long term relationship, and often children together. Who owns what is often in dispute, as while as who gets the children. Worse, often the victim is financially dependent on the abuser. How do you make sure the Victim can PAY for her housing? For the housing of the Victim's children? And lets do not forget Food and Schooling,

In the worse cases, you often have a woman who does not drive and is thus dependent on her husband to take her everywhere. In many ways these real bad cases, you have BOTH parties using taking their "Sex Roles" to their illogical conclusion, i.e. he demands total control over her, she is under his total control (and in many ways, that is a way for HER to control HIM, i.e. her dependence on him, forces him to take her where she wants to go). These cases are rare, but I get one every couple of years (most such cases are NEVER filed, she lives with abuse). I would go into the Psychological basis for this, but I am trying to keep this paper short.

In the more typical case, abuse DECREASES as the victim become more and more submissive to the abuser, but increases whenever the victim starts to interact with other people (like normal people do). Victims have a tendency NOT to know how to drive a car, rarely attend church or other public activities and rarely interacts with her own siblings (and an increase in any one of these things tends to bring on the abuse).

I bring this up, for how do you protect someone, who refuses to be protected? i.e. the Victim wants the police gone and leave the abuser in the home. Unless the abuser does something in the presence of the Officers, there is nothing they can do. In the above two situation that is NO uncommon. The Abuser is beating up the victim, often the Victim (or a neighbor) calls the Police, the Police show up and the Victim says it was all a mistake. How do you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime took place, when the Victim is denying that a crime took place?

We can try to help such victims as much as we can, but they tend to be isolated for it is control over the victim the abuser wants, not abuse per se. In cases where you have a victim with friends, or even people who do something with the victim, the victim are more likely to seek help. Thus in many ways the first step in NOT to arrest the abuser, but to socialize the victim. In the days of old, this was the job of the Church. Today they is no single organization that most people belong to. This was the strength of Churches in the days of old, but something that is missing today in most families. In many places Public Schools have filled this void, but if you have a family that is just meeting its legal obligations it is a bad fit (and this was a problem with the Churches in the days of old).

In many ways Protection Orders are a patch on a bad system. We need greater community attendance to such cases, and I do not mean police. Getting people to work together as a community is the first step, for once a group of people think of themselves as one, then they will address issues of abuse, rather then rely on the Courts and the Police to handle the problem. These women need support from their community more then anything else, but support that is often lacking in today's society.