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Officials: Education, awareness key to stopping domestic violence

Times Record - 3/17/2019

March 17-- Mar. 17--Education and awareness are the key to stopping domestic violence, according to several area officials.

Area officials in a panel during the Stop Domestic Violence summit Tuesday at University of Arkansas Fort Smith said people in domestic violence relationships and those close to them need to know how to define domestic violence and the options available to them. This kind of awareness, they said, is important from the early stages of the relationship all the way to after prosecution.

Hamilton House Director Jackie Hamilton, Donald W. Reynolds Crisis Intervention Center Director Penni Burns, Fort Smith police detective Jeff Taylor, Sebastian County Prosecutory's Victim Coordinator Flor Bermudez, UAFS Social Work Assistant Professor Renee Gebhart and KFSM Chief Meteorologist Garrett Lewis participated in the panel Tuesday afternoon.

"(Domestic violence), like so many evil things -- like all evil things -- it doesn't discriminate," said Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge prior to the panel. "It can impact any family at any time and change the trajectory of someone's life."

Rutledge in her keynote address estimated one in four women will suffer abuse in their lifetimes, one in three teenage girls will be physically assaulted by their boyfriends and 50 percent of girls who grow up in an abusive home will likely become victims themselves. She also said Arkansas is consistently the worst state for women who are killed by their abusers.

Though she said domestic violence will probably never be entirely prevented, Burns said educating people about what domestic violence is and how to respond to it is the best preventive measure people can take. Hamilton and Taylor gave examples from speaking about domestic violence in schools.

"A boy raised his hand and said, 'What if your daddy is doing that?' I said, 'Let me talk to you afterwards, and I would encourage you to talk to your counselor at school, too,'" Hamilton said.

"It seems like every time we go to a school and talk about good touches and bad touches, as soon as we leave, we end up getting a few reports, because after we left, some little boy or little girl told the teacher, 'This happens to me,'" Taylor said.

Taylor said such education includes understanding what kinds of abuse fall under criminal statutes.

"When you see your father towering over your mother, even though he's yelling and screaming at her and not battering her, that's still an assault," Taylor said. "A lot of people get those two mixed up -- they confuse an assault with a battery."

Bermudez, who rarely sees cases involving children in her job, said it's important for both the perpetrator and the victim in domestic violence incidents to seek education once the incident has been reported. She said classes are often the difference between a perpetrator abusing again versus fixing his or her behavior.

"If they do an order of protection where the respondent and the petitioner have to take classes, I think it will make it better," she said. "We see these same people come to our office over and over again, filing against the same person."

But those close to the victim need to be there for him or her while he or she is in the relationship, Burns said.

Rutledge before the panel said a practical way to advocate for domestic violence victims is through a Laura's Card, which contains emergency service information and can be given out by anyone. Lewis said Laura's Cards and being available for a person in a domestic violence situation is a good way to empower someone in that kind of a situation.

Burns agreed with Lewis, saying people in domestic violence situations need people who will come alongside them as they make their own decisions. Gebhart estimated a woman in a domestic violence relationship will likely leave her perpetrator seven times before leaving for good.

"They have to know they have power to make up their own mind on what they have to do. They don't have to be told what to do," Burns said, noting that . "They need a secondary voice saying, 'What can I do for you right now to make this moment better?'"

"The biggest thing someone can do, whether it's professionally or personally, is to continue to be there as a support and not get frustrated," Gebhart said.

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