Program to Shield People From Abuse May Be in Jeopardy

Back sometime in the beginning of the year he beat me up, left bruises on my eye, legs, arms and I had a bump on my head . . . . He has continued to beat me up the whole time we’ve been married. I’m only 18 years old and if I continue with this beating up all the time, I won’t have much of a future.

-- From an application with the county Victim/Witness Program for a temporary restraining order.

The faces are different, but the stories are pitifully similar.

A young, frightened wife, someone’s abused grandmother or grandfather, an emotionally assaulted middle-aged man--all appealing to the court system to protect them from terror that has become central to their lives.

For the last six years, thousands of them have ended up on the second floor of the Orange County Courthouse in the office of the county’s Victim/Witness Assistance Program. There program workers and volunteer lawyers help them obtain court orders that prohibit their tormentors from coming into contact with them.

Now that program may be in jeopardy.

Barbara J. Phillips, director of the Victim/Witness Program, notified the Board of Supervisors last month that if the program does not get emergency funding it will close down its work with court orders in domestic violence cases at the end of this month.

In Orange County, that means shutting down an escape route for many of the nearly 2,000 victims of physical and emotional abuse who annually obtain temporary restraining orders through the Victim/Witness Assistance Program.

The problem, Phillips said, is that the program is not specifically funded to handle the court orders. Its primary focus is to aid crime victims and witnesses.

Over the last few years, however, as laws have been enacted mandating that police departments and other agencies provide aid to victims of domestic abuse, the referrals to her agency have skyrocketed, Phillips said.

In 1982, in its first full year of operation, the program helped 313 people obtain court orders in domestic-violence cases. In the last fiscal year, it helped 1,947.

Three of four Victim/Witness Assistance Program workers who are supposed to be aiding victims and witnesses of other crimes have their hands full with restraining orders in domestic-violence cases.

“We are just overwhelmed by the numbers of people requiring temporary restraining orders,” she said. “At this time we are simply in a spot where we must find financial resources so we can continue to operate.”

Specifically what’s needed, she said, are money and more office space.

More Space Promised

Phillips has secured a promise from officials of the Orange County Superior Court for the additional space, but the money must still be found.

To aid that cause, Board of Supervisors Chairman Harriett M. Wieder is sponsoring a measure, to be considered by the board next week, that would provide $40,000 to Phillips’ program so that its work in domestic-violence cases can continue at least another six months.

Wieder also wants to establish an 11-member citizens committee that would seek permanent, private-sector funding.

“My goal is to establish the kind of public-private partnership which resulted in construction of the Orangewood Children’s Home for abused and neglected children and enabled the Juvenile Connection Project to be established for the county’s troubled youth,” Wieder, who was in Sacramento on Thursday, wrote in a letter that will be presented next week to her board colleagues.

Marilyn Nielsen Proposed

Wieder proposes that Marilyn Nielsen, wife of Irvine Co. Vice Chairman Thomas H. Nielsen and an accomplished fund-raiser, be named chairman of the fund-raising committee. Five of 10 other committee members would be chosen by the supervisors, with each supervisor naming one member. Those committee members would choose the remainder of the panel, under Wieder’s proposal.

Phillips referred to domestic violence as a “hidden crime,” whose victims are, and probably always have been, legion in Orange County and elsewhere.

Many victims, she said, are elderly men and women who are beaten and otherwise abused by their adult offspring or grandchildren. Seven percent of the victims who come to her program, she said, are men.

The temporary restraining order (TRO) component of the Victim/Witness Program was established at the request of the Superior Court Family Law Division. The overall program received a $600,000 grant from the state this fiscal year but none of that money is earmarked for the TRO component.

The entire program operates out of a tiny office in the County Courthouse. Besides Phillips, there are four staff members. About 37 lawyers volunteer their expertise in obtaining court orders. Phillips said no other agency in the county provides the service.