War on Abuse Falling Short, Grand Jury Says : Domestic violence: Panel finds that efforts of police, courts and social agencies haven’t kept up with problem.

The Los Angeles County Grand Jury, in a yearlong study of how domestic violence is prosecuted and how its victims are aided, found that while great strides have been made in recent years, the response of police, prosecutors, judges and social service providers falls dramatically short of keeping up with the runaway problem.

In its annual report, released Thursday, the grand jury found that domestic violence is growing statewide and that its impact in the county is particularly grim: A woman is killed by her spouse or boyfriend every day and a half, on average.

The watchdog jury found that virtually every arm of the criminal justice system has attempted to address the problem with innovative pilot programs in the past year. Many of these programs, the grand jury found, have been successful in effectively and efficiently dealing with batterers and should be expanded countywide.

But, the grand jury concluded, “despite these changes for the better, much work still remains to be done.”

The panel found that “many courts and judges still approach domestic violence assaults as a family matter, issue custody and visitation orders which risk the lives and safety of women and their children and fail to enforce the statutory minimum sentences on perpetrators of domestic violence.”

Some police agencies were credited with devising new programs, but the report found that “the quality of police response to domestic violence calls ranges from excellent in some cases to inadequate in others.”

And, the grand jury found, the county is woefully short of shelters and other housing and assistance for victims of domestic violence. “Tens of thousands of women and children are denied shelter each year,” the grand jury stated.

Among the recommendations:

* Have courts assign judges to specialize in domestic violence cases, and require training in domestic violence issues for all judges.

* Create a task force to study the possibility of combining civil and criminal court actions that affect the same family.

* Support and expand programs used by prosecutors to help victims handle the often rigorous judicial system.

* Expand programs such as the Los Angeles Police Department’s Domestic Abuse Response Team, which pairs a reserve officer with a social service volunteer to provide crisis management and follow-up services for victims.

* Expand the county’s Domestic Violence Council, which coordinates all agencies involved in dealing with domestic violence, and use it to increase private fund-raising efforts to support shelters for victims.

The grand jurors also recommended that their successors on the 1995-96 grand jury study the content and effectiveness of batterers’ counseling programs.

Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti concurred with the findings and applauded the recommendations. But he cautioned that any headway that might be made in combatting domestic violence could be curbed by anticipated budget cuts. “Our entire domestic violence unit is on the chopping block,” said Garcetti of the specialized 13-member prosecution team formed last year.

Judge Alban Niles, presiding judge of the Los Angeles Judicial District, gave the report a mixed review. He said he supports expanded training for judges, and has arranged for all members of his court to attend a seminar this September. But he rejected the call for specialized courts.

“We believe that having one person handle all the [domestic violence] cases ends up burning them out,” said Niles. “It sounds good in theory, but doing the same thing over and over again is not good.”

Moriarty and other service providers agreed with the grand jury’s assessment of both the extent of the problem and the limited response.

“Not a day goes by that we don’t have a woman in tears, begging for a space, and there is not a bed to be had,” said Moriarty. “They end up returning to the abuser because they can’t afford to go anywhere else.”

Betty Fisher, executive director of the domestic abuse service group Haven Hills, said the proposed court reforms are among the most welcome of the grand jury’s recommendations. “It’s one of our biggest problems,” said Fisher.