Domestic Violence Issues Highlighted at Legal Workshop

Thomas H. Schulte, a Superior Court commissioner specializing in family issues, gets a close look at the toll of domestic violence nearly every day: broken families, emotionally wounded children, loss of trust and hope.

“It’s one of the most serious problems that face our society today,” Schulte said. “But those of us who never experienced domestic violence in our own homes find it difficult to believe it even exists.

“We don’t come to the law with an awareness of the severity of the problem.”

At an all-day workshop Saturday for Western State University College of Law students, Schulte and other family law specialists drove home the point that domestic violence is widespread, cuts across all income levels and ethnic groups and is often unacknowledged by the victims themselves.

Attendance was mandatory for all first-year students, nearly 200 of whom filled the Triton Auditorium at Cal State Fullerton. Schulte proposed the workshop to school officials as part of a campaign to heighten awareness and understanding of domestic violence among new attorneys, many of whom will deal with the issue in some form.

“Our goal is to help you more easily recognize domestic violence issues in all the areas of law you study, whether it be family law, juvenile law, probate law or even labor law,” he told the students.

Students heard from the director of a women’s shelter, a family law mediator, a marriage counselor, an attorney specializing in family law and a detective from the Westminster Police Department, which was the first in the county to create a domestic violence unit. To underscore the viciousness of such abuse, a chilling 911 call from a woman seeking help was played.

Fran Shiffman, executive director of the Women’s Transitional Living Center, one of four shelters for battered women in the county, opened the workshop with disturbing statistics: According to the FBI, a woman is battered somewhere in the United States every nine seconds; nearly half of all women murdered are killed by their husbands; and 3.3 million children are exposed to domestic violence every year. And, according to the March of Dimes, domestic violence against pregnant women is the major cause of birth defects.

Nearly all the perpetrators of domestic violence--95%--are men, she said. And Shiffman said a man is 74 times more likely to commit a crime if he grew up in a home with domestic violence, and 70% of juveniles in detention facilities witnessed or were harmed by domestic violence.

Women on average leave five to 10 times before they successfully escape an abusive relationship, she said. Many find it hard to leave out of justifiable fear--leaving can be the most dangerous course of action. In fact, Shiffman said, 79% of spousal abuse occurs after the victim leaves.

“The two most important words for understanding this issue are ‘power’ and ‘control,’ ” she said.

“That’s what domestic violence is all about, and that’s why when a woman leaves, the violence increases. She must be brought back under control.”

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A handbook on domestic violence distributed for the workshop contained a diagram of a common cycle in which victims and perpetrators find themselves: tension building, followed by “acute battering,” followed by a honeymoon period, in which the batterer will show remorse, promise to change, and even show some improvement. But as time goes on, the batterer will minimize the incident or blame the victim for making it happen, and the tension builds again.

“Over time, the cycle gets tighter,” she said. “After a while, the honeymoon period may be extremely fleeting, but she continues hoping for what we all want--stability and a loving home.”

The handbook advises women who want to leave abusive relationships to call a shelter, gather as much money as possible, along with important documents such as birth certificates and Social Security numbers, and call the police and go to the hospital whenever a battering occurs, to document the problem.

A final recommendation contained in the guide: “Once you leave, don’t go back.”