Domestic Violence Law Set for Renewal
By Somini Sengupta
Originally published by The New York Times, June 11, 2001
ALBANY, June 7 — In 1994, soon after Gov. George E. Pataki took office, lawmakers enacted a measure that required police officers to arrest anyone suspected of domestic abuse—regardless of whether their victims wished to press charges. The law is set to expire next month, and efforts to expand its scope and make it permanent have engendered broad unusual agreement among lawmakers from across the political spectrum.
The mandatory-arrest measure, one of many enacted across the country in the 1990's, represented a rare bipartisan meeting of minds in the state Capitol: Republicans and Democrats alike had much to gain, politically, from a get-tough law on domestic violence.
In the six years since the law has been in effect, domestic violence arrests—mostly of men—have risen steadily, according to data collected by the Pataki administration. At the same time, some advocates for battered women say, growing numbers of the abused, mostly women, have been arrested because their partners made retaliatory charges and the officers were unsure who the primary aggressor was.
The governor wants to make the mandatory-arrest law permanent. And he is seeking to expand the law, which now applies only to married couples and to unmarried couples who have a child together, to all domestic partners, including gay couples. The governor's proposal would amend the definition of "family" and "household" to include people "currently residing together on a continuing basis, or at regular intervals" or those who have lived together in the preceding year.
Such a redefinition has quietly garnered the blessings of Senate Republicans, who have in the past resisted gay rights measures, including one that would extend antidiscrimination laws to homosexuals, which passed last week. The Senate Republican leadership also supports making the law permanent.
The Democrats who control the Assembly also endorse expanding the law to include gay couples. In coming days they are expected to introduce legislation extending the law past its July 1 expiration date.
Now, just as when the law was first passed, it has generated rare bipartisan unity here. "I really can't imagine the Legislature would allow this" to expire, said the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes.
Still, the discussions about the law have underscored some subtle shifts in the societal response to domestic violence. They have also shown how confounding it can be for law enforcement to address crimes that involve the most intimate human relations.
Over the last decade, as a result of agitation by women's groups, most states have instituted mandatory-arrest laws, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, an umbrella group of advocates. In recent years, many states, like New York, have introduced language designed to identify primary physical aggressors in domestic disputes. But if in the past it was women's groups calling on law enforcement to arrest and prosecute domestic violence cases, discussions of the issue are no longer as clear cut.
Prosecutors are now among the fiercest proponents of mandatory-arrest laws. Among some battered-women's groups, there are some signs of ambivalence. Some of them argue that by leaving arrest decisions strictly in the hands of the police, the law renders victims even more powerless. Others say that police officers on the scene of a messy domestic dispute are often ill-trained and unable to discern who is to blame. Should a minor bruise be the basis for making an arrest, for instance? That might in fact punish an abuser, but it could also lead to the arrest of a victim who struck back in self defense.
In immigrant households, mandatory-arrest laws can be further complicated by language barriers and by fear of reprisal from immigration authorities. Sometimes, said Tuhina De O'Connor, executive director of the New York Asian Women's Center, the only shelter in the state with services tailored to the needs of Asian immigrant women, police officers rely on children to interpret. Or they show up at the scene only to find that only the accused abuser speaks English. Without sufficient resources to train interpreters, she said, mandatory-arrest laws can be ineffective and sometimes, darkly absurd.
"The idea is a very good idea—the whole idea of taking the decision out of her hands," Ms. O'Connor said. "But that's the tough part, how do the police figure out what's going on."
