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Time and again, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala has warned, "Domestic violence is an unacknowledged epidemic in our society." Now, finally, lawmakers are not only listening -- they are acting. In New York last week, the state legislature unanimously passed a sweeping bill that mandates arrest for any person who commits a domestic assault. Members of the California legislature are pressing for a computerized registry of restraining orders and the confiscation of guns from men arrested for domestic violence. This week Colorado's package of anti-domestic-violence laws, one of the nation's toughest, will go into effect. It not only compels police to take abusers into custody at the scene of violence but also requires arrest for a first violation of a restraining order. Subsequent violations bring mandatory jail time.
Just as women's groups used the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings as a springboard to educate the public about sexual harassment, they are now capitalizing on the Simpson controversy to further their campaign against domestic violence. Advocates for women are pressing for passage of the Violence Against Women Act, which is appended to the anticrime bill that legislators hope to have on President Clinton's desk by July 4. Modeled on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it stipulates that gender-biased crimes violate a woman's civil rights. The victims of such crimes would therefore be eligible for compensatory relief and punitive damages.
Heightened awareness may also help add bite to laws that are on the books but are often underenforced. At present, 25 states require arrest when a reported domestic dispute turns violent. But police often walk away if the victim refuses to press charges. Though they act quickly to separate strangers, law-enforcement officials remain wary of interfering in domestic altercations, convinced that such battles are more private and less serious.
Yet, of the 5,745 women murdered in 1991, 6 out of 10 were killed by someone they knew. Half were murdered by a spouse or someone with whom they had been intimate. And that does not even hint at the level of violence against women by loved ones: while only a tiny percentage of all assaults on women result in death, the violence often involves severe physical or psychological damage. Says psychologist Angela Browne, a pioneering researcher in partner violence: "Women are at more risk of being killed by their current or former male partners than by any other kind of assault."
After Dana decided to leave Ted in May, she used all the legal weapons at her disposal to protect herself. She got a restraining order, filed for a divorce and found a new place to live. But none of that gave her a new life. Ted phoned repeatedly and stalked her. The restraining order seemed only to provoke his rage. On Memorial Day, he trailed her to a shopping-mall parking garage and looped a rope around her neck. He dragged her along the cement floor and growled, "If I can't have you, no one will." Bystanders watched in shock. But no one intervened.