Little-used program offers domestic violence counseling

Domestic violence adversaries are revisiting a program that provides an alternative for domestic assault offenders.

On Thursday, the Safe House for Women Inc. sponsored its third meeting of the Domestic Violence Community Response Task Force. The topic was the Domestic Violence Diversion Program, discussed by Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle and Vickie Lankford of the Department of Corrections.

"It is the single most unused program in Cape Girardeau County," Swingle said.

The policy gives victims the option of dropping charges against their spouses or boyfriends. The offenders must sign a confession of guilt in order to go through a one-year program that requires counseling in anger management in addition to standard probation requirements. Counseling in substance abuse, marriage and mental health are suggested based on need.

Upon completion, the prosecutor's office dismisses all charges and no record of the crime exists. By comparison, the suspended imposition sentence, the most commonly requested option, leaves a conviction on record for employers to see.

Instituted in 1996 by the prosecutor's office, the diversion program saw a 97 percent success rate in its first two years. Of the 36 offenders who completed the program, only one man assaulted his victim again. Since 2000, only 15 people completed the program, with four who repeated the crimes.

"I do think the program is very successful," Lankford said. However, lack of awareness has limited the participation.

Swingle said victims are not always advised of the option, that new prosecuting attorneys may not know about the program and that some defense attorneys offer it as a last resort.

"I think a lot of them [defense attorneys] are not doing a service to their clients when they say, 'we're going to fight this,'" he said. It is also possible few people are eligible, since only first-time criminal offenders, with few exceptions, are eligible.

Deborah McBride with the Community Counseling Center attended the last two task force meetings. Thursday was the first time she heard about the program.

"I was just a little skeptical of how successful this program is," she said. McBride doesn't fully understand how the program handles ex parte orders that require no contact with the victim. She plans to ask Swingle more questions, and will request that the public be informed at a public meeting.

"I'm all for anything that's going to stop the cycle of abuse for women," McBride said. Many of the single women that she counsels will not press charges against their boyfriends out of fear, she said.

The prosecutor's office manages up to 200 domestic assault charges a year. Only about 50 percent are pursued, Swingle said, because victims often drop the charges in order to protect themselves from financial loss.

The percentage has dropped from 60 percent since last year, ever since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the "residual hearsay exception" in Crawford vs. Washington. Whenever a victim refuses to testify, prosecuting attorneys are not allowed to use a police officer's testimony of what a victim told the officer upon arriving at the scene.

The percentage is also low because Missouri is only one of four states that allows the wife to assert spousal privileges, Swingle said. Additionally, Missouri limits the time in which officers can arrive on the scene to obtain "excited utterances," which are victims' statements that are considered truthful because they were said without forethought. Cape Girardeau police officers are able to reach anywhere in the city within 15 minutes, Swingle said, so he hopes that state lawmakers will consider extending the arrival time to 15 minutes.

jmetelski@semissourian.com