County moves to curb domestic violence

Adrienne Packer

Friday, Feb. 1, 2002 | 11:17 a.m.

Hoping to halt the rising number of domestic violence cases, Clark County officials are considering a court system that would allow judges to deliver heftier penalties by more closely monitoring offenders.

Commissioners on Tuesday are expected to appoint a task force to study whether a consolidated domestic violence court in Southern Nevada is feasible.

Nationwide, urban counties have created domestic violence courts in which one judge is assigned to a couple and then keeps track of related cases, such as protective order violations, child custody and divorce decrees.

Offenders appear in the same courtroom no matter where the violation occurred.

The streamlined court would be a departure from Southern Nevada's system, in which an offender can appear before a magistrate in Henderson, for example, and have a case pending in Las Vegas.

Because one judge may not know about the other case, the offender could escape what would be a heavier penalty.

"The system is so complicated because you don't know what entity is doing what," said Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, who recommended the task force. "There is no connection."

If offenders have to repeatedly appear before the same judge, their pattern of behavior will be more closely watched, said Wendy Wilkinson, manager of the county's family violence intervention program.

Although police agencies and governments have put more emphasis on domestic violence protections, those services don't prevent offenders from repeating or skipping mandatory anger management classes.

"Abusers still slip through the cracks," Wilkinson said. "They say domestic violence is a learned behavior. The only way to unlearn it is to see that the consequences will be heavier than the benefits."

Wilkinson said once harsher penalties are handed down, the number of domestic violence incidences may fall.

That would be a reverse trend in Southern Nevada in which the number of cases reported to law enforcement agencies has steadily increased during the past several years.

From 1999 to 2001 the number of cases reported to police jumped from 12,106 to 15,709, said Veronica Frenkel, domestic violence ombudsman for the state attorney general's office. Frenkel said that does not include the number of cases that are never reported.

Frenkel said she has been a proponent of consolidated domestic violence courts so that, for example, judges hearing divorce cases will know each individual's history of crime and whether it is criminal or civil.

"There are a lot of benefits to make sure the response is holistic and appropriate," she said. "The study should make sure whatever system they set up is functional for the courts and the community."

Jim Spinello, the county's assistant director for administrative services, said the task force will be composed of representatives from municipal, justice and district courts, the district attorney's office, law enforcement agencies, the domestic violence prevention community, county administrators and Nevada Legal Services.

"Right now we just want to get the right folks in a room over a series of meetings and look at all aspects of it," Spinello said. "We'll look at how to do it and what the costs would be."com