Editorial: Task force has crucial job ahead

Friday, Feb. 15, 2002 | 10:04 a.m.

Choosing Bill Maupin, the chief justice of the Nevada Supreme Court, to serve as chairman of a task force on domestic violence sends an immediate message that the group's mission is of the highest priority. This is a welcome message, because there is hardly a more vexing issue in all of the country than the administration of justice in domestic violence cases. On Tuesday the Clark County Commission is scheduled to appoint the members of the task force -- 20 to 25 people representing the legal community, service agencies and victims themselves. If the task force succeeds in detailing a better court procedure, and if the county follows through with the appropriate leadership and resources, victims of domestic violence will be safer and those who physically batter or psychologically terrorize a family member will be dealt with more consistently.

The specific mission of the task force will be to determine whether victims could be better served and perpetrators better prosecuted in a court, under the umbrella of Family Court, that hears nothing but domestic violence cases. The creation of such domestic violence courts is a trend that has been gaining momentum for the past decade, and not just in the United States. A domestic violence court created in 1996 in Ontario, Canada, for example, was given the go-ahead last fall to expand throughout the province over the next three years because of the success it was experiencing. In this country, there are domestic violence courts in California, New York state, Illinois, Florida and many other jurisdictions.

Where the programs exist, there are strong connections among all the authorities involved, unlike the situation now in Clark County where abusers and victims alike are not sufficiently tracked. Victims do not always receive the right services and abusers do not always receive the right sentences. There have been cases where the batterer, instead of being assigned to a program, is awarded custody of the children. We sense that the task force may be a godsend.