Federal Grant To Help Expand S.I. Domestic Violence Program
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A campaign to combat domestic violence on Staten Island got a shot in the arm last week, as the mayor announced during his State of the City address that the program is expanding. NY1's Amanda Farinacci filed the following report.NY1 recently sat down with a 30-year-old domestic violence victim, who requested her name be witheld. That's because she's frightened of the ex-boyfriend she says terrorized her more than a year ago. She says she was harassed and stalked, robbed and finally raped as her three-year-old son watched.
"I feared for my safety. And I don't want to go into a shelter but I need somewhere else to go. And they helped me get in with safe horizon and they helped me get a different life," said the victim.
The city runs Family Justice Centers in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, who all offer the available services meant to help women who are victims of physical and emotional abuse.
No such facility exists on Staten Island. Instead, that work is handled by the Staten Island District Attorney's Domestic Violence unit.
Within 24 hours of an incident resulting in an arrest, a coordinator contacts the victim to offer support from housing to protection to clothing and furniture for victims and their children.
A recent grant from the Department of Justice will help the office expand.
"We need more people to be able to offer somebody a chance to come in here and just get everything. They do get everything at once, but they have to get it," said Domestic Violence Coordinator Bernadette Davenport.
Last year, the New York City Police Department made more than 2,100 domestic violence arrests on Staten Island. Of that number, the district attorney's office prosecuted about 1,900 of them. And while the DA's office doesn't have exact numbers, in more than half of those cases, victims declined to move forward with prosecution.
"Because of financial dependence on the person who's assaulting them, because of a child in common in many of these cases where a victim and a dependent have a child in common, makes these victims very difficult to have the courage to come forward," said Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan.
Meantime, Donovan is working with Albany legislators on a law that would create harsher penalties for domestic abusers and require mandatory arrests in cases where the victim is physically injured, even if that victim does not want to cooperate.