Domestic Violence Crime

by Bill Riales

Published: Mon, October 19, 2009 - 8:14 pm CST Last Updated: Mon, October 19, 2009 - 8:30 pm CST

ROBERTSDALE, Alabama - Author John Shivers toured Baldwin County last week to promote his trilogy of books on domestic violence. He is a survivor. He says he father used physical and emotion abuse on him and his Mother as he was growing up. Now he just wants to change the minds of others who have, or are experiencing what he did, and get them talking.

"My mother was horrified the day that I suggested we should see outside help for what was happening in our house," said Shivers. He says he just wants to shine a spotlight on a crime that happens all too often, but is reported less and less.

Shivers says, "It happens in wealthy families, it happens in poor families, its happens in highly educated homes and it happens in those of very meager education."

"When you just see it on the news it may not mean that much because we're so used to seeing these crimes, but it just absolutely rips these families apart." says Christine Armstrong of the domestic violence shelter The Lighthouse. "We've had a lot of children witness these crimes."

In fact, Armstrong, says her organization has seen more incidents of domestic violence in the past couple of years that ever in the existence of The Lighthouse.

"All throughout Baldwin County the numbers from domestic violence crimes are up. We've had ten homicides in 2008 and 2009 in Baldwin County and the majority of those homicides have been the victim attempting to leave," She says.

Armstrong says a new program designed to focus more attention on offenders is being implemented in Baldwin County. The city of Foley recently implemented the Coordinated Community Response Program, designed to reduce domestic violence crimes and homicides by getting all agencies, from police and prosecutors, to hospitals and victim advocates on the same page. The program has met with positive results since being started in Birmingham and Montgomery. The community of Fairhope is also taking steps to implement the Department of Justice sponsored program.

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