Police Receive Updated Domestic Violence Training

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(Host) Vermonters like to think they live in a safe place.

But per capita, Vermont ranks second in the nation when it comes to men killing women. And an alarming percentage of all police calls involve domestic violence.  

Because of that, Vermont passed a law two years ago requiring that every law enforcement officer in the state go through comprehensive domestic violence training. 

As VPR’s Nina Keck reports, police and outreach workers say it’s making a difference.

(Keck) T.J. Anderson sits at her desk at the Vermont Police Academy.

(Anderson) "I’ll just show you what the curriculum looks like."

(Keck)  Anderson is the state’s lead domestic violence trainer.  It’s her job to make sure new recruits, as well as seasoned police veterans, are up to speed on the latest laws and trends regarding domestic violence.   

(Anderson) "It’s a huge, huge problem and one of the things I often want to talk about. You can see here the Vermont violent crimes report for 2008.  93 percent  of the violent crime cases involved intimate partners, involved family members, involved acquaintances."

(Keck)   At the police academy, recruits get more than 12 hours of domestic violence coursework in their basic training. The curriculum includes statistics, recent legal precedents, role playing and a new focus on the batterer. Because batterers tend to be manipulative, Anderson says officers are trained to look more closely at the context of each situation.

(Anderson) "It’s extremely important to determine if somebody was acting in self defense. It’s extremely important to realize who a dominant aggressor is.  And police officers need to start focusing and be able to identify that batterer and make him or her accountable for what they are choosing to do."

(Keck) Anderson says before the 2008 training mandate, there was no way to ensure officers, who first went into law enforcement in the ‘70s, ‘80s or ‘90s, were kept current.

Karen Tronsgard-Scott heads the Vermont Network against Domestic and Sexual Violence. She says requiring all law enforcement officers in Vermont to go through an eight-hour refresher is incredibly important because police are often the first to respond.

(Tronsgard-Scott)  "So if law enforcement personnel  are well trained and know how to respond in the best way possible in a domestic violence call, that sets up a scenario where victims have access to services, where state’s attorneys have the evidence they need to prosecute, where kids get taken care of.  So that law enforcement person is absolutely key."

(Keck) Besides the 8-hour refresher, regular follow-up courses are required as well.  

Law enforcement officials admit there was some pushback to the new requirements. But Rutland County Sheriff Steve Benard, head of the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council, says domestic assault cases are some of the most dangerous for police. If the officers are better trained, he says, they’re less likely to get hurt or killed on the job.

(Benard) "What this training does is it opens their eyes that when they go into a domestic they have to have eyes on the back of their heads. They have to understand that both sides of a domestic violence case are all potentially people that are going to assault you or hurt you. Because if you arrest the batterer, the victim is going to look at it and say, ‘There goes my paycheck; there goes my place to live; there goes my support system.’  Even though their thought process is skewed, that’s what they believe. And the next thing you know you’re going to get a fry pan from them."

(Keck) Jacqueline Adams, a recruit from Lyndonville, says the training she got at the police academy this fall was eye opening.  

(Adams) "We come in here thinking we’re getting trained just on criminals. We’re not seeing the victim’s side to this. So when they did the training and they did the role playing, it was a moment where everyone went, ‘Wow, you know, holy cow.  This is what they go through.’ And how to be sensitive in the questions and how to take her feelings and a sense of empathy. But we also have to get the job done."    

(Keck) So far, more than three-quarters of Vermont’s roughly 1,400 law enforcement officers have completed the training.   

Because the law is only two years old, there is no hard data yet on how effective it is. But Jennifer Firpo, a training instructor and a legal advocate with the Rutland County Women’s Network and Shelter, says she and other advocates are noticing a difference.

(Firpo) "We even had an advocate tell me that when she was working with a client and a law enforcement officer, he was taking the time to explain to her the cycle of domestic violence. And you can imagine how powerful that is for someone to hear not just from us as advocates, but from him as a law enforcement officer, that this is a dangerous situation and these are the things that she could or he could be looking our for. And let them know that they understand what frame of mind they might be in based on where they are in that cycle." 

(Keck)  Firpo says a number of police officers have told her they think the training should go even further into the criminal justice system –  believing the state’s attorneys and judges would benefit as well.  

For VPR News, I’m Nina Keck.

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