Domestic violence in La. on the increase, according to recent report

By Mason Harrison
Contributing Writer

For decades, Louisiana has payday advance orlando fl ranked near the bottom of various health and welfare indicators among other states and near the top of national lists demonstrating sluggish improvement in road safety, credit worthiness and economic mobility. Yet a new report suggests Louisiana may also struggle with protecting women against domestic abuse. The Violence Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based gun violence think tank, authored new findings this month placing Louisiana among a handful of states with frequent rates of intimate partner violence resulting in the deaths of women.

The report comes as the country marks the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, designed to strengthen the federal government’s response to violent crimes committed against women. Since its passage, domestic abuse nationwide has dropped more than 60 percent, something backers attribute to the law. But, in recent years, Louisiana has seen an uptick in reports personal loan calculator rates of domestic violence, a factor that bucks a national trend.

“Between 2010 and 2011, we’ve seen a 17 percent increase in the rate of domestic violence in the state,” says Beth Meeks, executive director for the Louisiana Coalit­ion Against Domestic Vio­lence. Meeks says that the trend in Lou­isi­ana is not expected to improve. “There will likely be an increase in the numbers between 2011 and 2012 as well.” Meeks contends the state’s troubles with domestic violence stem from a lack of services for abusers and victims and a dearth of courtrooms throughout the state designed to address cases of violence involving men and women.

The report from the Violence Policy Center, labeled “When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2012 Homicide Data,” examines what are called “single victim/single offender” cases of femicide in which one woman is murdered by one man. The report, which has been issued cash to pocket loan annually for 17 years, does not take into account mixed-gender homicides; multiple victim homicides; or cases in which women are murdered by other women. Still, the report places Louisiana near the top of states across the country in which men exact a high degree of lethal force against female residents.

Women murdered in Louisiana by a single male offender account for 1.92 deaths per 100,000, according to 2012 figures. That tally resulted in the deaths of 45 women statewide, the fourth highest rate in the country, according to metrics produced by the Violence Policy Center. A slight majority of the victims are Black, totaling 23, while the remaining 22 are white. In the 43 cases where the ages of the victims are reported, four victims are less than 18 years old and another four victims are 65 years of age or older. The average age http www thinkmoneyhoney com of the female victims listed in the report is 35.

“For homicides in which the weapon used could be identified,” according to the report’s crime statistics, “71 percent of female victims (30 out of 42) were shot and killed with guns. Of these, 93 percent (28 victims) were killed with handguns. There were four females killed with knives or other cutting instruments, and seven females killed by bodily force.”

The report also draws consistent connections between the female victims across Louisiana and the men in their lives who murdered them. “For homicides in which the victim to offender relationship could be identified, 93 percent of female victims (37 out of 40) were murdered by someone they knew,” according to the policy center’s findings. “Three female victims were killed by strangers. Of the victims who knew their offenders, 51 percent (19 victims) were wives, common-law wives, personal loan denial reasons ex-wives, or girlfriends of the of­fenders. Among the female intimates who were murdered, 74 percent (14 victims) were killed with guns; 86 percent of these (12 victims) were shot and killed with handguns.”

Figures for the report were culled from 21 police jurisdictions across Louisiana, with Baton Rouge leading the state with seven of the 45 deaths recorded in 2012, followed by Orleans Parish, with six, and Shreveport and Jefferson Parish with four each. “Much of the violence we’re talking about is occurring in urban areas because of the larger number of people,” Meeks says. “Overall, we do see that African-American women tend to lead in cases of domestic violence.” Meeks says, on average, a domestic abuse victim leaves and then returns to her abuser a total of seven times before finally making a clean break from her partner. In addition, most domestic abusers, kinecta personal loans according to research, Meeks says, engage in 35 acts of domestic abuse prior to police intervention due to a failure to report domestic violence.

In May, Gov. Piyush Jindal signed a comprehensive package of domestic abuse reforms into law designed to hasten divorce proceedings for battered spouses, provide legal avenues to sue domestic abusers and to add stiffer criminal penalties for domestic abuse. Service providers in New Orleans are often inundated with reports of domestic violence and the package of bills seeks to provide greater resources to intervention specialists. “We supported and worked for the passage of the bills in May,” says Meeks. “We hope that this will be an effective step in the right direction.”

Victims of domestic abuse can call the statewide hotline at 1-888-411-1333.

This article originally published in the September 15, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.