Finding way to make a difference

As the Editor of the Laws.com Legal Network, I’m often faced with the challenge of providing interesting, relevant content for our readers.  At the same time, I try to use my position as an outlet to create change and make a difference.  Combining the two can often be challenging, however when it came to domestic violence, it seemed like a match made in heaven.

Initially my goal was to raise awareness on the legalities of domestic violence and the applicable laws. I had my team write numerous articles on these topics but the more research I did, the more I felt compelled to provide additional content.  The fact is, I realized just how overlooked domestic violence is in our society.

This conclusion hit me after we compiled a list of DV statistics.  I was ASTONISHED by the results our research provided.  Here’s a few examples:

1. Over 1/4 of women are raped or sexually assaulted at some point in their life by their partner.
2. More than 50% of women that are killed by a firearm are murdered by their partner.
3. Nearly 1.5 MILLION women are physically assaulted by their partner every single year in the US.
4. Close to 33% of women that are murdered are killed by an intimate partner.

The list goes on and on.  
    
The bottom line is this: Domestic violence is an issue that plagues our society and must be paid the proper attention.  Considering I deal with the law and legal issues each and every day, I think I’m qualified to say that DV is severely under-prosecuted by law enforcement.  Maybe stricter punishment would help deter sexual assault, however there is something we can all do to help: RAISE AWARENESS.  Victims need to be made aware of their options, as well as where they can turn for help.  The amazing thing about all these statistics is that those are the KNOWN accounts, nevermind how many women are attacked or raped and never come forward.  Approximately 18% of women that experience domestic violence do not report it to the authorities.  Chances are, those women were afraid because they were unaware of exactly what type of assistance they could receive..until now.

 Check out Laws.com for a comprehensive list of domestic violence resources, including domestic violence laws and organizations victims can turn to.

By Michael Foti
Laws.com

Domestic violence: medical records can sound an early warning

Domestic abuse often goes undiagnosed until too late — yet medical records often contain subtle clues that doctors often lack the time to fathom out. Now, researchers from the Children’s Hospital Informatics Program and Division of Emergency Medicine demonstrate that tapping commonly available electronic health records could help doctors spot abuse early. This display, designed for physicians, pulls a patient’s diagnostic history into one view, sounding an alert when the pattern of visits suggests possible domestic abuse.

Each colored bar above represents a diagnoses recorded in the patient’s chart, grouped by category, during the four years before her abuse diagnosis; the most recent diagnoses are shown at the bottom. The color coding denotes the degree of abuse risk, calculated using data from the study (green, low risk; yellow, medium risk; red, high risk). As indicated by the blue “detect” arrow, the system would have sounded an alert as early as 34 months before domestic abuse was actually diagnosed.

In the future, the researchers hope that their models can detect when a person is at risk for abuse before abuse even occurs. Although the study, published in the British Medical Journal, was done in adults, the plan is to validate the model in children, too, and to develop similar models for conditions that are often missed, like depression and early-stage diabetes. According to Ben Reis, PhD, who led the project, such “intelligent histories” are an important step toward the larger goal of predictive medicine — helping busy physicians not by making diagnoses for them, but by offering a decision support tool that can flag patients who merit specific screening.

by Nancy Fliesler

Laws.com is a website dedicated to stopping crime and awarding heroes. They firmly believe in providing the public with information and they specialize in the area of crime prevention. The website works closely and supports top organizations around the world. They feature blogs, articles, videos and news covering areas such as domestic violence, child abuse, personal injury and more.

CBS Evening News with Katie Couric

Technology has made abuse easier than ever, allowing perpetrators to employ new mediums such as cell phones, email and social networking websites to control their partners. Sheryl Cates, CEO of the National Domestic Violence Hotline and loveisrespect, weighed in on the issue during the program and stated that technology has changed the dynamics of abuse. Please visit cbsnews.com to read the full story or click here to view the entire broadcast.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Marilyn French’s Characters Speak to Me

By Kate Murphy

A college senior considers both The Women’s Room and French’s posthumously published novel, The Love Children, from the point of view of her own generation. And the experience clarifies her feminist sensibility.

As I plunged headfirst into The Women’s Room, the most famous novel of the late feminist Marilyn French, I found myself submerged in a foreign world, or so I thought. Beginning in the 1950s, the novel follows Mira Ward through her teenage years, her young marriage, her life as a stay-at-home mother, and her subsequent feminist rebirth during her forties, while a student at Harvard University. Hers was a world where women were second-class citizens; where all that many young women had to look forward to was a life of suburban discontent and servitude. I found it shocking. But at first I just couldn’t relate to it.
 
Flying through the first few chapters, gripped by the grim reality Mira and her friends faced, my perception changed, the way one’s eyes gradually readjust after the room suddenly goes dark. On the last page of Part I of The Women’s Room I realized I was reading a story that was my own, every woman’s. Isolde, a friend of Mira’s, says to her, “I hate discussions of feminism that end up with who does the dishes.” French ends the chapter with, “So do I. But at the end, there are always the damned dishes.”

I don’t know why, but that struck me. Maybe I couldn’t see myself reflected in the exact life experiences of these women on a surface level, but I couldn’t help thinking of what I would do in their places, how I would feel if I were them. Page after page, I found myself shocked, outraged, and terrified at the depth of unhappiness of the “typical American housewife” of the time. Even after Mira left this life—dumped by her husband and forced to pick up the pieces and start anew, she moved to Cambridge to attend Harvard—I still thought of the women she was leaving behind. Women trapped in loveless marriages, with no means to survive on their own; women doomed from the start.

As I continued reading, I found the women who “made it out,” the women whom Mira met at Harvard, still experienced unhappiness, emptiness, rape, rage, alcoholism, and adultery. But somehow, they fared better. The difference, and it was no small thing, was that these women recognized themselves, and one another, as women at their core, as burgeoning feminists. They formed a community. They shared in each other’s every experience, not on a superficial neighborhood-acquaintance level, as Mira’s friends before had, but on an existential level.

Liz Claiborne Inc., will partner with experts in the field including MTV, loveisrespect, National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline, Seventeen, Talk Radio News Service, Joyful Heart Foundation and more. Please visit loveisnotabuse.org  for more information or for ideas on ways to get involved.

Julie Stevenson (far right), is Chair of the annual ”A Day to Shine” fundraiser benefitting loveisrespect, National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline. She will be participating in It’s Time to Talk events today. Also pictured and participating in events are National Domestic Violence Hotline and loveisrespect, National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline CEO Sheryl Cates (far left) and Judge Jeanine Pirro (center).

It all started on the saddest day in the world for me. June 12th 1994. A day I will never forget.

The day my sister Nicole was brutally murdered.

Nicole and I were less than two years apart in age. When we were growing up we did everything together, we looked out for one another. When Nicole was a baby and my mother took her for walks in her stroller she used to tell me how I wouldn’t let anyone near her.

The groups of friends we hung out with were the same. Some girlfriends even said “If one of them is mad at you, so is the other one”.

After about a year of courtrooms I was asked to speak, March 1995 in Columbia, Missouri, to 800 people. I said yes but honestly I don’t know why, because I used to ditch class if I had to give an oral report in front of the class. It was something I could not do. I was terrified.

When I got to Missouri they introduced me and for about 30 seconds I thought I was going to faint. All of a sudden a voice told me “This is not about a grade for you, this is to help others. You do the best you can.”

That was Nicole, my inspiration that helped me, that day to overcome my fear of speaking publicly.  There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss her. Wishing she were here with me, but I do know that her untimely death has and is saving so many lives in the world. Every time I speak I know Nicole is right there with me.

I love you Nick.

By Denise Brown
www.NicoleBrown.org
www.DeniseBrown.com