Lawrence officials hope to replicate the Duluth, Minn., approach to combating domestic violence.
A nationally recognized expert on combating domestic violence encouraged Lawrence officials to take a hard look at how they respond to men abusing women.
"It's in all of our best interests to think of better ways to intervene in these cases," said Michael Paymar, a front-line social worker who helped organize the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project in Duluth, Minn.
Paymar was in Lawrence Friday for a daylong conference on how the multiagency project could be replicated in Lawrence. The conference was organized by Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center.
The Duluth project is one of the most aggressive in the nation.
"One in every 13 men in Duluth has been ordered into the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project," Paymar said.
In Duluth, he said, police responding to domestic violence calls are required to arrest a suspected abuser, and the abuser spends at least the next three days in jail.
During those three days, a counselor with the local shelter for battered women confers with the victim, which, in at least 90 percent of the cases, is a woman.
A special unit within the local district attorney's office oversees prosecution of all domestic violence cases, making it difficult for defense attorneys to plea bargain. And the city's mental health centers have developed specialized counseling programs for victims and abusers.
The Duluth program, Paymar said, is firmly committed to holding abusers responsible for their actions.
"You don't want to ever give batterers excuses for their behaviors, like 'Oh, well, you were drunk' or 'This is understandable; you grew up in an abusive home,' " he said. "That's not the message you want to put out; it's: 'No, these are behaviors that will not be tolerated. It doesn't matter that you were drunk or that you were abused; this is unacceptable.'"
Paymar assured his audience that domestic-abuse issues affect more than the abusers and their immediate victims.
"I can almost guarantee you that where you see child abuse, you're going to find battering going on in that household as well," he said.
Paymar called child abuse the "domestic violence issue of the next millennium."
Douglas County Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney Tonkovich said she and other officials want to bring Lawrence's response to domestic abuse "more in line with the Duluth model."
Kansas, she said, already has a mandatory-arrest law on the books, and her office will not drop charges when victims resist testifying.
"But here are some other things, I think, that a lot of us would like to see done," Tonkovich said. "But, at this point, I'm afraid the programs aren't coordinated enough.
"All of us work with each other well -- we all get along. But there isn't that sense of 'community.' We're all in it; we're just not in it together."
Tonkovich said she's hopeful that the Bert Nash center soon will take the lead in coordinating a community response.
Lequetta Diggs, program manager for outpatient services at Bert Nash, spent three days observing the Duluth project last year.
"At Bert Nash, we're in the very beginning stages of developing a domestic violence intervention project," Diggs said. "We've begun an internal examination of what our role should be and how to go about networking with the existing agencies and organizations. We've found excellent support in the community so far."
Diggs said Bert Nash and Douglas County District Court recently developed a treatment program for abusers. The mental health center also has applied for a grant to expand local advocacy efforts for battered women.
-- Dave Ranney's phone message number is 832-7222. His e-mail is dranney@ljworld.com.
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