Proposed Bill Would Create Domestic Violence Registry

[The Annoyed Man]

I posted this here because it bears peripheral relevance to gun rights.
CBS 11
By Jay Gormley, CBS 11 News
January 21, 2011 7:02 AM

RICHARDSON (CBSDFW.COM) – Veronica Galaviz of Richardson is nine months free of the man who tried to first kill her before then taking his own life. Prior to that horrific night, Galaviz said that she spent years being verbally and then physically abused.

But a bill that has been proposed by State Representative Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio seeks to create a domestic violence registry, similar to the current sex offender registry. “Once you’ve been in an abusive relationship, you have some trust issues,” Galaviz said. “You always have some doubts, and this would be one way to relieve some of those doubts.”

“I think it’s a great tool, especially for someone who doesn’t have the means to do a criminal background check on a potential suitor,” Galaviz added.

I gotta say, I have very mixed feelings about this one. After several years of working in an ER, I have seen pretty much the most savage things that people can do to one another, and physical abuse of spouses/partners is often right up there with the worst of them. On the other hand, we have become a society in which partners to marital disputes often use the state to bludgeon one another with false charges, and the state, for it's part, handles these things about as well as it handles most things —which is to say, poorly. I personally know a man who has been permanently barred from contact with his children by his ex-wife over completely spurious charges that he sexually abused his infant son. His ex is crazier than an outhouse rat, but being the children's mother, the state automatically took her side despite the fact that their kids would have better off with their dad. So I have no confidence that some people, seeking to be vengefully spiteful against their ex-partners, wouldn't use this tool to further ruin another person's life, and in the process deprive that person of the right to own firearms.

What do the rest of you think? Has the sexual offenders registry really done much to prevent sexual predation? Or is it just another layer of punishment? I ask, because that is the obvious model for this particular proposed piece of legislation.

[Purplehood]

It is another unnecessary layer of governmental intrusion into our lives.

The reality is that there are indeed people that are abusive. And the reality is exactly what you have observed, that there are spouses/partners of either gender that will manipulate any system to take advantage of an innocent person.

Setting up new laws to cover the real violators and saying "oh well" about the unfortunates that did not violate yet are caught up in the Dragnet is simply too overreaching.

[RoyGBiv]

AFAIK, you don't get on the SO registry without being convicted of a "sex crime".
If a DV registry had a similar burden of proof, would a lot of your worries go away?

Separately, I agree that it's too easy for men to lose in family court just for being men... "Claims" do not equal "Guilt".

[chasfm11]

Unless and until the specific uses of such a registry AND the specific safeguards and limits of the data use are spelled out, I'm very opposed to its creation. Don't get me wrong - I understand that DV is a big problem. Our daughter is a police dispatcher and she says that a disproportionate number of the calls that her team gets are DV related.

Let's consider the less than rousing success of the current method of dealing with DV - the restraining order. There, the person is specifically named, creating a mini-version of the DV data base with the normal systems that the LEOs have access to. By all accounts, including a very moving chapter in the book "A Gift of Fear", the whole process is a dismal failure which has leads DV victims to believe that they are safe when they are not.

We need to stop counting and cataloging things and work on real solutions to those problems. Just as cataloging guns is not going to solve problems with how they are used by BGs, creating a list of DV abusers is not going to kept their targets safer.

[MasterOfNone]

The question that naturally follows is "What's next?" Are they driving to a point where everything in a person's background is available in a registry? Speeders put their passengers in danger, so we have a right to know if the person we are with has ever been caught speeding. Jaywalkers put themselves, and whoever is with them, in danger so we need a registry of jaywalkers.
If one applies the argument for this new registry, it naturally follows that a person has a right to know about ANY crimes another has committed.

[A-R]

TAM and RGB both make very good points. I would not necessarily be against this for someone who is convicted in criminal court (not merely tarred and feathered in divorce court or family court). There are some really heinous people out there, as TAM alluded to, but there are also people falsely accused for ulterior motives of the accuser.

[The Annoyed Man]

All very good points, and I largely agree with most. Case in point: one of my neighbors on my block is on the SO registry. You would never know it if you knew them. The only reason I know (and I think I'm the only one on my block who does because most of the homeowners bought their homes before the registry was created) is that somebody posted a link somewhere to a page on the registry website where you could see on a map if any registered offenders live near you. Strictly out of curiosity, I checked it, and that is how I found out about my neighbor. Surprised the heck out of me, because he does not seem "the type." BTW, his offense was getting caught up looking at online child pornography in some kind of sting operation, and it was his one and only conviction and he has been clean ever since. So he is certainly not a complete innocent, but neither is he a predator, and it seems like he has paid his debt to society.

About both physical and sexual abuse, there are too many people who are abusers because they were raised by abusers, and that is what they know. But I also know people who were abused as children, but who made a conscious decision to break that cycle in their own lives. And this next part is always tough for me to talk about in public, but I am one of them, and my abuse as a child was both physical and sexual. So my personal feelings are very close to the surface on this issue. But I chose back when I was still a teenager not to perpetuate the cycle of abuse, and I haven't.

Even so, I have compassion for sinners, and I cannot bring myself to hate/fear my neighbor; and I believe that what happened to him caused him to reevaluate his life and to make some life changing decisions. So I don't hold his past against him, and I have never told any of my other neighbors about his past. If they have any such concerns, these are all relatively affluent people with Internet access. They can find out for themselves if they care enough about such things, but I have made the decision not to make his life any harder than it needs to be. And for the past four years that I've lived in this neighborhood, that has turned out to be a good decision.

[Oldgringo]

TAM and RGB both make very good points. I would not necessarily be against this for someone who is convicted in criminal court (not merely tarred and feathered in divorce court or family court). There are some really heinous people out there, as TAM alluded to, but there are also people falsely accused for ulterior motives of the accuser.

I agree! Enough is enough of this Orwellian "Big Brother" intrusion into the private lives of American citizens. Some things just ain't nobody else's; especially, the governments' business.

[WildBill]

TAM and RGB both make very good points. I would not necessarily be against this for someone who is convicted in criminal court (not merely tarred and feathered in divorce court or family court). There are some really heinous people out there, as TAM alluded to, but there are also people falsely accused for ulterior motives of the accuser.

I agree! Enough is enough of this Orwellian "Big Brother" intrustion into the private lives of American citizens. Some things just ain't nobody else's; especially, the governments' business.

[Poldark]

Agree with earlier posts this will enable vindictive ex spouses (M/F) to abuse the system to get back and punish the alienated partner.

[McKnife]

If this happens, I want to see a DWI/DUI registry with required markings on vehicles indicating at one point they drove impaired.

Also, I want to see Violent Crime registry, with required facial markings indicating they at one point committed a violent crime.

[VoiceofReason]

If this happens, I want to see a DWI/DUI registry with required markings on vehicles indicating at one point they drove impaired.

Also, I want to see Violent Crime registry, with required facial markings indicating they at one point committed a violent crime.

How about a shoplifting/theft registry? I would like to know if my neighbors have ever stolen anything.

They could drop the conviction requirement on this one and just require everyone to take a polygraph test.

[Charles L. Cotton]

Agree with earlier posts this will enable vindictive ex spouses (M/F) to abuse the system to get back and punish the alienated partner.

This happens far more often than people realize. A photo of a battered woman or child is gut-wrenching and that's why they are shown on the news and in advertisements for shelters. What isn't shown is the fact that the majority of such allegations are utterly false. When the allegations are made, it's natural to think back to the horrible photos we've all seen and assume the allegations are true until proven otherwise. This turns the American justice system on its ear.

I'm against any and all so-call registries. They do absolutely no good. Plus, far too many men have pleaded guilty not because they were guilty, but because they were terrified of going to trial and facing stiff prison sentences. I'm a civil trial attorney, but I have a number of friends who have criminal practices and the stories they tell are chilling. The bottom line is allegations of spousal or child abuse, including sexual abuse, are front page news, but exoneration never rarely makes the paper. When it does, it's never cast in the light of "he was innocent," it's always "the rotten son-of-a-gun got away with it."

I'll support tougher laws and penalties for such crimes when making a false allegation is a first degree felony with a minimum of 20 years in prison.

/rant

Chas.

[Charles L. Cotton]

If this happens, I want to see a DWI/DUI registry with required markings on vehicles indicating at one point they drove impaired.

Also, I want to see Violent Crime registry, with required facial markings indicating they at one point committed a violent crime.

How about a shoplifting/theft registry? I would like to know if my neighbors have ever stolen anything.

You make an excellent point. I'm far more interested in knowing if a neighbor has been convicted of murder, but there's no registry for murderers.

Chas.