In a 2018-19 draft budget unveiled last week, Santa Clara County officials proposed setting aside $5 million to help domestic violence survivors. That’s a 400 percent increase from the year prior.
Officials justified the spending increase because of an uptick in the number of reported domestic violence cases. The county fields about 20,000 calls a year to its domestic violence hotline, which doesn’t include 9-1-1 calls.
“The goal is to save lives, prevent homelessness and end violence,” County Executive Jeff Smith said in a news release. “The funds will be used to provide multiple services to survivors of intimate partner domestic violence such as housing, education, mental health services and childcare.”
The funding will expand services for victims, such as the 24-hour crisis hotline, legal counseling and housing assistance, according to the county.
In the 2014-15 fiscal year, the county offered 23,000 bed nights to domestic violence survivors. But a lack of resources left 2,000 survivors with no place to go. The very next fiscal year, the county provided 6,000 victims with services, including shelter for more than 700 adults and children to carry on their lives in a safe environment.
The Domestic Violence Death Review Team, a coalition that includes prosecutors and social workers, reported seven domestic violence-related deaths in 2016 and nearly twice that in 2017, with 13 deaths reported. Records show that the county counted a total of 178 domestic violence-related deaths between the years 2000 to 2016.
Partly in response to the uptick in domestic violence fatalities, the county founded the Intimate Partner Violence Blue Ribbon Task Force from 2016 to last year. The commission drummed a series of recommendations on how to improve violence prevention and intervention.
The proposed spending for domestic violence prevention and victim services would come from the county general fund with approval from the Board of Supervisors.
> Santa Clara County Proposes Fourfold Funding Boost for Domestic Violence Survivors
Progressives absolutely do not understand the concept of incentives.
If the County pays more money for “Domestic Violence Survivors” it will have more “Domestic Violence Survivors”.
In order to have more “Domestic Violence Survivors”, there needs to be more domestic violence.
You get what you pay for.
Mr. S.J.O.T.Bubble,
Wait, you’re confusing me with your logic. Maybe you can help me understand this. If a biological, XY- chromosomes-at-birth male, self-identifies as female and goes into the women’s restroom and is beaten up by a preoperative transsexual who has just broken up with an abusive cross-dresser who failed to celebrate his and/or her diversity, is that domestic violence and if a biological male who self-identifies as hermaphrodite, punches a transvestite of unknown gender (they have only been dating a short time) what kind of violence, or domestic violence, would that be classified as and what shelter and services are available?
JSR:
If you think it’s bad now, just wait until “old” California is divided into three states, giving birth to the new state of Untrumpistan.
I believe that Untrumpistan will be a very modern and very progressive “direct democracy” in which the concept of gender will be totally diverse and a statement of one’s personal identity Each citizen will decide his, her, or its own gender identity. In a nation of fifteen million personal identities there will be fifteen million genders.
With fifteen million genders there will be fifteen million times fifteen million different potential domestic violence situations.
I think it’s safe to say that there will have to be an increase in “spending for domestic violence prevention and victim services”.
How much of the funding will go towards a “Battered Men’s Shelter?” Here’s the most ignored social fact in this country, Women commit just as much domestic violence as men.
This is a blog post not a term paper so I’ll dispense with case citations but let me just say that numerous studies have shown that women initiate physical aggression about as often as do men; some studies say slightly more often, some studies say slightly less often. The difference is that the male is larger, can absorb more damage, is stronger, and hits harder so women get injured more often. Such are the things of which statistics, and misconceptions, are made.
As well, men don’t report domestic violence as often, not due to some mythical sense of macho stoicism (one of the studies was from England, not exactly a bastion of male masculinity) but because when a woman accuses a man of domestic violence, enforcement of the law is so obscenely skewed in favor of female credibility and against believing anything the male might try to explain, that the man is considered guilty even if proven innocent. District attorneys routinely prosecute domestic violence cases even if a woman credibly, truthfully recants. And how many times has a man ever gotten away with murder by introducing as part of his defense, a component of “battered men’s syndrome”? Answer, uh, Never.
I’m not saying that women should never hit men, far from it. More faces need to be slapped to establish boundaries and set a standard but we should also teach our men that returning a slap with anything but an apology is wrong, and that allowing anyone else to strike a woman, should be met with an appropriate level of counter-violence. Male on male violence, in defense of a woman,should be encouraged and celebrated, not vilified. But then, what the hell, just throw money at it, build another shelter. (But just for women)
I agree. There is a bias toward prosecuting men. In this new age of #metoo, it is likely to escalate.
Very little proof is required. Many times it is a race to the telephone to call 911.
Money will not solve the problem. Education can..
> Money will not solve the problem. Education can..
Maybe. Maybe not.
What kind of education? And who is the object of the education?
The radio and TV waves are flooded with virtue signalling “public service announcements”. After two or three exposures, the shallowness, stupidity, biased premises of the ads becomes annoyingly obvious.
“Don’t be a racist. Don’t be a sexist”. A public service announcement of the Ad Council.
Ummm. Why is my radio telling ME not be a sexist? Why aren’t they telling Harvey Weinstein or Dominic Caserta?
If more “education” is the answer, it probably needs to be something other than the politically correct bludgeoning that we are subjected to every day.
As a tax subsidized benefit for all I will have my phone on speed dial.
District attorneys routinely prosecute domestic