This story was published in partnership between THE CITY and <\/em>The Fuller Project<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Divisions among domestic violence advocates in New York City about what role, if any, police should have in addressing domestic and gender-based violence have been playing out for years against the backdrop of the larger defund the police movement. <\/p>\n At one end: organizations with deep relationships with the New York Police Department and other city law enforcement bodies have argued that the NYPD has an essential role to play in ensuring survivors\u2019 safety. <\/p>\n On the other end, grassroots organizers urged investing some of the NYPD\u2019s $10 billion-plus annual budget<\/a> into resources like housing and income security for survivors. <\/p>\n Late last month, some of these tensions spilled out into the open at a City Council hearing chaired by Astoria representative Tiffany Cab\u00e1n<\/a>, who became a star in the defund movement when she came within just 55 <\/strong>votes of becoming Queens district attorney in 2019.<\/p>\n At the hearing, Cab\u00e1n and allies called out ways they contend New York City\u2019s law enforcement-centric approach often acts as a barrier to survivors who seek support but may have reasons to avoid the police \u2014 including immigration status, past negative interactions with law enforcement, or a history of incarceration.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s clear is that the number of people who experience gender-based, intimate partner and domestic violence dwarfs those who access victim and survivor services,\u201d said Cab\u00e1n. <\/p>\n At issue in the hearing was a resolution<\/a> sponsored by Cab\u00e1n and Councilmember Mercedes Narcisse (D-Brooklyn) in support of a state bill<\/a>, sponsored by Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn) and Assemblymember Demond Meeks (D-Rochester), that would get rid of a requirement that crime victims cooperate with law enforcement in order to access financial compensation. <\/p>\n Currently, to access financial compensation from New York State, crime victims must report the crime to police within a week<\/a>, with some exceptions, and continue to cooperate with police and the local district attorney\u2019s office. Narcisse and Cab\u00e1n argued that this prevents many gender-based violence survivors, who may be fearful of working with police, from claiming benefits.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, this is yet another segment of our criminal justice system where social inequities rears its ugly head,\u201d Narcisse said at the hearing. <\/p>\n Gender-based and domestic violence organizations have been pushing to end the link between law enforcement cooperation and survivor assistance.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a huge barrier to get resources and to get actual support,\u201d said Theodora Ranelli, an organizer with Project Hajara, a gender-based and domestic violence organization serving the Muslim community in Queens. \u201cMost domestic violence survivors don\u2019t call the police or report their abuse. So that\u2019s leaving out a lot of people that need resources.\u201d<\/p>\n Many survivors Ranelli works with don\u2019t call police, she said, because in their experience they\u2019re often unfairly targeted<\/a> for arrest because of xenophobia, racism and misogyny<\/a>. Ranelli says some immigrant community members also associate law enforcement in their home countries with dictatorships. <\/p>\n Sanctuary for Families, which had a representative at the hearing and regularly partners with the NYPD, also support efforts to remove the law enforcement cooperation barrier. \u201cYou should not have to show police involvement to show that you are a victim of gender-based violence,\u201d said Judy Harris Kruger, executive director of Sanctuary for Families. <\/p>\n Whether or not more police make survivors safer is a separate issue from whether survivors should be required to cooperate with police to access the Victim\u2019s Compensation Fund, she contends. <\/p>\n \u201cI believe they have a role regarding victims\u2019 safety,\u201d Kluger said in an interview after the hearing, speaking of the NYPD. \u201cThere are situations where the police need to respond and intervene. Because as far as I\u2019m concerned, victims\u2019 safety is paramount.\u201d <\/p>\n Cab\u00e1n and many of the organizers in attendance argued that rather than investing in policing, making sure investments are made in resources like housing, child care and transportation would go a long way towards helping survivors, many of whom are financially reliant on their abusers, which is a significant barrier to leaving. <\/p>\n \u201cEvery dollar that we are putting into police means that\u2019s it\u2019s one dollar that we\u2019re not putting into all of these other areas that we know would directly and immediately serve survivors,\u201d Cab\u00e1n told The Fuller Project and THE CITY. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n An analysis conducted by Janie Williams, an organizer at Survived and Punished NY, a group that works with incarcerated survivors of gender-based and domestic violence, found that the $7.8 million in overtime pay in 2020 for the police precinct with the most overtime in New York City could fund the housing, child care, mental health and transportation needs of 140 survivors for a year. <\/p>\n \u201cThe money that we take in investing in these carceral systems of abuse and violence \u2014 that\u2019s the NYPD, jails, prisons, we can funnel that money into actually listening to survivors about what they need,\u201d said Williams. <\/p>\n At the hearing, the Anti-Violence Project, an organization dedicated to helping LGBTQ and HIV-positive survivors of violence, was among groups that pointed out ways people with marginalized identities are often re-victimized once they encounter police. <\/p>\n \u201cMany LGBTQ survivors, especially the ones of color, do not report violence or seek support from law enforcement,\u201d said Alethia Ramos, a member of the Anti-Violence Project, at the hearing. \u201cBecause when we do we often face dismissive or negative attitudes or more violence including homophobia and transphobia.\u201d<\/p>\n Cab\u00e1n also pointed out during the hearing that many LGBTQ+ survivors in New York City end up being the ones arrested when they call for help. <\/p>\n One factor is New York State\u2019s mandatory arrest law<\/a>, which generally requires police officers to take into custody anyone who commits domestic violence crimes \u2014 even if the person who made the call does not want there to be an arrest. Not only can this deter survivors who fear becoming incarcerated themselves from calling police, but it can also scare survivors who rely on their partners financially and cannot afford for them to become incarcerated. <\/p>\n Jared Trujilo, policy counsel with the New York Civil Liberties Union and a former Legal Aid public defender in New York City\u2019s domestic violence courts, says that in practice NYPD officers end up arresting the person being abused along with or instead of the initial aggressor. <\/p>\n \u201cYou see many cases when there\u2019s cross-complaints and they\u2019ll arrest everybody,\u201d said Trujilo. \u201cBut a lot of times, who they decide to arrest is really just kind of based upon a whim.\u201d <\/p>\n Asked whether policies exist to ensure domestic violence survivors are not arrested when they call police for help, an NYPD spokesperson responded, \u201cVictims of domestic violence are not arrested when they call for assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, WARM, a domestic violence resource organization whose name stands for We All Really Matter, touted the strength of their relationship with the police. <\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things we did during the pandemic was start this partnership with the NYPD when everybody else was running from them,\u201d shared Stephanie McGraw, CEO of WARM and a self-identified Black survivor of domestic violence, at the hearing. \u201cWe knew the importance of Black and brown women getting services.\u201d <\/p>\n One point of contention at the hearing was the locations of the city\u2019s Family Justice Centers, run by the Mayor\u2019s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence. Three of the five borough offices \u2014 in Brooklyn, Manhattan and The Bronx \u2014 are located in the same buildings as district attorneys. <\/p>\n A 2016 report<\/a> produced by the City Council recommended that the FJCs rebrand and expand their offices into community-based locations to improve access for survivors who wish to avoid the \u201ccriminal legal system\u201d and minimize the impression that working with the criminal system is a requirement to access support services. <\/p>\n \u201cFamily Justice Centers are extremely scary and inaccessible,\u201d said Ranelli, of Project Hajara. \u201cIt\u2019s right by the courthouse. There\u2019s a lot of police presence. You have to go through a metal detector to get inside, and it\u2019s just not comfortable\u2026. And when somebody needs immediate support, people often need space for healing that is comfortable.\u201d <\/p>\n In her hearing testimony, Commissioner Cecile Noel, a de Blasio appointee who heads the Mayor\u2019s Office to End Gender and Domestic Violence (ENDGBV), acknowledged that problem. <\/p>\n \u201cWe absolutely understand that co-location in these spaces can have a chilling effect for survivors,\u201d said Noel. \u201cAnd we have explored in every way possible ways of making survivors feel more comfortable accessing our services in that space.\u201d <\/p>\n For Trujilo, the commissioner\u2019s testimony was welcome. \u201cShe was making a lot of points,\u201d he said, \u201cthat our side frankly has been making for a very long time.\u201d <\/p>\n Yet Mayor Eric Adams has yet to show signs of taking the office seriously by making his own appointment to the post. Adams touted a public safety plan<\/a> that does not even mention gender-based or domestic violence.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I see from him, he kind of sees the world in this binary way of you are either an abuser or you\u2019re a victim and there\u2019s no gray or nothing in between,\u201d said Trujilo. \u201cHe also doesn\u2019t recognize, which is kind of surprising because of his career as a cop\u2026that a lot of the public doesn\u2019t like cops.\u201d <\/p>\n Adams\u2019 office did not respond to a request for comment on the role of law enforcement in domestic violence and his broader domestic violence strategy. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n
\nBarriers to Resources for Survivors <\/h2>\n
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How Will Adams Address this Divide?<\/h2>\n
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