Dane County's DAIS held an Oct. 1 rally for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation
A report released Thursday from Dane County’s Domestic Abuse Intervention Services (DAIS) found that Dane County judges grant restraining orders against perpetrators of intimate partner violence in 34% of cases.
The report found that even when a judge grants a restraining order, it is often not for the amount of time requested by the victim — despite state law requiring that the order be for the length of time requested by the petitioner.
State law allows judges to impose restraining orders on domestic abusers for up to four years in most cases, and up to 10 years when it can be proven the abuser is especially dangerous. But in a handful of cases, the report found, a judge granted restraining orders for only two years to allow a “cooling off period” for the people involved despite “serious lethality concerns testified to in the hearing.”
Kianna Hanson, the legal advocacy program manager at DAIS, said at an event announcing the report’s findings Thursday morning that the “cooling off period” is a myth and that judges should follow the law.
“The fallacy of the cooling off period, which some judges have cited as a reason for choosing to grant an injunction from less time than the petitioner has requested, which in domestic abuse injunction goes against [state law],” Hanson said. “This mythology around domestic abuse cases is harmful because it suggests that domestic abuse could be the result of anger or not being able to control one’s emotion, when in reality, domestic violence is most often a conscious choice that is rooted in gaining power and control over one’s partner.”
The report was completed by a team from DAIS and other community organizations to observe more than 800 hearings in Dane County Circuit Court from April 2023 to April 2024. At the Thursday morning event, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jill Karofsky said the report was a step toward trying to make Wisconsin’s legal system a better place for everyone involved in it.
“What if the legal system were different? What if the legal system were the vehicle for healing and for change?” she said. “What if people left the legal system in a better place than where they entered, and I mean all of us. I mean judges and attorneys and witnesses and court reporters and victims and defendants and plaintiffs and bailiffs and advocates. What if we left work every day feeling energized and satiated and nourished instead of stressed out, depressed and exhausted, and what if the legal system itself helped us get to a better place?”
The report found that in the vast majority of injunction hearings, 87%, the victim seeking the restraining order was there pro se, meaning they were representing themself. Just 15% of petitioners had support in court from organizations such as DAIS, who have employees who serve as court advocates to help victims navigate the legal process (but aren’t attorneys and can’t provide legal advice).
Representation from an attorney or support from a legal advocate vastly increased the chances of a restraining order being granted, the court found. When acting on their own, petitioners had injunctions granted in 29% of cases but when assisted by an attorney or advocate, injunctions were granted 62% of the time — meaning representation increased the chances of successfully obtaining a restraining order by 114%.
Hanson told the Wisconsin Examiner after Thursday’s event that DAIS would be able to handle more restraining order cases under its legal advocacy program, saying that because the issuance of a restraining order can be a life-or-death decision for an abuse victim, the organization would prioritize those cases.
Domestic abuse organizations across the state face critical funding pressures after a steep decline in federal money they receive hit this fall. Advocates have warned those funding cuts could strain resources for organizations like DAIS across the state.
The report also notes a number of comments court observers saw judges make during hearings in these cases that were interpreted as minimizing abuse, treating people of color differently and misstating the law.
One judge, according to the report, denied an injunction over harassment, stating that he was doing so “because unwanted touching, kissing, or harassing text messages demanding explicit photos is not sexual assault,” despite state law saying it is.
The judges are quoted anonymously in the report but DAIS staff said at Thursday’s event that in the organization’s next version of the report, it will attribute the quotes.
Dane County Judge Julie Genovese, in attendance at the event, said during a question and answer period that she doesn’t think naming the judges will be helpful — even though the comments were made on the record in open court.
“I’d like to say on behalf of the judges, that it would be a very helpful thing for somebody to come and present to the judges at a judge’s meeting, rather than we’re going to just identify you on our next report, to come to the judges discuss with them what are the issues, offer the training or the resources, rather than just do it in this form,” Genovese said.
Dane County's DAIS held an Oct. 1 rally for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation
A new report found that Wisconsin saw 85 domestic violence-related deaths in 2023, a slight decrease from the previous year.
The report’s release comes as organizations offering support to victims of domestic violence are facing steep budget cuts due to a decline in federal funding. Advocates have warned those budget cuts — which may mean less access to shelters, resources and legal advocacy — could lead to an increase in domestic violence deaths moving forward.
The annual report, released by End Abuse, a statewide coalition of organizations and policy experts, is gathered using crime data from the Wisconsin Department of Justice and supplemented with other sources. The report’s total count of deaths includes domestic violence victims as well as other family members killed in an incident and perpetrators who died by suicide or were killed by law enforcement or by their victims.
This year’s report found there were 66 incidents of domestic violence-related homicide resulting in the death of 54 victims. In 17 cases the perpetrator died by suicide after killing their partner or after law enforcement responded. Law enforcement killed the perpetrator in seven incidents and in four the victim killed the perpetrator in self-defense.
The report includes a series of recommendations, primarily focused on addressing structural inequities and systemic racism as well as controlling the spread of firearms.
“We call for action we know will save lives,” the report states. “Year after violent year, we offer data-backed solutions, tell stories encapsulating victims’ and advocates’ experiences, and make explicit requests from lawmakers. Year after year, we hope the stories of those who died will illuminate these requests. We ask, again: Prioritize lives that will otherwise be lost to preventable violence.”
On Oct. 1, the start of domestic violence awareness month, a group of Dane County-based advocates rallied outside the Capitol demanding support for the organizations that work to keep victims safe.
“Domestic violence is not something that happens somewhere else to someone else, it happens right here in our community, to people that we know and love,” said Shannon Barry, executive director of Madison’s Domestic Abuse Intervention Services (DAIS). “We have the data. The statistics show us how frequently this is happening. We see the arrests, the calls for help and the tragic homicides directly tied to domestic violence. We know the impact, but knowing the numbers alone won’t change anything, because what we need is for this community to care, to act and to stand with us and stand with survivors.”
The End Abuse report found that more than 77% of perpetrators in domestic violence homicide incidents were male. The average age of perpetrators was 38, and the average age of victims was 38.
The incidents took place in 22 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties, with 42% in rural counties and the other 58% in urban counties. Almost half of the incidents — 28 — occurred in Milwaukee County. Of the victims in the domestic abuse homicides, 28 were Black and 28 were white, according to the report.
By far, the most common method used in Wisconsin’s domestic violence homicides was guns, with 55 of the deaths coming by firearm. The next most common method was stabbing, which was used in eight of the incidents.
At the DAIS rally, one of the organization’s board members, Rachel Reilly, discussed how hard it can be for someone in an abusive relationship to ask for help. Reilly told the gathered crowd of a few dozen people about how she left an abusive marriage, the panic attacks she suffered while working up the courage to ask DAIS for help, and that her ex-husband killed his new girlfriend and himself after she left.
“There isn’t a moment that goes by that I don’t truly believe that DAIS is what helped me be safe and helped my kid be safe,” Reilly said.
Reilly concluded by noting the sharp budget cuts organizations in Dane County and across the state are facing.
The report identifies a number of policy areas in which progress would also help reduce domestic violence rates in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin has the highest homicide rate for Black women in the country. The report connects domestic violence to many of Wisconsin’s structural inequities for Black residents, including rates of poverty, incarceration, unemployment and educational attainment.
“Addressing DV requires recognizing its economic dimensions and structural roots,” the report states. “To tackle this crisis effectively, the Wisconsin legislature should establish a task force to investigate and address the root causes of violence against Black women and girls. This task force would analyze contributing factors and recommend actions to the legislature to eliminate this violence.”
Easy access to firearms and a shortage of affordable housing options are also named as factors that lead to increases in domestic violence homicides.
“A lack of affordable housing leaves victims with few options for escaping abusive situations,” the report states. “Without stable housing, survivors face greater barriers to accessing safety and support, increasing their vulnerability to lethal violence. Housing instability forces survivors to stay in unsafe environments due to financial constraints. Inadequate eviction laws and financial aid exacerbate this problem, leaving victims with few options for escaping abusive situations.”
Many of the factors the report notes are areas that will be affected by the advocacy organizations’ budget struggles. The report notes that 73% of unmet requests at domestic violence support agencies are for emergency housing and that service deserts in rural parts of the state contribute to deaths.
“Federal funding, already dwindling for years, will be slashed by 70% in October 2024, leaving Wisconsin’s local DV programs struggling to meet the needs of survivors,” the report states.
“Beyond the moral and ethical imperative to act, there are over $657 million in annual economic losses associated with domestic violence,” the report adds. “We must meaningfully increase funding in our state budget in the long-term to address this crisis of violence and remove existing funding barriers that prevent flexible service delivery and prevention efforts.”
Blind figure of Justice holding scales | Getty Images Creative
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation
Domestic violence shelters and victim services organizations across Wisconsin are bracing for massive cuts to their budgets because Wisconsin’s allocation from a federal program has dropped from $40 million to $13 million.
The cuts caused the state Department of Justice (DOJ) to limit grants available to community based organizations and government agencies such as victim-witness departments within county district attorney’s offices. Organizations were only allowed to request just $250,000 this year.
That cap caused some organizations to receive far less federal money than in past years. Stevens Point-based CAP Services, Inc. saw its VOCA allocation drop from $985,895 last year to $98,219.
Data from the DOJ shows that on average, organizations received about $250,000 less money through VOCA than they did last year. But because the DOJ imposed the cap on grant requests as a way to make sure the money available got spread as fairly as possible, that decline doesn’t show how organizations may have limited their requests when they actually needed far more.
The Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) takes fees, fines and penalties collected in federal court proceedings and disburses those funds to the states to use on victim services — which can include the operations of community-based organizations such as domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers and the work of victim-witness offices within county district attorneys’ offices.
These organizations and offices play a crucial role in the criminal justice system. Their work can include finding housing, clothes and food for survivors and their children, providing transportation to and from court appearances and helping people prepare for and understand the often confusing process of criminal court proceedings. The work is also often a matter of life and death in cases that can include helping victims of domestic violence safely leave home.
Staff at these organizations also help victims process the trauma they’ve experienced and how that’s affected by the criminal justice process, which by definition requires them to relive it in court.
The cuts will have ripple effects across communities, said Shira Phelps, the executive director of DOJ’s Office of Crime Victim Services, calling the downsizing of victims’ services a “drastic loss.”
“Victim services is not just about one person gets hurt and experiences trauma, and then they’re helped and they go on with their lives,” Phelps added. “This is really about sort of taking away a foundation for communities that help in every other aspect. Housing, education, all of those different fields are going to feel this really deep impact.”
Since 2000, Congress has put a cap on the amount of money that can be disbursed to states from the fund, which is operated by the U.S. Treasury Department, calculated by a three-year average of court fees, fines and penalties. That number has dropped over the past six years and in March, Congress approved setting the cap at $1.2 billion, a 40% drop from the 2023 fiscal year when the cap was $1.9 billion and a massive decline from 2018 when the cap hit an all-time high of $4.4 billion.
In 2021, Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin was a co-author of a bill that passed on a bipartisan basis to sustain the fund, adding an additional $1 billion to the fund between 2021 and 2023. But last year, as the cap was set to drop, Baldwin warned a fix would be needed as Wisconsin faced an increase in domestic violence deaths.
“Organizations across Wisconsin rely on this funding to provide support to victims of crime, including victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. Sadly, Wisconsin continues to suffer from an epidemic of domestic violence, and these funds are vital to assist the adults and children harmed by these crimes,” Baldwin wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland last October. “The Department must do everything in its power to ensure that these organizations and the victims they serve have the resources they need.”
For the past few years, Wisconsin has been able to put a Band-aid over the cuts with money from COVID-19 relief funds, but with those funds running out, organizations across the state are preparing for a sudden hit. In its request for the 2025-26 budget, DOJ has asked for money to fill the gap. In the meantime, organizations will struggle to provide the services they can.
The loss of funds comes as domestic violence continues to be a major problem in Wisconsin. The state ranks eighth in the nation for the number of women killed by men, and a 2022 report found that domestic violence deaths in Wisconsin were on the rise.
Domestic violence homicide is the most predictable type of homicide, said Courtney Olson, executive director of Rainbow House Domestic Abuse Services, Inc in northeastern Wisconsin. She believes it’s one of the most preventable.
Olson said friends and family members of victims often feel frustrated, wondering why their best friend, sister, daughter or mom doesn’t leave an abusive relationship. She said on average, it takes seven attempts to leave before someone is out the door for good, and leaving is the most dangerous time for victims. Having help from a professional is critical, she said.
“It’s lifesaving work,” Olson said.
Service cuts
The loss of services will be most stark in more rural parts of the state, where local and county governments have less capacity to help with the lost funds and there are fewer private funds available.
Embrace, a non-profit, with headquarters in Ladysmith, Rusk County, has been in existence since 1980, offering shelter and services to survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault.
It serves four, rural counties in northwest Wisconsin – Barron, Price, Rusk and Washburn.
Embrace is scheduled to face a $531,581 cut of VOCA funds – from $650,000 to $118,419 – that Executive Director Katie Bement said represents about one third of the organization’s budget.
“I’m in shock and don’t even know what to say because it’s just creating such panic ... knowing that there are all these life-saving services statewide being impacted,” said Bement. “It’s not just Embrace that’s experiencing this. People are going to lose access to child abuse services, domestic violence and sexual assault and trafficking (services) and other victim services because of this loss of funding.”
In the spring of 2023, Bement was first informed there would be a cut of the VOCA funds but the estimate was around $400,000 – a significant hit for the organization. Then, in early September this year she learned it would be even deeper – $531,581.
“It was so much worse than we thought,” she said.
Anticipating a $400,000 hit, Embrace changed how it operates its emergency shelter available 24/7 for the last 30 years by removing a staff person from the premises.
“We've always had staff on-site in our emergency shelter who were able to be called out to accompany somebody to a hospital or respond to folks that were staying in shelter,” she said, “and with the original notice of the funding loss coming through, we restructured all of that, so now nobody (no staff person) is physically on site at the shelter anymore.”
With the $531,581 cut, Embrace has had to cut even more services, including sexual assault services for survivors, as well as laying off staff and reducing services to the schools in the four counties.
“There are going to be people out there who die without these services available,” she said. “It’s going to be slower to get services because there’s less staff. I think it’s very unlikely people will be able to get same-day services unless there’s a high risk of homicide.”
She added, “The people who are going to be hurt the most are the folks who are already most harmed and marginalized – QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous People of Color) survivors and rural, low-income survivors.”
Bement said small, rural non-profits like Embrace are feeling the cuts the most because they don’t have private foundations to turn to for funds and the local county government funding is limited: Washburn gives $17,000; Rusk, $12,000 and Price, $2,000.
Barron County used to give Embrace $25,000 a year but after it paid for a Black Lives Matter billboard in the county in 2020 the county supervisors responded negatively and cut all funding.
Earlier in the year, the state Legislature approved some backfill dollars in Act 241 that gave Embrace $271,000 to fund the group’s work through 2024 and into June 2025, but this leaves it nearly $300,000 short and the Act 241 funds are just for one year.
“We can’t really hire anyone because we don’t know if there will be any dollars for next year,” Bement said.
Seven organizations in northeast Wisconsin are seeking donations in the face of looming funding cuts that threaten the current level of services for victims of crimes.
“There’s just really nothing to trim, and that is the story you’re going to hear from every agency,” Tana Koss, vice president of programs and strategy at Family Services of Northeast Wisconsin, said about her organization. “We’re already as efficient as we can be.”
Member organizations are collecting donations for the North Eastern WI (N.E.W.) Victim Service Collaborative Fund. The fund’s webpage says that as of Oct. 1, the region will lose almost $1.8 million each year — over $5 million over the grant cycle. The goal is to raise $3 million in 3 years.
Family Services of Northeast Wisconsin is losing about $690,000 of VOCA funding. Koss said her organization has been going after any potential grant funding, but a gap remains. The gap is down to $365,000 for the coming year, she said. That’s “basically a thousand dollars a day we need to find” to maintain sexual assault core services, Koss said.
“That advocacy support, having someone that you feel really comfortable with, is critical,” Koss said. “And it’s critical not just for that human’s experience, but for the justice system to work. Keeping a person who’s been victimized in this way engaged in the legal process to hold the perpetrators accountable — that’s a long road.”
Koss said barrier-free counseling has been part of the organization’s VOCA-funded effort for over 40 years. It had to be cut completely out of the grant, and the group hasn’t yet found new funding to keep it going. The family services organization has found funding for its child advocacy center for this year.
Koss said the organization hasn’t made staff cuts to sexual assault services, but the $365,000 gap remains for the fiscal year running from 2024 into 2025. In 2025-2026, the shortfall will be $950,000.
“I feel like it is impossible to cut from a team of 10 that’s doing 24/7 in four counties,” Koss said. “Half of the victims we’re serving are children. And 90% of those children know their abuser. So how can we not be responding? Like, we have to figure it out. To me, it’s like, failure is not an option.”
The VOCA reductions will give $351,000 less to the Violence Intervention Project, Inc, which serves Kewaunee County. The organization has had to cut essentially four positions from its staff of nine, executive director Laura Giddley said. A concern for her is staff burnout. She also said the cut may decrease the organization’s outreach and prevention education.
“So it will be impactful within our community, and most importantly, getting resources out to the individuals in our community,” Giddley said.
Koss said multiple agencies help youth hear about safety and relationships, and how to tell an adult if something wrong is happening. She said the agencies are organized and provide experts from multiple points of view, and if any one agency loses funding, it affects the whole.
While rural parts of the state will be the first to see drastic changes such as cuts to service, eventually the ripple effect will harm the whole system.
In Dane County, Domestic Abuse Intervention Services (DAIS) operates a domestic violence shelter, 24-hour hotline and provides numerous services for victims in the county. For now, because of the availability of private dollars in Madison, funds from city and county government and long-term planning, the organization can cover the loss in VOCA funds through measures such as deferring maintenance projects. But that safety net won’t last forever.
“As other programs around the state and in the region close or are profoundly impacted by these cuts, those victims and survivors are going to come to organizations that do remain, such as DAIS or other larger programs,” DAIS executive director Shannon Barry said. “Dane County is already the fastest growing county in the entire state of Wisconsin. We’ve already seen the impact of that growth on demand for our services, and we already have waitlists for some of our services; most notably our homicide prevention shelter – the only one in Dane County.
Cuts in other parts of the state could increase the number of people DAIS needs to help because the organization is prohibited by law from denying service based on geography.
“We have to be available to anyone who comes to us,” Barry said. “Our capacity is not infinite — these cuts to programs across the state create an even bigger burden on the organizations that remains when we’re already stretched to the limit.”
Effect on DA’s offices
Some district attorneys’ offices in Wisconsin will also be receiving less VOCA funding. In Milwaukee County, Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern is concerned about how the loss of funding may affect the office’s prosecution of crimes. The DA’s office will receive about $334,000 less in VOCA funding than it currently does, according to the Wisconsin DOJ.
VOCA money for the DA’s office funds victim witness advocates, Lovern said. These advocates’ main job is to stay in close contact with victims and witnesses. They give advice, reach out to victims and witnesses and accompany them to court. They also work to make sure the DA’s office is gathering enough information from victims to help determine the right charging decision for a crime.
Going forward, the DA will have two VOCA-funded victim witness advocates instead of eight, Lovern said. The county agreed to provide another four advocates in this year’s budget.
The work of victim witness offices has also become more expensive in recent years because of the 2020 passage of Marsy’s Law, amending the state constitution to give more rights to crime victims. The changes added more responsibilities to the work of these offices without adding any more funding.
The loss of VOCA money is also coming at a time of increasing caseloads, Lovern said.
“We’re charging more cases over the last two years than in previous years, so the caseloads are already growing,” Lovern said. “And this adds just additional work to our staff, many of whom have indicated to us they’re feeling a bit overwhelmed by the additional caseload burden.”
Outagamie County District Attorney Mindy Tempelis said it’s still unclear how the cuts will affect the state, but she’s worried about how an already under-funded aspect of the system can manage and what that will mean for providing people what they need during traumatic times.
“There's a lot of victims of crime who really need the support of government services like the victim witness program and community based organizations that help them,” Tempelis said. “And when those are impacted, that impacts victims’ ability to process what happened to them, be able to get the care that they need to be healthy and to continue to move forward into a survivorship position”
For survivors of crimes, the cuts could “erode trust” in the criminal justice system, according to Erin Welsh, deputy director of the DOJ crime victim services office.
“I think for survivors, it really has the potential to erode trust in the system,” she said. “‘You know, I thought I was going to have these rights, I thought I was going to have these services, and you are not able to give them to me.’ And that's unreasonable for asking folks in the criminal justice system to do that with nothing, and that's entirely unfair to just leave survivors hanging and expect to get something from the criminal justice process. So I think that trust that it erodes has a real impact in how communities engage with the criminal justice system.”
One of the biggest fears about the cuts is that if people lose trust in the criminal justice system because it doesn’t support victims of domestic and sexual violence, these already underreported crimes will be less likely to be reported.
“I don't think it is possible to overstate how this will impact [reporting of crimes],” Phelps said. “The trust in the system is hard anyway, and if we are not even able to uphold and protect their rights under the constitution, under statute, why in the world would anybody put themselves out there, put their trauma out there, put their the worst thing that ever happened to them out in public if they don't even believe that their rights will be protected at a bare minimum, let alone all the other critical resources and services that are provided? If we can't even ensure that — there's no reason anyone would trust us.”
Correction: This story initially said it takes seven incidents of abuse before someone leaves an abusive relationship. It has been corrected to say it takes seven attempts to leave.
Login
