SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah State Legislature will consider major spending increases and bills to increase domestic violence victim services.
The pending legislation is timely, given the horrific murder-suicide in the southern Utah community of Enoch, where a man is suspected of killing his wife, mother-in-law and five children before taking his own life.
"These are the days we all dread in this field," said Erin Jemison, the policy director for the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition. "I've been working in domestic violence for 25 years and I've had far too many of these days where we hear these stories and we just want to do everything we can to prevent this situation from reaching this level of tragedy."
In the upcoming legislative session, the governor's office is proposing spending $53 million on domestic violence victim services. Currently, Utah spends about $6 million.
"Our system in Utah is completely upside down," Jemison said. "It’s dependent entirely on federal funding, nonprofit organizations that provide these services are fundraising their tails off to try to get the support they need to be on the other end of these hotline calls to try to save lives every day. And it’s time the state really invest in that."
There will also be a suite of bills to improve coordination between agencies and governments and enact changes to try to protect victims of domestic violence.
One of those pushing for the legislation and spending boosts is Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson, whose cousin was killed in a murder-suicide at a Taylorsville bus stop last year. Amanda Mayne was shot-and-killed by her ex-husband, whom police said had threatened Mayne's family previously.
"That really brought this issue home for me and really helped me realize how impactful this is on people’s lives," Lt. Gov. Henderson said in an interview with FOX 13 News. "So I've taken some proactive steps to mitigate the problems we have in this state."
Lt. Gov. Henderson said community and police responses to domestic violence calls need to be improved.
"What we saw is there are so many holes in the system that violent offenders, people who are perpetually offending and maybe escalating, get lost in the system," she said. "We have silos, law enforcement doesn’t necessarily have the tools they need to tell in the moment, on the scene, that an offender has repeated or is escalating and is a greater threat to the victim or the public."
One of the bills being proposed would require all police officers to conduct a "lethality assessment" on domestic violence calls, which evaluate the risk of homicide. Lt. Gov. Henderson said right now, about half of Utah's law enforcement agencies do them regularly. There is also no standard protocol, something that would be created in the legislation.
The bill does have input from law enforcement and victim advocates, Lt. Gov. Henderson said.
Other bills seek to improve coordination between victim service providers, law enforcement and prosecutors. Another would provide rental assistance for victims of domestic violence so they don't face eviction.
Jemison said people who want to see these changes need to call their elected lawmakers and urge them to support the bills and spending requests.
"I think our system failed in many ways. I don’t think there’s one thing that could been done differently that could have saved my cousin’s life," Lt. Gov. Henderson said. "And I don’t want to look back ever and say, 'Oh if only this policy were in place, my cousin would be alive today.' I don’t know that’s necessarily helpful. What I do feel confident about is we can save lives moving forward if we enact these policies. If we plug these holes, these gaps in our system and these failures, not failures of people, failures of the system. We will save lives."
Domestic violence victim resources (free, 24/7, confidential):
- Utah Domestic Violence Coalition:
- Hotline: 1-800-897-LINK (5465)
- Online help: udvc.org
- National Domestic Violence Hotline
- 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
- Online live chat: thehotline.org
- If you or someone else is in immediate danger, or in an emergency, call 9-1-1 immediately.
