Community-based programs offer alternative to criminal justice system in cases of domestic violence

Cat Brooks, an African American woman was 18 when she was brutally beaten by her white husband, she said. He called law enforcement. When the police arrived, they believed his story that she was the primary aggressor and took her to jail.

“What I learned from that experience is that there was no one to call for help,” said Brooks.

Her husband told the truth in court about beating her, and the case was dropped. But the message to Brooks was clear: The criminal justice system wasn’t meant to protect her, so she stopped calling. She went on to endure more abuse from her husband and future partners in silence.

“That is the case for so many Black and brown, Indigenous and poor women across this country,” said Brooks, “We just don’t call anyone, because dialing 911 rarely leads to help.”

Brooks is the co-founder of Anti Police-Terror Project, a coalition that seeks to “eradicate police terror in communities of color.” She’s also the executive director of the Justice Teams Network, a group of grassroot and nonprofit organizations that work to address and prevent state violence.

Sasha Cotton, senior strategy director at the National Network for Safe Communities (NNSC), joined Brooks for a video conference about transformative justice. The discussion, held via Zoom and led by Center for Health Journalism director Michelle Levander, capped off the second day of the Center’s Domestic Violence Symposium last week.

Cotton said that Brooks’ experience was “a far too common story in our communities around trauma, abuse and violence against Black and brown women.”

Her organization focuses on how a community, law enforcement and social services collectively can address violence, enabling communities to provide safety for themselves.

“In my opinion they have historically fell a little short of that goal, in an over-reliance on systems’ response and law enforcement in particular, to design and implement strategies around safety,” said Cotton. 

With her leadership, NNSC is looking at strategies to anchor safety with community and social services agencies, while empowering community residents to create safety.

Previously, Cotton was with the Minneapolis Office of Violence Prevention at the time of George Floyd’s murder, which has influenced her views. She said after Floyd’s killing, people reduced their reliance on law enforcement for safety, more than 300 officers resigned and the existing system of policing “went away” in the Twin Cities.

“I think this has opened the door for the city to continue to have meaningful conversations about creating safety systems that don’t only rely on law enforcement as the response, which is really important for reimagining community safety,” said Cotton.

Brooks said her coalition also puts the emphasis on alternatives to the police and courts. “The Anti Police-Terror Project operates from the politic that those that are closest to the problem are actually the experts in the solutions. Often, it’s not our government agencies that know what’s best. It’s the folks that are mired in the conditions.”

“Community response to community crisis is actually nothing new,” Brooks added.

She said her agency’s model is based upon local mutual aid. Most services funnel through the Anti Police-Terror Project’s program Mental Health First, which is a mobile mental health response team, as an alternative to 911 and police involvement.

Cotton said her organization also utilizes mobile case managers to respond. The case managers are men with a history of gang, community or domestic violence, who now want to make a positive contribution to their community. They’ve been trained in conflict management, and they help men get out of the home if they feel triggered to act with violence.

She said misogyny is not the primary driver of domestic violence, but many men with a history of violence consider violence as a tool to solve their problems.

“It’s how they resolve conflict in their community. It’s how they resolve conflict in their homes,” said Cotton. “That requires us to pivot in the way that we think about solutions.”

She said that the systems’ response has been built around the needs of middle-class white women, not Black and brown women.

“Particularly for communities of color, the way we talk about domestic violence needs to be from a system response,” said Cotton.

Levander asked about the utility of mandated reporting to agencies, such as child protective services (CPS).

Brooks said CPS and similar agencies often fail to help and can be punitive. Instead of offering services, such as counseling, to support women and families seeking safety, they criminalize, punish and shame women for being in a violent situation.

“Child protection has been used as a tool and has been weaponized against mothers and Black and brown women for decades,” Cotton said.

In discussing insights for journalists covering domestic violence, Cotton said the press can often “demonize” women who don’t want to leave an abusive partner, failing to understand how complicated the issues are for those choosing to stay.

“A lot of women don’t want to leave — they just want the violence to stop. They love their partner,” said Cotton.

Brooks offered several thoughts for journalists, including understanding that not all intimate partner violence looks the same.

“If it bleeds, it leads. The more bloody, the more violent (stories) are the stories that you’re going to cover,” said Brooks.

She would like to see coverage of other topics, such as community programs that are engaging in the response to violence, conversations with women who want their families to stay together, women imprisoned for defending themselves and that some agencies, such as CPS, cause more harm than good.

“I would like journalists to explore more that we have been responding to this issue for 40 years with the carceral state … and there’s no significant dent in the issue of intimate partner violence and its impact on women,” Brooks said. 

Cotton emphasized the need to hold perpetrators of domestic violence responsible for their actions while respecting their humanity, which she referred to as “compassionate accountability.”

“Government has a responsibility to fund community safety, but we need a different kind of public safety,” said Cotton, “If we are going to have true community-led strategies, they have to be born out of the community.”