San Antonio, which has long been plagued with a high rate of domestic violence, is trying new methods to break the cycle. “They leave jail angrier and more resentful, and the trauma continues,” said Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez, a family violence judge in the city. A court run by Gonzalez is trying a different approach: providing the abusers with a chance to change. First-time offenders can avoid becoming another statistic in the long string of men — and a growing number of women — who go to jail for hurting their families, if they are accepted into a family violence diversion program run by Gonzalez’s court, known as Reflejo, Spanish for reflection. The problem is not unique to San Antonio, a Latino-majority metropolis. Much of the U.S. saw a record spike in domestic violence cases during the coronavirus pandemic as lockdowns, job losses and alcohol consumption drove people into tense situations indoors.
Many cities have tried to address the problem, and rates in some are declining again. San Antonio is among the places that have assigned more detectives to domestic violence cases. It is conducting “lethality assessments,” in which officers ask a series of questions to determine whether a victim is in danger of serious violence or even death if an intervention does not occur. The city felt an urgency to do even more. San Antonio has consistently ranked among the top 20 large cities for rates of aggravated domestic violence — higher than Las Vegas, Philadelphia and Atlanta, says the Council of Criminal Justice. San Antonio stood out for having a large share of underreported incidents, said Alex Piquero, a University of Miami criminologist and one of the study’s lead authors. The new court is one of a handful that provide incentives as well as accountability for perpetrators, aimed at helping them control violent impulses before they become deadly. In exchange for seeing their charges expunged, offenders who appear in Gonzalez’s court are required to complete a program of frequent court appearances, counseling, treatment for addiction and random drug and alcohol testing.
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