Tougher laws urged in domestic violence crimes

HARTFORD -- Victims of domestic abuse need job flexibility, tougher state laws, increased funding for round-the-clock shelters and public-education programs for teens to break the inter-generational chain of violence.

The agenda was announced Wednesday morning by the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Nancy P. Tyler, a lawyer whose husband allegedly held her at gunpoint last summer before burning down her house, said she could imagine the terror that Shengyl Rasim, 25, of West Haven, faced before she became the state's most-recent murder/suicide victim on Jan. 17.

"If we don't make the commitment now, the horror will escalate," Tyler warned. "It starts out small, but grows to monstrous proportions behind closed doors." During a morning news conference in the Capitol complex, Tyler, who survived the armed confrontation last year in South Windsor, said it's crucial that teenagers be taught to respect their peers and romantic partners.

"Let's make the commitment now to educate teens about control and power and teach them about the decency expected in a healthy relationship," Tyler said.

"Let's teach them we all have the right to control our own lives and nobody has the right to control others," she said. "Let's teach them there's a decent way to have a relationship that doesn't include emotional or physical abuse; that doesn't include control and isolation; that doesn't depend on submission, or emotional, physical or financial pain."

Advocates also want the state's $20 surcharge on the $10 fee for marriage licenses to be distributed annually to domestic-violence programs. It currently goes into accounts within the general fund for rape crisis and shelter program for which money can be applied.

Rep. Mae Flexer, D-Danielson, chairwoman of a legislative task force on the issue, said that many of the recommendations will be part of the legislation that the panel will recommend next month when the budget-adjustment session of the General Assembly begins.

The coalition also recommends that a special effort be made to stop domestic violence in immigrant communities and warned that abuse increases during economic recessions.

Patricia Froehlich, state's attorney in the Judicial District of Windham, renewed a request to enact a 10-year "look back" at convicted abusers, rather than the current five years, when considering upgraded charges against repeat offenders. Misdemeanor abuse laws, such as second-degree threatening, should be upgraded to felonies, she said.

"All of the media attention that we're seeing recently may be a recent development but our efforts to combat domestic violence are anything but new," Froehlich said, adding that most of the recommendations have been offered unsuccessfully to the General Assembly in recent years.

"Maybe with all of the attention being focused on domestic violence this year, it will pass," said Froehlich, who also wants previous out-of-state charges against those convicted of domestic abuse considered in domestic violence cases.

"If an offender comes to Connecticut and it's a first domestic-violence offense, but he or she has convictions from other states, we should be able to use those in treating that person as a persistent offender," she said. "That's just common sense and we already have that provision for operating-under-the-influence, with DUI cases."

Deborah McKenna, a Stamford attorney who specializes in employment law for abuse victims, said further protections are needed, including the expansion of leave time to protect people from being stigmatized in the workplace.

"In these particularly challenging economic times everyone realizes how important it is, if you are employed, to be able to hang on to that job," McKenna said. "And for victims of domestic violence your employment is often your only means of escaping that relationship."