Uniform Standards For Domestic Violence Cases Do Not Exist by Charles E. Corry, Ph.D.
Uniform Standards For Domestic Violence Cases Do Not Exist by Charles E. Corry, Ph.D.© 2003-2006 Equal Justice Foundation
| Home | Abstract | Contents | Authors and Site Map | Tables | Index | Bibliography | Comments? | EJF Newsletters | Get EJF Newsletter |
| Chapter 10 — Demographics Of Domestic Violence In Colorado |
| Next — Marriage, divorce, and charges of domestic violence and abuse |
| Back — Principal effect of 1994 DV law in Colorado Springs is reduction in 911 calls |
Judicial districts with extraordinary numbers of domestic violence and abuse cases
Prosecution trends in the Fourth Judicial District
Recidivism and repeat offenders
Twenty Second Judicial District
The relationship between domestic violence and other misdemeanors
Judicial districts with consistently fewer numbers of domestic violence and abuse cases
Other misdemeanor cases in these judicial districts
Statewide police incidents vs. court cases
Number of male victims reported by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation
Estimates of false allegations
Based on Colorado Bureau of Investigation data
Based on National Crime Victimization Survey data
We currently have ten years of domestic violence incident data for the police agencies of Colorado and nine years of demographic data for the courts (Table 57). The data encompass a population of roughly 4 million people.
Table 57: Per capita number of domestic violence and abuse cases in Colorado for the years 1998 through 2007
|
Notably, the number of per capita domestic violence and abuse cases in Colorado increased almost linearly from 1998 and peaked in 2003. The number has declined and appears to have leveled off since then (Table 57). The reasons for that change are currently unknown.
The data from 1998 (Table 36), 1999 (Table 37), 2000 (Table 39), 2001 (Table 41), 2002 (,Table 43), 2003 (Table 45), 2004 (Table 47), 2005 (Table 49), 2006 (Table 51), and 2007 (Table 53) make it plain that uniform standards are not being applied across the state in the issuance of protection orders and the prosecution of domestic violence cases in the various judicial districts.
With ten years of court data it is obvious that abuse of process under color of law is occurring in judicial districts that consistently issue protection orders and prosecute domestic violence cases in per capita numbers more than one standard deviation above the average for the state's judicial districts.
From the data summarized in Table 58 the Third, Fourth, Seventh, Tenth, Twelfth, and Sixteenth judicial districts stand out as repeatedly (for more than four years) issuing extraordinary numbers of protection orders. Their abysmal records of injustice are summarized in Table 58 and these judicial districts currently (through FY 2007) encompass 23% of the sampled population of 4.3 million residents.
The Twenty Second Judicial District was added to Table 58 beginning in 2006 as the number of cases there suddenly jumped from 80-90 to 132 and then to 154 per 10,000 in 2007. Apparently radical feminism finally penetrated to this rural area and a new district attorney was elected on a promise to get tough on domestic violence, i.e., destroy children, families, and marriages. Note that the divorce rate is commonly above average already in the small counties of Dolores and Montezuma.
There is always a fine line between aggressive prosecution of crime and the persecution that characterizes a police state. The seven judicial districts listed in Table 58 have crossed that line with regard to prosecution of domestic violence and abuse. These seven judicial districts appear to be in a race to see who can destroy the greatest number of children and families by imposing the most draconian enforcement criteria for domestic violence and abuse.
The abuse of restraining orders is obvious in El Paso and Teller Counties, including the city of Colorado Springs, that comprise the Fourth Judicial District, the second most populous judicial district in Colorado (Table 51), where, in every year sampled, the number of restraining orders issued per capita egregiously exceeds the state average.
It is therefore reasonable to infer that the use of protection orders and charges of domestic violence are grossly abused in the Fourth Judicial District. As the second largest judicial district in Colorado, if anything remotely resembling equal justice and equal protection applied, the numbers of protection orders in El Paso and Teller counties would be near the state average over time and comparable with the largest district, the Eighteenth, and the nearly equal First Judicial District (Table 59).
Note that since 2005 the number cases of domestic violence involving protection order violations has been broken out separately and those are shown in parentheses in Table 59. Again the 4 th Judicial District has twice the number of cases as the 1 st and 18 th .
The statewide average would suggest roughly 2,600 civil protection orders and criminal domestic violence cases a year in this judicial district. Instead, from Table 51 we find 6,207 cases of domestic violence and abuse were prosecuted in 2006. Thus, one half of all domestic violence and abuse cases in this judicial district, or roughly 2,600, are an abuse of process just in 2006. By inference, just in the nine years from 1998 through 2006 more than 20,000 men (and women) in this district have been unjustly thrown from their homes with little more than the clothes on their back with no pretense of due process.
With regard to domestic violence and abuse, the actions of DVERT, victim's advocates ( TESSA claims to help 2,500 women per year get restraining orders (about one-half of which are against military men), district attorney, and the courts in El Paso and Teller counties have all the fervor of a witch hunt, with the added horror that they are aided and abetted by current laws and taxpayer funding. Yet police records simply don't bear out the gross numbers of DV incidents. In 2004 Colorado Springs police received only 9,261 domestic and family disturbance calls, 1,829, or 17% fewer than the 11,090 calls they received in 1990, despite a 40% increase in population (see Table 55). Additionally, Colorado Bureau of Investigation data suggest only about 1,300 domestic violence incidents are reported from El Paso and Teller counties in a given year, or about 22 per 10,000 residents (see Table 67 below).
The discrepancy in the application of domestic violence laws is also borne out by the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) that found in 2004 that only 0.4% (1 in 250) households included a member victimized by an intimate partner, e.g., a spouse, ex-spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend. The NCVS includes both reported and unreported criminal acts. That translates to less than 0.2% of the population of 609,096 residents and indicates the Fourth Judicial District had ~1,220 actual incidents of criminal domestic violence or abuse in 2007.
Compare the NCVS estimate of 1,220 incidents with 3,014 criminal cases reported (Table 49) and 2,315 domestic abuse restraining orders (5,329 total in 2007) and the evidence suggests at least 75% of the domestic violence and abuse cases in the Fourth Judicial District are, at best, unsubstantiated, and that there are several thousand cases of false allegations of domestic violence and abuse every year.
The Fourth Judicial District is also home to one of the largest military installations in the United States. It is estimated that approximately one fourth of the incredible number of domestic violence charges and restraining orders in this district are made against men, and a few women in the military. Since, under the Lautenberg Amendment, a DV conviction or a restraining order prohibits the possession of a gun or ammunition, the result is such men and women are discharged. As a result the military in El Paso County is losing the equivalent of at least a battalion (~1,000) every year to largely trumped up, exaggerated charges of domestic violence, or to plainly false allegations.
The number of domestic violence and abuse cases prosecuted in the Fourth Judicial District courts are simply unbelievable!
From 2000 to 2007 the population of the Fourth Judicial District increased 13% while, conversely, the total number of domestic violence cases decreased by 15% (Table 59). A logical conclusion might then be that the draconian DV laws and prosecutions are working and domestic violence is decreasing. However, if intimate partner violence is, in fact, decreasing then the number of domestic abuse protection orders should also be decreasing. Instead, through 2007 the number of protection orders has radically increased (Table 62), contradicting the initial conclusion.
As there is little evidence that intimate partner violence is actually diminishing in the Fourth Judicial District, the decrease in DV cases might then be attributed, as previously noted, to the fact that citizens call 911 in far fewer numbers for domestic disturbances (Table 55 and Table 56) since the current laws were passed in 1994.
Coincident with the first posting on this site in November 1999 of the dictum that defendants in DV cases must plead not guilty there has been a dramatic increase in the number of cases where defendants plead not guilty (Table 60) and their case is set for trial. Note that not all DV cases in the 4 th Judicial District are handled in Fast Track and the number of cases shown in Table 59 is always larger than the number of Fast Track cases handled in El Paso County Court and shown in Table 60.
From Table 60, in year 2000 roughly 60% of those charged with domestic violence under the Fast Track program foolishly took the plea bargain. By 2007 only 28% of defendants accepted the plea bargain. In the same period the number of defendants who pled "Not Guilty" increased from 40% to 72%.
Statistics are not available on how many of the defendants who initially plead not guilty are later convicted, or accepted a plea bargain at a later date. However, in our experience those defendants who hold out for a jury trial routinely have their case dismissed, or are acquitted at trial. Unfortunately, that still leads to repeat offenders who are familiar with the overcrowded court system being let off. Conversely, all too frequently first offenders, scared, broke, unfamiliar with legal proceedings, denied defense counsel, and guilty of nothing more than a family argument or lover's quarrel, naively accept the plea bargain proffered at the Fast Track hearing. That particularly works to the disadvantage of female defendants with children at home.
Another issue is whether Fast Track, and domestic violence laws in general, are acting to deter and prevent, or at least reduce recidivism. Whether the number of repeat offenders is decreasing at the same rate as the total number of cases is some measure of both recidivism and whether those with prior experience in DV court have learned how to manipulate the system. Table 61 plots the total number of Fast Track DV cases in the Fourth Judicial District together with the number of repeat offenders and alcohol-related DV cases.
Elementary calculus shows that the total number of DV cases is decreasing at the rate of 76 cases per year (Table 61, slope of red line = –76). The number of cases involving repeat offenders is decreasing at a rate of 29 cases per year (Table 61, slope of orange line = –29). Thus, if current trends continue both the total number of DV cases and those involving repeat offenders would reach zero in 2043-2044, suggesting these variables are strongly coupled.
Another way of stating this is that in 2000 repeat offenders accounted for 37% of all DV cases in Table 61. In 2007 repeat offenders still account for 37% of all Fast Track DV cases. Clearly, the present system is doing little or nothing to deter repeat offenders and the decrease in total numbers of domestic violence cases is unrelated to deterrence of repeat offenders.
Further, the slope of a linear fit (orange line, Table 61) to the number of repeat offenders in Table 61 is essentially flat after 2002. That suggests the number of repeat DV offenders will remain essentially constant in the future, rather than continue to decrease. Either way the problem of intimate partner violence is not being solved by current laws and practices.
Table 61 shows the number of alcohol-involved DV cases is decreasing at a rate of 55 cases per year and would reach zero in 2028, significantly earlier than total DV cases. Why these slopes differ at all is not understood but in 2000 alcohol was involved in 47% of all Fast Track DV cases and by 2007 only 42% of DV cases involved alcohol.
It seems unlikely that DV laws are deterring people from drinking, or drunken couples from fighting.
Given that criminal prosecutions of domestic violence are decreasing in the Fourth Judicial District (Table 59 and Table 60), one might reasonably infer that as of 2007 the laws are working and family violence is decreasing. However, if that were the case then there would not be any need for more domestic abuse protection orders. Instead, quite the reverse is occurring.
While criminal prosecutions of domestic violence have been decreasing, and convictions becoming more difficult to obtain as defendants increasingly plead not guilty (Table 60), radical feminists (redfems) have adapted by radically increasing the numbers of domestic abuse protection orders sought by TESSA as shown in Table 62.
Since 2002 the number of domestic abuse protection orders has dropped from 7,513 to 6,687 in 2007, or –12%, (Table 72) for Colorado overall. However, in the 4 th Judicial District, the number of protection orders from 1,733 in 2002 to 2,315 in 2007, or +25%, (Table 62) have radically increased. Clearly abuse of process is occurring with regard to protection orders in this judicial district.
Domestic abuse protection orders do not require due process and are awarded ex parte without prosecutorial review. So they are much easier to obtain and have much the same impact as a criminal charge without the troublesome requirement of requiring proof. In addition TESSA can script the form for the protection order and what to say on it for women.
Anecdotal evidence suggests such protection orders are used in one-third to one-half of all divorces and are known colloquially as the "silver bullet" for winning child custody. Clearly the domestic violence industry, as exemplified by TESSA, is having a horrifying effect on families and children. Divorces in the Fourth Judicial District are consistently more than one standard deviation above the state average (Table 68).
As bad as it is, the Fourth Judicial District is far from the worst in Colorado. From Table 58 it is clear that the totalitarian regime in the tiny Sixteenth Judicial District, encompassing Bent, Crowley, and Otero counties in southeastern Colorado, would make Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and Mussolini proud. In the ten years from 1998 to 2007 this district of ~31,000 court-ravaged souls has averaged 138 domestic violence and abuse cases per 10,000 citizens (Table 58). In 2002 the Sixteenth Judicial District issued an astounding 168 restraining orders per 10,000 citizens.
Summing the restraining orders shown for the Sixteenth Judicial District (Table 36 for 1998, Table 37 for 1999, Table 39 for 2000, Table 41 for 2001, Table 43 for 2002, Table 45 for 2003, Table 47 for 2004, Table 49 for 2005, Table 51 for 2006, and Table 53 for 2007) we find that 4,282 domestic violence and abuse cases were processed in ten years. No data are available for the years 1994-1997 but a reasonable estimate would be ~1,200. At the current rate of issuing restraining orders it is a simple matter to extrapolate that before 2015 every adult male over the age of 18 in the Sixteenth Judicial District will have been issued at least one restraining order and about two-thirds of the men will have been charged with domestic violence.
One might view this through a gender feminist lens as proof that all men are "batterers" and all women are "victims." But somewhere common sense should suggest the legal system has run amok.
Marriage and families are quaint relics of the past in this hell hole of "justice" where a state of war appears to exist between the courts and citizens. In fact, the number of divorces in the Sixteenth Judicial District shows a marked decline from 77 per 10,000 citizens in 2004 to just 58 per 10,000 in 2007 (Table 68), not because people are staying married longer, but because there are fewer married couples left to get divorced.
Tied for third place in the roll of infamy depicted in Table 58 is the minuscule Third Judicial District embracing Huerfano and Las Animas counties along Colorado's southern border. This hive of petty dictators rules over about 24,000 Colorado residents. Things stink so bad that Huerfano County Judges Claude W. Appel and Robert E. Haeger were disciplined in October 2001 after allegations of improper judicial conduct surfaced. The Colorado Supreme Court also appointed Norman Arends chief judge after District Judge Jesse C. Manzanares was relieved because of the same allegations. Apparently Appel and Haeger were "cleared" as Appel was promoted to district judge and is now chief judge of the Third Judicial District. Haeger is still a Huerfano County Court judge as well. Clearly, matters only got worse in fiscal 2002-2003 (Table 58) and persecution has not diminished with 114 domestic violence and abuse cases for every 10,000 suffering citizens in 2006.
The Third Judicial District has generally led the state in the per capita underage alcohol offenses, and offenses against persons and property in 2000 (Table 40), 2001 (Table 42), 2002 (Table 44), 2003 (Table 46), 2004 (Table 48), and 2005 (Table 50) in addition to the extraordinarily high levels of protection orders. A local attorney even accused the judges of using cocaine.
At the current rate every remaining man over the age of 18 in the Third Judicial District will receive a restraining order by 2020 and over half of them will be charged with domestic violence.
Tied with the Third for third place for dishonor in 2007, Table 58 shows the Tenth Judicial District ( Pueblo County) has fully joined the wolf pack of DV persecution. While their ten year average of 115 domestic violence and abuse cases per 10,000 citizens is toward the low end of the contenders in Table 58, they placed second for 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 for per capita restraining orders. And in 2006 they placed first in the state with 146 domestic violence and abuse cases per 10,000 people, a very dubious distinction.
The Tenth is nearly five times the size of the tiny Sixteenth, so the human suffering resulting from this persecution is similarly magnified. For example, the NCVS data suggest that only about 245 domestic violence and abuse cases actually occurred, compared with the 1,804 shown in Table 53 for 2007. The inference is that 85% of these court cases are, at best, unsubstantiated.
The Twelfth Judicial District, also along Colorado's southern border, is fourth in our lineup of judicial villains (Table 58) for 2007. The Twelfth includes Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Mineral, Rio Grande, and Saguache counties. Since 1999 the Twelfth has placed in the top three or four judicial districts charging men with domestic violence in these already economically-stressed communities.
Perhaps the judiciary and prosecutors in the Seventh Judicial District didn't feel they were doing enough to destroy families and marriages? After a strong beginning of 108 restraining orders per 10,000 citizens in 1998 (Table 36) their totalitarian efforts lagged until 2003 when they managed to jump up again to 106 orders per 10,000 (Table 45). And though they slacked off to 102 domestic violence and abuse cases per 10,000 suffering citizens in 2005 (Table 49) they did pull their draconian average back up to 120 in 2006 (Table 51) and to a staggering 133 per 10,000 in 2007. And the have managed to maintain a fairly impressive average of 105 such cases per 10,000 souls over the past ten years (Table 58). Adolf would be proud of them.
When this tabulation of tyrants was begun the 22 nd Judicial District was maintaining an average or below number of domestic violence and abuse cases. But a new district attorney has fixed that. The number of DV cases started to go up in 2001 but took an amazing jump in 2006 and by 2007 had reached a sickening level of 154 per 10,000 citizens (Table 58), the highest level in the state by a considerable margin. The jump in the destruction of families and marriages has been so sudden that the 10-year average is the lowest, 91 per 10,000, of the miscreants in Table 58.
It is clear that District Attorney Jim Wilson is hell bent on the destruction of society in Dolores and Montezuma counties.
Another approach to isolating judicial districts that are abusing their discretionary powers with regard to domestic violence is to examine all misdemeanor cases. Table 38 for 1999, Table 40 for 2000, Table 42 for 2001, Table 44 for 2002, Table 46 for 2003, Table 48 for 2004, Table 50 for 2005, Table 52 for 2006, and Table 54 for 2007, show selected, population-normalized misdemeanors from data presented by the Colorado State Courts except for the 2 nd Judicial District (Denver).
If a judicial district has a high incidence rate for several categories of misdemeanors as well as domestic abuse and violence, then it is likely that a general problem exists in the society.
Misdemeanors, such as offenses against persons or property, fraud, drug use, and underage alcohol use would probably be prevalent in conjunction with domestic violence in a troubled society. Such a correlation contains the implicit assumption that underage alcohol abuse and drug use would be associated with abusive or broken homes, and that Joe Six Pack would likely get into other kinds of trouble such as bar brawls, besides fighting with his wife or girlfriend. Thus, a high rate of court filings on domestic violence charges would simply be the result of diligent efforts on the part of the courts and law enforcement in those districts, a job for which they are paid and expected to perform.
However, if all other categories of similar crimes are at or below the state averages except domestic violence, it suggests a witch hunt is being conducted for that specific offense. Such actions by law enforcement officials and the courts are generally regarded as an abuse of process and a violation of the equal protection clauses of the state and federal constitutions.
The six judicial districts showing persistent and continuing high levels of domestic violence and abuse cases, as described above and in Table 58, are compared with other misdemeanors prosecuted in those districts for the years 1999 through 2006 in Table 63.
|
Orders 1 (Abuse only) 2 |
Violence 3 |
Offenses 3 |
Drugs 3 |
Person 3 |
Property 3 |
Fraud 3 |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
124 4 |
||||||||
|
1. Values for restraining order column are the sum of all civil and criminal restraining orders. 2. For year 2002 and later, per capita restraining orders for domestic abuse are shown in parentheses and bold if more than one-half of the civil orders are for domestic abuse. 3. Misdemeanors and restraining orders are from Colorado State Court tables. Domestic violence misdemeanors include domestic violence and protection (restraining) order violation cases. 4. Values that exceed state average by more than one standard deviation are shown in bold. |
||||||||
These six judicial districts encompass 23% of the 4.3 million Colorado residents sampled (excludes Denver).
As apparent in Table 63, consistent relationships between domestic violence and abuse and other misdemeanors are evident in the Third, Twelfth, and Sixteenth Judicial Districts. These are depressed rural areas ranging in population from 23,000 to 47,000 residents.
Conversely, the evidence seems clear that with regard to domestic violence in the urban Fourth and Tenth Judicial Districts along the Front Range, the courts are engaged in abuse of process under color of law in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
Domestic violence is not the only witch hunt possible by police and prosecutors under current laws. Illicit use of drugs may certainly fall under such a heading in some districts where misdemeanor drug use would reflect crackdowns on possession of such drugs as small amounts of marijuana. Despite the attitude of Sheriff Bill Masters of San Miguel County that "...the war on drugs is ludicrous, the criminal justice system is a farce and the law-making arm of government has run amok." (Denver Post, August 28, 2000, p. B1), the sprawling Seventh Judicial District, which encompasses San Miguel County, had an above average record for drug prosecutions for the four years 1999-2002 (Table 63) though domestic violence and underage alcohol cases were near average. However, after 2002 the emphasis seems to be shifting to family persecution in the form of protection orders in this district.
The 5 th (2000-2001, 2003-2007), 14 th (1999-2007), and 21 st (1999-2001, 2003-2007) judicial districts all have above average drug prosecutions for three or more years as well, but no relation between domestic violence and drug prosecutions is consistently evident.
One might also expect use of marijuana and underage alcohol offenses to be related. Thus, a crackdown on drugs might result in an increase of arrests for teenage alcohol use, or vice versa. That relationship is only consistent in the Fourteenth Judicial District (Table 38 for 1999, Table 40 for 2000, Table 42 for 2001, Table 44 for 2002, Table 46 for 2003, Table 48 for 2004, Table 50 for 2005, Table 52 for 2006, and Table 54 for 2007) in the northwest corner of Colorado encompassing the ski town of Steamboat Springs. But until 2007 domestic violence prosecutions are consistently at or below average in this judicial district (Table 53).
In stark contrast with the six districts shown in Table 58, six other judicial districts encompassing 59% of the sampled population of 4.3 million residents consistently have significantly fewer domestic violence and abuse cases than the state average. The numbers are shown in Table 64 and, as of 2007, in another year the Thirteenth Judicial District is likely to lose this distinction.
|
First 1 |
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Eighth 1 |
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Kit Carson, Logan, Morgan, Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington, and Yuma |
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Seventeenth 1 |
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Eighteenth 1 |
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
1. Municipalities within this judicial district may also issue restraining orders and prosecute misdemeanor domestic violence cases. The state court values given here do not reflect such cases and the stated values might be as much as 20% low, e.g., for 2005 the Eighteenth Judicial District plus municipalities within its boundaries may have issued as many as 59 restraining orders per 10,000 residents. That would still be substantially less than the statewide average. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
There is no reason to believe that 59% of Colorado's citizens outside of Denver who live in the rural and urban counties that comprise the First, Eighth, Thirteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Twentieth judicial districts are any more, or less, violent and abusive on average than the residents of the six districts tabulated in Table 58. The judicial districts in Table 64 encompass a large rural area (13 th ) and large urban (1 st , 8 th , 17 th , 18 th , and 20 th ) populations and the majority of Coloradoans.
Many other factors may account for why these six districts have low numbers of domestic violence and abuse cases reported by the Colorado State Court Administrator's office. For example, the state court does not report on municipal crimes. But some elements can readily be ruled out. For example, it would be ludicrous to consider the district attorney of the First Judicial District from 1998 through 2004 as being soft on the issue of domestic violence. His sister was killed in an act of domestic violence and he raised her daughter and had a daily reminder of the potential effects of this crime. The five other district attorneys are equally likely to fully enforce state law.
When we look at other misdemeanor filings for these six districts (Table 65) the only outstanding features are a high rate of underage alcohol offenses and offenses against property in the 20 th Judicial District. That seems reasonable as the Boulder campus of the University of Colorado is located there and it has an extensive reputation as a party school. Fraud cases were also extensive in the 13 th Judicial District (Table 65) from 1999 to 2003 but there isn't any apparent reason and in 2006-2007 the number of domestic violence cases has inexplicably jumped up to the state average. However, the population of this judicial district is just 78,000 and these jumps might well be statistical flukes associated with a small population.
|
Orders 1 |
Violence 3 |
Offenses 3 |
Drug 3 |
Person 3 |
Property 3 |
Fraud 3 |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
14 4 |
||||||||
|
16 4 |
||||||||
|
22 4 |
||||||||
|
52 (12) 2 |
24 4 |
|||||||
|
54 (19) 2 |
25 4 |
|||||||
|
51 (15) 2 |
25 4 |
|||||||
|
51 (14) 2 |
26 4 |
|||||||
|
47 (13) 2 |
23 4 |
|||||||
|
19 4 |
||||||||
|
22 4 |
63 4 |
38 4 |
||||||
|
65 (12) 2 |
||||||||
|
Kit Carson, Logan, Morgan, Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington, and Yuma |
||||||||
|
35 4 |
6 4 |
|||||||
|
1 4 |
||||||||
|
6 4 |
7 4 |
4 4 |
||||||
|
66 (20) 2 |
||||||||
|
65 (19) 2 |
||||||||
|
60 (16) 2 |
||||||||
|
56 (16) 2 |
||||||||
|
61 (16) 2 |
||||||||
|
16 4 |
||||||||
|
22 4 |
10 4 |
|||||||
|
59 (20) 2 |
||||||||
|
60 (22) 2 |
24 4 |
|||||||
|
56 (21) 2 |
21 4 |
|||||||
|
50 (18) 2 |
19 4 |
11 4 |
11 4 |
|||||
|
51 (14) 2 |
22 4 |
10 4 |
||||||
|
60 4 |
||||||||
|
71 4 |
25 4 |
|||||||
|
51 (9) 2 |
59 4 |
25 4 |
||||||
|
44 (9) 2 |
61 4 |
26 4 |
||||||
|
46 (9) 2 |
50 4 |
|||||||
|
46 (8) 2 |
53 4 |
|||||||
|
1. Values for restraining order column are the sum of all civil and criminal restraining orders population-normalized from Colorado State Court tables. 2. For year 2002 and later, restraining orders for domestic abuse are shown in parentheses (RO-DA) and bold if more than one-half of the civil orders are for domestic abuse. 3. Misdemeanors are population-normalized from Colorado State Court tables. 4. Values that are greater than or less than the state average by more than one standard deviation are shown in bold. |
||||||||
The six districts listed in Table 64 and Table 65 encompass the majority of the state's population and area. Therefore, the sampling of good and bad judges is certainly representative as well.
One typically expects that the police and sheriff departments report more incidents of a given crime, say burglary, than are prosecuted and carried before the courts. For example, in 2004 there were 16,571 cases of simple assault reported by Colorado police agencies and only about 3,570 of these cases went to court. Conversely, police reported 5,471 cases of simple assault involving domestic violence yet, incredibly, there were an estimated 13,430 DV court cases (72% of total). This inversion is shown graphically in Table 66 for both simple assault cases and those involving intimate partner violence. The data presented in Table 67 are somewhat skewed by the fact that not all police and sheriff departments reported in 2004 but the discrepancy is still immense.
|
Table 67 shows the number of all domestic violence incidents reported to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation by sheriff and police departments across the state compared to the number of domestic violence cases reported by the Colorado courts for the years 1998 through 2006. Note that Denver and several other police departments were not included in the CBI data before 2005 and a substantial number of additional departments were added in 2006.
|
(% increase) 4 |
Colorado Bureau of Investigation 1 |
Colorado Courts 2 (sans Denver and municipalities) 3 |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Incidents 5 (%change) 4 |
(% change) 4 |
citizens 3 |
|||||
|
10,523 6 |
23 6 |
||||||
|
11,215 7 |
24 7 |
||||||
|
11,362 7 (+1%) |
23 7 |
||||||
|
1. Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) cases are from Crime in Colorado and are currently available for the years 1995-2005 (Years 1998-2005 are online). CBI did not list male/female victims separately until 1999. 2. Values for domestic violence court cases are from Colorado Judicial Branch Annual Statistical Reports currently available for the years 1999-2005 but do not include data for the Second Judicial District (Denver) or municipalities within judicial districts. 3. It is estimated that Denver courts handle approximately 3,000 DV cases per year and municipalities within Colorado handle an additional 1,000 DV cases per year. Thus, the state court reports are probably 25% low. 4. Percent increase, or decrease per year are calculated with regard to the previous year. 5. CBI tabulates homicides, forcible sex offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, non-force intimidation, kidnapping, non-force sex offenses incidents involving domestic violence. 6. Prior to 2005 the CBI data did not include data from Ault PD, Brighton PD, Denver PD, Greeley PD, Johnstown PD, Kersey PD, Milliken PD, Minturn PD, Weld County Sheriff and Wiggins PD. Thus, 2005 values cannot be compared with previous years. 7. Prior to 2006 the CBI data did not include data from Arvada PD, Blackhawk PD, Campo PD, Cañon City PD, Colorado State University-Fort Collins PD, DeBeque Marshall, Eagle PD, Fort Collins PD, Frederick PD, Gunnison PD, Lone Tree PD, and Manzanola PD. Thus, 2006 and later values cannot be compared with previous years. |
|||||||
One reason that the CBI data understates "domestic violence" is that in Colorado this is an add on charge to virtually any other crime, e.g., shoplifting (it happens). However, the CBI only reports domestic violence associated with eight crimes of violence: homicides, forcible sex offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, non-force intimidation, kidnapping, and non-force sex offenses. Even with this caveat it is unlikely that the police and sheriff incidents are under reporting by more than a factor of two, especially since municipal cases and Denver are now included in the CBI tabulation. Conversely, it is certain the court cases are overstating the problem of domestic violence, as evident in the 4th Judicial District.
Despite the fact that total domestic violence incidents reported by the CBI remain relatively constant between 1998 and 2004, increasing by only 766 incidents (+11%), the court cases for DV increase dramatically by 3,089 (+25%) over the same interval (Table 67). State population increased 16% from 1998 to 2004 so reported CBI incidents per capita have remained constant while the court cases per capita have increased as illustrated graphically in Table 71. Clearly, prior to 2004 domestic violence court cases were increasing dramatically faster than National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) estimates (Table 71) so the problem is not simply under reporting to or by police. Note that in 2005 the CBI greatly improved its statistics and added a number of police departments, especially Denver, to its tabulation.
It is also important to note that CBI incident-based domestic violence reports are compiled from NIBRS data submitted by every major Colorado law enforcement agency.
Conversely, DV court cases reported by the state court administrator do not include an estimated 3,000 domestic violence cases from Denver City and County, which encompasses more than 12% of the state's population and is now included in the CBI reports. Further, a number of municipalities, or home-rule cities, within Colorado, e.g. Aurora, Arvada, Lakewood, Littleton, etc., prosecute an estimated 1,000 domestic violence cases per year that are also not included in the state court data, but are now included in the CBI reports. Thus, the number of DV court cases reported by the state court administrator understates the total by an estimated 25%.
It is also of great interest to note that the number of male victims reported by the CBI between 1999 and 2004 is consistently 20-22% of the total (Table 67). The 2% drop in percentage of male victims in 2005 when CBI added in Denver police data suggests sex discrimination in DV cases by the Denver legal system. Note that in 2006 when a number of additional police departments are added to the data set (Table 67) that the percentage of male victims jumps up to 23% in 2006, further evidence that the Denver police department practices sex discrimination in domestic violence cases. Reasons for the drop back down to 20% male victims reporting in 2007 probably involve even more sex discrimination against men but that is speculative. However, there is little question that a man is a damn fool to call 911 in a domestic dispute as he is the one most likely to be arrested. So not only are men quite unlikely to call police when they are assaulted, they are likely the one to be arrested if they do call even though they are the victim. In Table 67 that is another cause of why male victims likely decrease to 20% in 2005 and 2007.
The judicial districts shown in Table 64 represent 59% of the sampled population of Colorado. Thus, we can reasonably infer that, with proper judicial oversight to better ensure equal protection under the law, the state-wide rate through 2007 should have been approximately 55 ±8 protection orders per 10,000 residents (mean of values for each district in Table 64 ± one standard deviation) per year. That estimate would imply 23,500 ±3,400 domestic violence and abuse cases should have been prosecuted under current laws in Colorado, outside of Denver, in the year 2007. The actual number was 30,591 (Table 53).
The implication from this calculation is that probably 7,000 ±3,400, or 23% ±8% of the domestic violence and abuse cases in Colorado were based on false allegations.
With current court statistics it is also possible to separate protection orders from domestic violence cases. The glaring example is the incredible number of domestic violence cases in the Fourth Judicial District, encompassing El Paso (includes Colorado Springs) and Teller counties, compared with two similar judicial districts as shown in Table 59. In year 2007 (Table 53) there are still more than three times (3,014) the predicted (~1,000) number of criminal DV cases in the Fourth. Conversely, note the good agreement in the First and Eighteenth judicial districts between the NCVS estimates and the court cases of domestic violence (Table 39) for the 2000 census.
As shown in Table 63, filings in the Fourth Judicial District for other misdemeanors are near average, and unemployment is negligible, so the problems there are not inherent in the populace.
The Fourth Judicial District is thus prosecuting roughly three times the number of domestic violence cases as other comparable population centers in Colorado.
In El Paso and Teller counties, at least two thirds of the domestic violence charges are made without reasonable basis. It is also clear from Table 56 that these draconian practices are causing citizens to fear law enforcement more than they do an abusive partner. The same abuse of process is almost certainly true of the other five judicial districts listed in Table 58 above.
The suggestion that a substantial percentage of protection orders and domestic violence charges are false allegations is reinforced when we compare police reports of domestic violence cases (Table 67) with court cases. For 2006 CBI data suggests 24 cases of reported domestic violence per 10,000 residents, or a total of about 11,215 (Table 67). Court cases reported by the state court administrator sans Denver totaled 16,767 in 2006 (Table 67), and there were probably an additional 4,000 court cases in Denver and home-rule cities that do not appear in the state court administrator report. Thus, there were more than 8,000 domestic violence cases that were either false allegations or did not involve actual violence, e.g., harassment, menacing, or telephone interference.
However, in 2006 the state courts only reported 252 cases of menacing and 2,226 cases of harassment (Table 72). Even if every one of those cases somehow involved "domestic violence" there would still be a minimum of 4,000 cases of false allegations of domestic violence.
It should also be noted that in Colorado domestic violence is an add-on charge and virtually any crime can be labelled as domestic violence. In October 2006 the Colorado Domestic Violence Offender Management Board (DVOMB) released a preliminary report on court-ordered treatment for DV offenders. That report provides some insight into the ridiculous applications to which Colorado's domestic violence statutes have been applied. Treatment providers reported more than 60 different offenses under which their clients had been sentenced for domestic violence. These crimes included shoplifting, indecent exposure, false identity, fraud, DUI, and etc. (p. 11 of the DVOMB report), which appear to be a long way from violent crimes against an intimate partner. For example, if the couple are intimate, seemingly a prerequisite for domestic violence, how is indecent exposure a crime of violence? In large measure charges of "domestic violence" and abuse are being indiscriminately and inappropriately applied to far-fetched cases.
The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is reviewed under the article on How Common Is Domestic Violence? Surveying actual victims of violence puts the crime of domestic violence in the range of 0.2% to 0.7% of households. The average is 0.4% to 0.5% or, stated another way, in a given year 4 or 5 households out of 1,000 are likely to experience actual domestic violence. It is also important to note that NCVS data includes incidents that are reported to police or other authorities as well as unreported incidents. Thus, NCVS estimates should be somewhat higher than police and court statistics to account for unreported incidents.
For the year 2000 census a direct comparison was made between NCVS estimates and DV cases for each judicial district in Table 39. In 2000 the NCVS estimated suggested 13,929 reported and unreported domestic violence occurrences in Colorado exclusive of Denver and there were 11,951 court cases (Table 39).
In 2006 the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) estimated that domestic, or intimate partner violence occurred in 1 in 250 households, or 0.4%. The Census Bureau estimated the state population was 4,753,377 in 2006 and each household contains an average of 2.53 people. Dividing the estimated state population by 2.53 gives roughly 1,880,000 households. If 0.4% of the 1,880,000 households included a victim of domestic violence that suggests ~7,500 reported and unreported cases of intimate partner violence in Colorado in 2006.
The statistical approximation provided by the NCVS, the best available survey of crime in America, suggests 25% of the police reports in the CBI data are false allegations and more than 50% of the court cases are without basis. Thus, in 2006 there were between 7,500 and 11,000 domestic violence cases in the Colorado courts that were either false allegations or did not involve violence.
| Home | Abstract | Contents | Authors and Site Map | Tables | Index | Bibliography | Comments? | EJF Newsletters | Get EJF Newsletter |
| Chapter 10 — Demographics Of Domestic Violence In Colorado |
| Next — Marriage, divorce, and charges of domestic violence and abuse |
| Back — Principal effect of 1994 DV law in Colorado Springs is reduction in 911 calls |
This site is supported and maintained by the Equal Justice Foundation.