Spooked by ICE raids in their communities, news of family separations at the border, and anti-immigrant policies from the federal government, undocumented domestic violence survivors are staying with abusers longer and shunning help, often at risk of their lives. Survivors who do come forward also face greater challenges to pursuing safety and stability than in the past.
Hospital stays for victims can run hours to months but during that time the caseworkers—who often come from the same neighborhoods as their clients—listen, talk and link them to assistance.
Although California is spending millions of dollars on rehabilitation programs for prison inmates, there’s little evidence to show those programs are effective, according to a state audit.
Advocates for juvenile justice reform are both optimistic and wary of a proposal to put the California Health and Human Services Agency in charge of the state’s juvenile justice system.
Advocates for gun control in California have a lot to celebrate this year as the state enacts a slew of bills aimed at reducing gun violence, and hopes rise that Gov. Gavin Newsom will be more amenable than his predecessor to additional gun reform efforts.
A new initiative to combat domestic violence in California is supporting several high-risk populations — including refugees, immigrants, low-wage workers, Native Americans and rural residents — to develop their own community-based strategies for prevention.
As California increasingly considers how past trauma impacts violence, a new community center in South Los Angeles is focused on healing. Rather than seeing violent crime as a problem exclusively for law enforcement, the Community Healing and Trauma Prevention Center seeks to understand and tackle the root causes of violence and its traumatic effects.
The people who come into our shelter in Santa Cruz County have frequently been beaten, trafficked and sexually assaulted in Central America. They have come to the United States as a last resort—in order to save their lives.
But a policy change under our current presidential administration threatens the health and well-being of these victims of violence.
As our country faces a gun violence epidemic, I find myself perplexed by the blatant gaps in our prevention systems. California law and the public agree that batterers should not own guns, and yet law enforcement agencies are not equipped to enforce these regulations.
“There are survivors of domestic violence who have done what the system tells you to do, which is get a protective order, and they’re supposed to be safe during that. The law tells people that they cannot access guns and that they have to relinquish those—but we’re not actually supporting that law.”