NCFM urges investigation into corruption at domestic violence agencies

November 5, 5:00 AMDomestic Violence ExaminerTrudy Schuett

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Harry Crouch (NCFM photo)

In the wake of the finding by a West Virginia court that their Family Violence Prevention Services Board’s policies and procedures violated the state’s regulations on domestic violence programs, the National Coalition for Men has sent a letter to Jennifer Kaplan, an Assistant Attorney General assigned to the Office of Violence Against Women calling for investigation.

The three-page letter, dated November 4 states: “The federal government must thoroughly investigate the Family Violence Prevention Services Board, affect corrective action, and ensure and enforce the gender neutrality requirement as a condition of providing continuing funding for domestic violence programs in West Virginia.”

In an e-mail interview, Harry Crouch, President of NCFM said, “We hope the letter helps educate others, puts on notice some of those involved in the reauthorization that others are watching, and challenges the Office of Violence Against Women to act judiciously and do their job to keep a clean house as directed by congressional mandates.”

Domestic violence programs in all states have historically focused only on female victims, with so-called “batterer’s programs” working under the presumption that abusers are exclusively male. With the passage of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, this approach was codified into law. VAWA established a nationwide network of some 2000 programs including shelters for women, under the oversight of the OVW and agencies in each state. These agencies are most often called “coalitions,” and while they do not directly administer federal funding, have recommended the granting of funding.

The coalitions in each state require any shelter or program providing domestic violence shelter or services to be members of the coalition, and further require employees and volunteers of the programs to take training devised and provided by the coalitions.

This training issue was the essence of the lawsuit filed in West Virginia, as an org wishing to provide equal services to both men and women was denied membership.

According to the NCFM letter, “The Board’s provincial awarding of contracts to a select few of ideologically acceptable service providers reeks of power and control cronyism.”

While other federally-funded programs are mandated to provide fully equal services to all, regardless of gender, VAWA-based programs have managed to escape this requirement, claiming both a lack of need for equal services and insufficiency of funding to provide them, among other reasons. Detractors have often maintained that objective research indicates the need to be about equal between the sexes, and that proper management of current programs would remove funding concerns.

The shelter model itself, as well as other services, has been criticized as outdated and ineffective, with a harmful bias that has no basis in fact.

In recent years, both the coalitions and individual programs have made no secret of the fact of their aim to style the issue of domestic violence as a purely political issue. For example, the front page of the WVCADV website contains a quote from the late radical activist Susan Schechter, which says in part, "...I believe it is most urgent for this movement's future to declare that violence against women is a political problem, a question of power and domination, and not an individual, pathological, or deviant one.”

In September, a representative of a VAWA-funded educational org, Praxis International, made the statement, “I think I know a lot of men deserve to be beaten,” at a meeting of the members of the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence. According to its website, “Praxis was organized in 1996 by activists in the battered women's movement to work with other social change activists seeking to end violence against women.”

VAWA was established in a day when much federal legislation was conceived and devised largely behind closed doors, with little public input. Its successive reauthorizations, which take place every five years, have received almost rubber-stamp approval, after Congressional hearings where only those in favor of VAWA, including employees of VAWA-funded programs and inexplicably – actresses with upcoming movies to promote – have been allowed to speak.

It would appear that the next reauthorization, scheduled for next year, will undergo an increased amount of public scrutiny. As Crouch remarked, “Because of the efforts of hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals we should see some long overdue revisions in the 2010 version of VAWA, especially with respect to immigration fraud, misuse of funds, and expansion of provisions for male victims.”

Included in the letter as endorsing the NCFM request were the following agencies and individuals:
A Voice for Men
Family Rights And Many Ending Discrimination (FRAMED)
Get Your Justice Live
Men and Women Against Discrimination
Men’s Defense Association
Men's Health Australia, Greg Andresen
Mens News Daily
Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting (RADAR)
Washington Civil Rights Council
Washington Shared Parenting

Full text of the letter is available here.