Zero tolerance domestic violence policies make no sense

June 19, 5:15 PMDomestic Violence ExaminerTrudy Schuett

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These days it’s fashionable for large companies and government entities of all sizes to have what they a call a “zero tolerance policy” on domestic violence. This is good PR because they appear socially responsible to the public, while at the same time allowing officials of these organizations to feel good about themselves.

Unfortunately for both the orgs involved and the individuals and families who are suffering from abuse, in practice these policies help no one, and may cause problems for all involved. This editorial from the Baltimore Sun sheds some light on the realities of such a policy:

The facts in the current situation are in dispute. Elizabeth C. Smith, a liquor board commissioner who had previously dated [Mayor’s chief of staff Demaune]Millard, filed charges against him June 7, saying he grabbed, threatened and punched her during an Inner Harbor cruise the day before. She also charged him with punching her in the face during a previous argument in April 2008. Mr. Millard filed counter-charges June 8, claiming she had grabbed and tried to punch him during the argument on the cruise ship.

[Baltimore Mayor Sheila] Dixon's response: "This is a private matter - I want to give them that privacy to move through that process as we move forward." But when charges are filed, and both people are public officials, it ceases to be a private matter. Even more so given that an assistant city attorney convened a meeting with Ms. Smith after she filed the charges. (The mayor's office and her attorney say she was not pressured to drop the matter.) Like it or not, charges of wrongdoing by members of Ms. Dixon's staff, even those stemming from personal relationships, reflect on the mayor, and her reaction to them needs to be consistent and reflect her values.

Contrast the handling of this situation with the way she dealt with allegations of inappropriate behavior against her former spokesman, Anthony McCarthy. She suspended him a day after learning of the allegations, which were never made public and never resulted in any charges. Even after Baltimore County police ended their investigation, Mr. McCarthy didn't get his job back.

Or there's the handling by the previous mayoral administration of domestic abuse charges against former Police Chief Kevin Clark. He was suspended during an investigation, even though his fiancée publicly insisted that he had done nothing wrong. He didn't get his job back either.

In this case, and likely many others across the country, a zero tolerance policy is truly an administrative nightmare. When implemented “by the book,” what it means is that the accused loses his job, no discussion or defense allowed. That is what happened in the last two cases. If the policy were to be strictly observed in the first case, both Smith and Millard should/would be fired. This time around, however, it appears the mayor is closer to the issue and recognizes that causing two people to lose their jobs because their relationship is in turmoil would not be helpful to either party in resolving their issues.

What a zero tolerance policy usually means to those who create them for their organizations is that as a company (or government) not only they will not allow their employees to be abused, they will also take whatever measures are in their power to see that the abuser is held accountable for his actions. While this sounds good on paper, these policies are often adopted with at best, an incomplete understanding of the issue at hand. Special interest groups, in this case the powerful, feminist-run domestic violence industry, have spent years putting on the pressure and insisting the issue be approached their way. It is the industry view that intimate partner abuse is always a clear-cut issue that can be permanently solved by laws and policies, the human aspect be damned.

Unfortunately, those involved in abusive relationships tend to be human, and their problem is far more complex than the DV industry would recognize. What’s more, they are not always amenable to destroying their relationships, giving up their jobs, homes, and sometimes even their children in the pretense that walking away from the problem will have any salutary effect at all. To many affected, the “cure” is significantly worse than the disease.

Cases of intimate partner abuse that flow out into the workplace probably should be dealt with in some way, but a zero tolerance policy is not an effective tool for managers at any level. Such a policy forces a negative, adversarial action against employees without regard to the actual situation; good managers know that a rigid, unconsidered response to a personal issue of any kind is no way to promote good employee morale or productivity.

If companies and governments were truly interested in the well-being of their employees, then they should abolish their foolish, ineffective zero tolerance policies, which pretty much guarantee that not only the employee, but the company as well, stand to lose something important. That something may be credibility, it may even be cold, hard cash if a wrongly accused employee chooses to pursue a lawsuit and wins.

Zero tolerance policies simply make so sense.