Fourteen of the 25 homicides recorded in Maine last year were the result of domestic violence. It is a disturbing statistic, the increasing proportion reveals an alarming trend.

The specific cases cover virtually every permutation of human relationships gone wrong. A wife is accused of killing the husband she claims battered her. A husband kills the wife who was leaving him. A woman is shot dead by her former boyfriend as friends and a police officer help her move out of the apartment they shared. A man attempts to kidnap his former girlfriend; he ends up killing her brother and new boyfriend. If the charges hold true, 1999 ended on the most horrific note imaginable: In December, a man allegedly hunted down and slaughtered not just the woman who fled his terrorizing, but also the 21-month-old toddler she was babysitting.

And behind those headline-grabbing tragedies are thousands of lives made miserable by physical and mental abuse, by stalking, by threatening, by unrelenting harassment.

Maine is fortunate to have a strong network of organizations that provide counseling, legal assistance and shelter to the victims of domestic violence. Maine also is fortunate to have a growing number of local governments that take domestic violence seriously and are willing to fund programs to combat it.

Two years ago, Knox County became the first to create within its sheriff’s department a position devoted solely to investigating domesting violence crimes and to tracking the offender’s compliance with protection orders, bail conditions and terms of probation. A 24-hour computer data base makes this vital information available to any police officer in any Knox County town, any day of the week, any time of night. It is a model now being replicated in several other counties.

That level of commitment now must be replicated at the state level. A newly installed computer system for the superior and district courts will help compile statewide information about protection orders and conditions of release, but it will do little for officers in the field unless it is accessible around the clock. It is absurd that an officer making a routine traffic stop at 2 a.m. has immediate access to driving records while an officer responding to a domestic situation at the same time has to wait for the courthouse to open to get the information he or she needs.

The district court and probation systems are woefully understaffed and overworked. As a result, the quality of pre-sentence investigations and the ability to monitor compliance with conditions of release suffer. While personal-recognizance bail is an important protection against incarceration before conviction, the law must be revised to raise the stakes for those who violate its conditions.

In fact, the very laws that underlie domestic-violence charges must be revised. Under current state statute, assault is assault, whether it occurs in a barroom or a bedroom, yet the causes, immediate effects and long-term impacts are vastly different. A barroom brawler rarely tracks down his foe, terrorizes him for weeks or months and eventually murders him. Bedroom batterers do — and the Legislature should recognize that by enacting laws specific to domestic violence. Until lawmakers face this issue, 14 out of 25 won’t just be a disturbing statistic and an alarming trend — it will remain a predictable consequence.