SKOWHEGAN – Prompted by the high rate of domestic homicides, the Legislature has launched a series of statewide forums on domestic violence, hosted by the Maine Department of Public Safety

Anne Jordan, Maine commissioner of Public Safety, said the forums were the direct result of the murder of a Wells woman, Nicole Oliver, last year by her estranged husband. “Her family was shattered by that” and pressed the Legislature to pass sweeping reforms of the domestic violence laws.

To ensure that the laws were rooted in common sense and would have successful outcomes, Jordan is leading a statewide study of domestic violence programs, services and solutions.

Last year, domestic violence accounted for 32 percent of Maine’s homicides. So far in 2008, the rate is 70 percent.

The scope of domestic violence is painfully evident in Somerset County, the site of one of the violence forums this week.

James Ross, a domestic violence investigator with the Somerset County District Attorney’s Office, said the county has the second-highest rate of domestic violence in the state.

“We are ripe for violence,” Ross said. “In 2007, 285 people were arrested for domestic violence. Not a week goes by that we don’t hear of another horrific event. Domestic violence is a cancer that is eating at the fabric of our society.”

More worrisome, Ross said, is that over the last 18 months there has been a spike in domestic violence arrests in the 18- to 22-year-old age group.

“We’re arresting that group 2-to-1 over any other age group,” Ross said. “They’re seeing the violence at home and they don’t know there is any other way.”

Jordan blamed the economy, unemployment, drugs, alcohol and mental health issues for the violence.

She recalled an incident that happened when she was just three months out of law school and a woman came into her office, badly beaten. The woman’s child had taken a gun from the home so the batterer, his father, would not kill his mother, and the child and his dog fled into nearby woods in the middle of winter.

Later, in Jordan’s office, in front of the child, the woman said, “He only beats me when I deserve it.”

“I thought then, ‘Where do I start?'” she said. “We’ve come a long way since that case in 1984 but we still have a very, very long way to go.”

At the Skowhegan forum, only two people attended who weren’t domestic violence workers or police officers, validating Jordan’s comments.

“It’s embedded in the culture,” one worker said. “The victim is blamed by the family and the batterer and they often believe they deserve it.”

Nan Bell of the Family Violence Project said that violence may be embedded in Maine’s culture, but “this is a choice, to treat someone this way. It is really a choice.”

A victim of domestic abuse at the forum, who wanted to remain anonymous, said the message of intolerance for violence needs to get to the people who need it the most.

“Go to New Balance. Go to the mills. Go to the factories. We are working next to these people,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve spoken out and I’m 56 years old. Victims need to speak out because other victims can relate to them. The community needs to know that domestic abuse is not just physical, but it is also verbal, threatening and psychological.”

Jordan said a common theme among victims is the belief that they are alone in their suffering. The use of public service announcements shown at movie theaters and on public access television stations, speakers at churches, and continued messages through newspapers, television and radio can help, she said.

Another worker added, “We all know that ‘no line is safe to touch’ because we have heard it over and over again. But we try to ignore domestic violence. We need to hear our message over and over again.”

Jordan agreed with one worker who said, “Many of these ideas have come and gone with the dollars. As the funding shrank, our hands became tied. That’s the reality.”

“We need to keep it simple, keep it quick,” Jordan said. One new program she said is just coming on line at Maine Wal-Mart stores, where the domestic violence hot line number is being printed at the bottom of every cash register receipt.

“We’ve learned a lot over the past 40 years,” Cathleen Dunlap, director of Menswork, a pre- and post-sentencing alternative for men who are abusive, said at the Skowhegan forum. “We need to look at our responsibility differently. This is not just a problem for women. It’s a problem for society.”

The domestic violence hot line is: 800-863-9909

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