domestic violence does not discriminate it can take on many forms from physical to emotional abuse and during the pandemic as people were encouraged to stay home to remain virus free for many that did not mean violence free as advocates continue to envision a future with no domestic violence we want to know where victims can go for help and how offenders are being held accountable tonight's live broadcast and live stream of insights on pbs hawaii start now [Music] aloha and welcome to insights on pbs hawaii i'm lara yamada domestic violence is a destructive and deadly cycle that can ravage families and communities the abuse can come in many forms with victims ranging in age and gender but more often than not women are the targets according to a report released last week by the world health organization one in three women or about 736 million are subjected to physical or sexual violence across their lifetime now experts say pressures from the covet 19 pandemic have exacerbated the risk and danger shutdowns have forced people to stay home disrupted support services and even delayed legal proceedings when the courts were closed tonight our panel looks at ways to increase awareness in hopes of bringing an end to the violence we look forward to your participation in tonight's show you can email call or tweet your questions and you'll find a live stream of this program at pbshawaii.org and the pbs hawaii facebook page all right now to our guests nancy kriedman is the ceo of the domestic violence action center or dvac the non-profit offers a wide range of services to victims including crisis support creating a safety plan and legal help the organization is marking its 30th anniversary this year laura dell is the manager for the teen alert program which is a part of dvac it provides outreach and services to educate and raise awareness about teen dating violence and healthy relationships prior to this she was a special education teacher bridget kiabu is a domestic violence survivor after surviving physical verbal emotional and financial abuse the mother of three reached out to dvac the agency was able to help her obtain a restraining order and find safe and affordable housing and steve alm is the newly elected honolulu prosecutor for 15 years he was a circuit court judge leaving the bench in 2016. he also helped create hawaii's opportunity probation with enforcement also known as the hope program thank you so much all of you for being here it's such an important topic as it always is and i'm going to task you with a little bit of a of a tough question uh off the top here maybe i'll ask you this uh nancy first no simple answer but domestic violence it just keeps happening i know we're going to delve into uh different areas but why do you feel like it still keeps happening to this day well we haven't really changed social norms and beliefs around the use of force and aggression men are dominant usually we teach little boys that they're supposed to be brave and tough in charge and in control and we don't teach that to little girls that's kind of a recipe for a disaster when you get to be of the age where you're experimenting with intimacy or you're committing to an intimate partner so until we examine the norms and the values and the beliefs and the attitudes we will continue to have to put band-aids on the problem and mr um you've seen so many families come through the court system in the different capacities that you've been involved with these families what are your thoughts when you just think at a broader level about why we're still dealing with this in so many ways well as nazi said it is really ingrained in people that guys think they are got to be right they got to win arguments they resu however it takes resorting to violence if they can't win it verbally and they've gotten away with it in in a lot of ways and don't particularly get punished for it it's a it's a very difficult thing it's uh it's the way people are raised and so men have a you know different i think role that we may be able to play as far as being good role models with kids whether it's boys showing boys how to behave a certain way to treat your partner with respect and girls see that should see that too so that parents are treating each other with respect and arguing about things and disagreeing but not resorting to violence not emotional abuse and others and and stopping people from making inappropriate comments or things that they think are funny that are not i think things have improved on that front but there's always more that can be done but this is an ingrained issue in our society and it we just got to deal with it as best as we can you know i want to get to to laura and bridget soon but i want to follow up a little bit with you nancy uh you know of course we talked about the numbers with women being abused but there there is most certainly a percentage of men who are also abused and you know if and i could be wrong about this but my understanding is uh those cases have been on a little bit of an uptick and you know and i wonder if uh i would imagine that the issues that you see with women apply in a lot of ways when we think about the control issues and we'll get into indeed with kovid bringing everybody closer together as well i think the dynamic is similar no matter who is the perpetrator and who is the victim um we haven't seen an enormous uptick in uh requests for help from men but there certainly are instances and there are men who are abused the domestic violence action center and all of our communities programs will provide support safety planning services housing legal support to anybody who needs the help their sexual orientation their gender orientation this is not necessarily a binary problem and so as a community again we have to go back to a very honest exploration i really want to just offer a disclaimer as you've pointed out for the time that we spend together this evening i'll be referring to victims and survivors as she and perpetrators at sea but that does not mean that we wouldn't serve a man who is being a victim or victimized or help anyone who needs our help thanks nancy let me turn to you laura because you're working with younger adults and teenagers and kids really tell us more about what you've learned what you've seen and why the program that you're working on you know is needed yeah um so like nancy mentioned youth from a young age are not being taught what is healthy what is normal what is unhealthy so it's so important that we have these conversations from middle school high school college so that they know what they're experiencing isn't okay uh a lot of times we ask you before we get started the presentation do you know what makes a healthy relationship and a lot of them can't answer that so it's clear to us that it's so important that we're having these conversations that we're talking about consent and you know how to communicate effectively with your partner because a lot of youth then will reach out after a presentation and they'll say that i have questions i don't know what to do with my friend who's experiencing this or you know i think i see that in my own relationship um so we've definitely seen um a lot of youth who have follow-up questions and need more support afterwards we get questions to our instagram account and through our website so they are curious and they want to learn it's just that they don't know where to get the information so having these presentations outreach teachers knowing that we're there is so important so that we can support them if they need us we're most certainly going to talk more about your program and and what you know dvac has done as far as finding other ways to reach out to people but bridgette i want to turn to you uh you know it's so important that you're here and so brave that you're able to share your story and and i um i you know i want you to share it in your words um what happened to you and what brought you to this point well just like every other survivor a lot of survivors that you talked to our relationship started out wonderfully he was fantastic we had met in washington um and it was when we moved back to hawaii to take care of his father that things really started to change he really um ruled our family through intimidation and fear every and as i was going back and thinking about our story every single big um incident that happened always happened in front of the children i had two that lived with me um he has two that would come visit from the other island and everything everything that happened always happened in front of the kids so really if we didn't stop the cycle it would have continued to perpetuate itself um we started out it started out with really a lot of financial abuse from the minute i dropped my bags to to move to hawaii um it was financial abuse and then it turned to emotional abuse and then finally ended in physical abuse tell me a little bit more before you go on financial abuse um what was happening when i got there um originally he told me that i didn't have to work then the minute i got there you have to work so i found a job he didn't like the job he didn't like the hours he didn't think i was making enough money so i got a different job same thing and then he would tell me which bills i needed to pay and so when you looked at what he was making and what he was paying versus that i was making and what i was paying um if there was no balance at all i ended up with absolutely no money at the end of the month but the the biggest um example of financial abuse he came home one day with a new car for me for our anniversary so excited because i've been driving a 20 year old yukon for i don't know how long and i was very excited about this car i posted something on facebook look my husband bought me a car for my anniversary and an hour after i posted it he said yeah by the way i only put 2 dollars down um this is what the payment's going to be you're in charge of the insurance and i said well that's a really big financial decision don't you think we should have made that together and he said well what do you want me to do take the car back and at that point i was so worried about protecting him and his image because everybody loved him right um so i just found a way to make it work but then he told me that the car was his in his name not in my name he wouldn't put it in my name it was his name but i needed to pay the bills so i was building his credit while my credit was just getting trashed so it was little things like that yeah and you were explaining that that wasn't the only kind of abuse that way you were explaining that wasn't the only kind of abuse no that wasn't the only one um it it finally you know there was some pushing and shoving but it finally ended in some physical violence one night when we came home and i can't even remember what he was upset about but i was ironing at the time i put the iron on the table i walked across the room and he threw an iron 15 feet across the room and it grazed past my head my daughter who was 11 at the time was standing in the room and she just caught my eye and the how he threw the iron was significant because just a year before i had suffered a massive head injury at work so if he had hit me in the head he would have either killed me or at very least severely incapacitated me so how he threw it was um was really deliberate um so my daughter and i decided we were gonna pack up and leave because we had grab-and-go bags for when he got upset and this is when the car comes into play he said give me the keys that's my car i wouldn't give him the keys so he got his own keys started ripping out wires out of the car and i put my hand on his and said please just stop in the meantime my 11 year old's out in the middle of this cul-de-sac screaming for help he grabbed me by my thumb and threw me into the wall on the side of the house he was 220 pounds at the time i weighed 90 pounds so he completely ripped my ucl you could have taken my thumb and gone all kinds of different ways with it but um ripped my ucl um and my daughter luckily had grabbed a neighbor and the neighbor um just kind of snapped him out of it he just literally looked at me goes auntie come with me right now and then my ex-husband just kind of snapped out of it and walked away but after that i ended up in the er and calling d back was the best thing i could have done i had a friend i called her i'm like i don't know what to do she says you caught get on the phone you call d back right now so i called them and i said hi my name's bridget i'm at the er my husband just assaulted me i don't know what to do and that was the best phone call i ever made wow well bridget i want to talk to you a little bit more about um you know how you moved past this but i want to turn to you and nancy when you when you listen to bridget excuse me before i do i did want to put up some numbers uh by the way um and we'll get to that in a minute um thank you for reminding me chuck uh domestic violence action center i want to make sure that we show this at least a few times um these are numbers that people can call whether you're on oahu the helpline there 808-531-3771 there's a toll-free line as well um 800-690-6200 there's a text line too and we're going to have um nancy and laura talk about that a little bit more 605-956-5680 and there's also a website too that you can get this information but um in case you miss it we'll we'll put these numbers up more than more than once this evening but but uh but again nancy um you know when you listen to bridget talk and share her story what are the things that stand out to you what are the things that are most important that you want to respond to well first i want to thank bridget for willing to share that story most people keep stories like that hidden it's usually a well-kept secret most of the domestic violence um that occurs in our community and across the globe occurs behind closed doors as brizid's bridget's experience did and part of the importance of us participating in programs like this and every other outreach attempt we undertake is to have the community understand what domestic violence really is we you know are accused of exaggerating domestic violence like overall couples fight and you know women are just as bad as men are and you're making a big deal out of nothing and then when they get a little bit better glimpse of what we're talking we're talking about real violence and uh that is life-threatening and it's life-altering bridget's 11-year-old daughter will never forget that incident and as a community we bear responsibility for that we have to rise up and respond and invest in our island families so that bridget and her children can live free and safe from that kind of abuse so that's what i think about i think about the permission we must give people to talk about what they're experiencing let them know that the domestic violence action center is here and so are other community organizations available and prepared to help that the prosecutor's office is working with us the courts are working with us we have to do this together there's a role for every sector to play this isn't something we can do by ourselves business clergy health care academia courts law enforcement everybody can play a role and unless and until we do it's uh going to remain the enormous unsolved problem that it is and mr um we're going to get you just a minute because i want to definitely start delving into some of the legal aspects of all of this but but to you laura first uh when you when you hear you know bridget talking and you think about the work that you're doing you know focusing on the younger population uh what do you think is the most important what stands out to you as far as what you know needs to be talked about more and addressed sure so there's a lot of aspects that i think need to be talked about and addressed so knowing what is normal and what is not in a relationship you know knowing what you deserve and what um you know what to want or ask for in a relationship so talking to youth about trust and communication consent and then saying you know if your partner is jealous or they're trying to control who you hang out with demanding passwords um you know trying to control your social media in any way that those are not normal behaviors that that is not what you're deserving of and you should be able to be independent and have boundaries and space from your partner so you know being able to teach that from a young age so that when you are in a relationship for the first time you are able to practice those things and then um going forward you continue to want and seek those healthy relationships um i think a lot of the youth though that images are the idea of healthy come from tv and youtube so maybe even their homes and if it's not a positive model it gets confusing so when we can explicitly talk about it that this is what you should be striving for and what you deserve and this is what you can do if you aren't getting that i think it's just really important that we are making ourselves known and that you know that they have someone to go to like cafeteria so what also needs to be known is what you know legal tools there are out there and sort of what the situation is so so mr almost turn to you a little bit and talk about the percentages first of all uh what are the percentages as far as how many domestic violence cases get prosecuted is is the burden of proof tough and call me steve uh but what we've uh made it a point to do coming into this i started in this office you know 26 years i left the office 26 years ago and the office operated a certain way and it was still operating that way so we decided when we came in to look at best practices around the country look at data and research to think about how to handle these cases because they're typically a couple thousand a year domestic violence misdemeanor cases they're also domestic violence felony cases uh if if a bone is broken or a scarring that type of stuff so we really looked with a fresh look and we're gonna make changes in the way we approach it we we were one of the very few jurisdictions in the country that would follow a strict no drop policy and that came in uh 30 years ago at the same time police had mandatory arrests i'm sorry sorry tell me what you mean by a no drop policy not everybody would know well the police would have a mandatory arrest somebody would would get come in the prosecutors would charge virtually all of the cases with abusive family or a household member typically and then go forward with that case regardless of whether the victim wanted to proceed or not and regardless whether this uh prosecution had enough evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt it was just charge ahead and that often forced the victims to be part of the prosecution process when they didn't want to be and so we are committed to taking a closer look at it they should get services all the victims should get services from groups like nancy from the victim advocates at the prosecutor's office but before the the first trial setting we're going to take a real strong look at what does the victim want to do because as nancy said it's typically going to be a she she knows her situation the best how dangerous it is is she going to get beat up for even showing up in court is she going to get killed if she prosecutes the case um if we decide not to proceed will nollie prosecute with without prejudice and that allows it to be brought back in the future if say the next time it happens the victim does want to proceed let's talk about uh tier rows so um what what is the process exp the current process right now and how would you describe it would you say currently the way that it's set up that it's still uh really relatively difficult to get a tro or if it's easy to get a tro nancy would be a better person to ask that victim standpoint okay because she knows who approaches and who doesn't go ahead nancy so yeah thanks uh the courts have made it uh pretty easy very straightforward to get a restraining order the survivor goes to file a petition it's a document where they capture what happened to them why they're afraid they can list a couple of examples of incidents that occur that made them feel like they needed the court's protection it's a very very big step for a person and it's a very embarrassing moment to detail the intimate nature of your relationship but the courts have done a good job of allowing victims to come in file the petition a court judge reviews the petition uh then grants the temporary restraining order ex parte which means based on what she has reported on the petition and then the temporary restraining order is served on the perpetrator and both the victim and the perpetrator are ordered and expected to come back to court in two weeks at which point there's a hearing in front of a judge and the judge asks them in their own words to explain why they need the restraining order or why it shouldn't be granted so it's a process that is well known i think and used by many many people even though it's such an enormous step people have usually lived through a lot of use before they get to the point because it's such a big step to take how long does a restraining order typically last and what are the penalties if someone violates a tro well not every temporary restraint not every protection order once it goes you go through that hearing two weeks later the judge will then based on what they've heard in court grant a protection order the protection order can be for five years ten years three months six months whatever the victim feels she needs to protect herself and her and her children so it's a uniquely tailored document that's granted by the court there isn't a specific amount of time and again what are the penalties if someone violates a t uh restraining order well it's a misdemeanor if uh the person has to report to the police that the violation has occurred the police will then have to conduct a investigation and file a report with the prosecutor's office at which point prosecutor's office is going to decide whether or not they're going to prosecute the violation and um maybe you want to take it from here well one of the things that people may not understand is it doesn't have to be somebody you know going and threatening a victim part again it goes back to the power and control so if he's supposed to stay away from her him walking up to her and saying hi i just want to talk to you you know that may seem to a casual observer is not a big deal but he is trying to show that i can do whatever i want and so uh we have trials uh on abuse of household member we have trials on violating these protective orders each case has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt which is ethically what prosecutors should do you shouldn't charge a person you shouldn't go forward with a case unless you can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt but these can be they i think they are effective at controlling people's behavior they're not perfect it's not going to a piece of paper is not going to stop a bullet but it shows somebody the system cares about it and that you should watch you know watch your behavior that at least a judge is involved the legal systems involved the prosecutor's office is involved you know bridget i i saw you nodding your head a little bit when when nancy was talking about the difficulty of taking that step of uh pursuing a restraining order have you um pursued a restraining order and and um what are your thoughts about that and about that process and about taking that step i think the the hardest step was actually just making the first phone call um once i was connected with my um my advocate elise who i love um it was a lot easier because i i think as a survivor you walk in and you don't know what to do you don't know how to um navigate the legal system it's a maze and and there's paperwork and there's all these things so literally i sat down with elise and she's like this is what we need to do um very great with the paperwork and and just letting me know what needs to happen next um walking into the courtroom though that was really scary because that was the first time i had seen him since uh since my assault so that was really difficult so it was nice that i had my advocate there with me um in the courtroom that was really helpful because i couldn't even look at him it was really really hard so it was it was just good to have her there um and i have a five year both my daughter and i have five year restraining orders and i'm kind of kicking myself because i should have made it a lifetime wow you know speaking of you know being in court in that situation and this i don't think this necessarily has to do with covet but but steve my understanding is that um now uh you don't necessarily need to be there in person and i don't recall if that was specifically tied to covet or that's something that happened before talk about that a little bit because i know that's something that a lot of um victims and survivors have talked about like just as bridget talked about just being there in court having to physically be there is one of the hardest things well certain parts of the criminal justice system can be done remotely whether it's zoom now whether it's for a long time the circuit court has done arraignments where people can plead guilty or not guilty trial set the defendant stays at all triple c if he's uh the our jail a walk community correctional center so they don't have to transport back and forth but the confrontation clause of our constitution does require in trials a face-to-face meeting somebody has the right to have their accuser there so you're absolutely right this is extremely difficult i when i was a judge some of the hardest cases were rape cases where you know a victim uh and and one lasted so long because i the guy was charged with two uh five-year counts uh for molesting his girlfriend's daughter who was 13 and her friend so i gave him five years on both of those and then i extended it to 10 and then i ran him consecutive to make it 20. so the supreme court u.s supreme court had made a ruling that only juries can decide that extended term so we actually had another kind of sentencing trial 10 years after the original case and the young woman was now in her 20s she came into court but i still remember her putting her head up against the witness box that comes up to where i'm sitting and only when it came time to ask her do you if you were to look around the court would you be able to recognize anybody you know the person who did this and then she popped her head forward and looked at and saw the defendant and said he's sitting over there like in a blue shirt and black pants you could see the fear on her face it was really tough to do so i i'm totally sympathetic to it it helps to have the advocate there they have somebody to actually look at during the trial sitting in the audience so they don't have to look at the defendant but there are a lot of brave people out there who do come to court and look there look at their accuser and that that's often what you know is critical to get the case uh prosecuted but my understanding is is because of at least because of kovid some of these uh are allowed to happen virtually is that not the case not trials okay a trial is not one day who knows but there you know that would be fought to to the bitter end by the defense bar as far as actually you know not be even though these days uh what's happening there people are putting on clear masks in court uh and doing other things which which are challenging they fog up uh you know it it's it's really a challenge to do that but but it's uh it's part of our constitution even though when you think about it a real good video close up would probably show the jury more than if they're sitting at the back of the jury box so but face-to-face confrontation is still required well lauren are you talking about in the restraint i'm just wondering if you were talking about in the restraining order proceeding yes also because because those can occur yeah those are occurring and not always but it's possible for restraining the order to show cause hearing which is the second step in the process uh not always but they can occur remotely and sometimes both parties agree to it so it's not a contested hearing you know it just depends well let me get into we have we have a room set up in our office which is a webex uh system uh so that people can appear in court uh and our attorneys can appear in court on behalf of a survivor well that's good to know at least for part of the process there that that is an option for for people so let me get to a couple of these questions here but one thing i wanted to um uh mention first this is really more of a comment and this is for bridget that somebody had called in rowena she said she wanted to let you know that she is so very proud of you for coming out and talking tonight and for your bravery so just she wanted to write in and make sure that she she told you that um and while we do that maybe if we can go ahead and show those numbers one more time because we do want to pop it up a few times here and just make sure that anybody watching uh friends who are watching uh family or or potential victims themselves um have these numbers and know that this is out there for them when um and if they need this kind of help whether you want to call whether you want to go to the website whether you want to text and again a little bit later we'll have you know nancy and laura talk a little bit more about the different ways that people can can do that um so yeah again bridget just people out there really uh supporting you and showing their love for you for being here okay here's one the question this is from uh tim calling from kaimuki and he's directed toward you steve he says how many cases did the prosecutor's office successfully prosecute over the past year well the conviction rate has dropped to almost nothing and when i my first two years on the bench as a judge i was on that calendar and the prosecutors won about a third of the cases then and i hate to say it but judge browning told me our conviction rate in the office in the past years been about three percent why is that uh i think it's a combination of things i don't think the deputies were getting training i i don't think there was any uh you know with the no drop policy you end up going on the very weakest cases where victims do not want to testify they don't want to be there they're scared to be there as a judge i would tell the victim standing in court because the no draw policy was any fact i would say you're not bringing the case the prosecutors are bringing the case i was saying that for the defendant's years primarily but he would know that if she was a part of it that would happen and if you know if if victims did not show up there would you know the case would get dismissed so those are the the harsh numbers that's one of the reasons why we wanted to take a real hard look at how we could be more successful and so victims would know if they wanted to pursue the case everybody's there to work with them if they didn't want to pursue we would listen to them and make that a part of it the police are still going to arrest people all the time none of that is going to change and so defendants should know if they hit their spouse or partner and the police get called they're going to get arrested and we will look at all the tools we can we'll try to give the victims as much support as we can but we want to make it a place where we're not making the victims lives worse by doing this and we want to support them and make it a place where where justice can really be served you know bridget i i noticed that after um you know we shared rowena's comments and really thinking about what steve is saying too about how difficult it is for for um you know survivors to to talk about this to come out and to be there and the fact that you're here i know that had that had an impact on you um what does that mean to you that she um sent that message to you it's it's been amazing and i will tell you after um after i had my surgery on my hand um i went back to work the next day and people ask me what happened and if it was appropriate and i thought you know i could impact somebody i would tell them exactly how i got injured and it was amazing to me that there was not one woman that i talked to that did not know somebody it was either their themselves or their auntie or their tutu or their sister that had all been in some kind of abusive relationship um and nobody really talks about it until for me it's just like people are saying i i've never talked to anybody about it and i'm so surprised that you're talking about it um and i have a big mouth so i just kept talking about it and once i kind of got my feet under me um i just started telling my story and as i did more women would reach out to me i was telling my story on facebook and people were messaging me and telling me i'm in the same situation how do i get out what did you do so for me being able to say it if one woman leaves if one woman gets out if one woman gets to safety then it's all worth it to me so i will talk for the people that can't talk because i think one of the reasons why women don't say anything is because they feel ashamed but here's the thing is we didn't do anything wrong we're not the ones that did anything wrong so i think we need to just kind of band together continue to tell our stories and and support one another and it really i i'm going to try not to cry but it really makes me feel good that someone you know said thank you now laura i want to get back to the program and have you talk a little bit more about the program that you're working on and trying to help not only young women but children really um tell us about um about it and why you think it's so important to start at that younger age sure so tap it away we do presentations to youth we do middle school high school colleges like i mentioned before we also will do presentations for teachers parents community organizations anyone who works or interacts with you in addition to our outreach presentations on healthy relationships warning signs unhealthy relationships the different types of abuse and how to help someone we also have two after-school programs so we have a program called my story that works with girls in middle school it focuses on topics like self-esteem and body image and dealing with friends and relationships it focuses on girl empowerment so that they feel you know that they have a community to open up to and they are supported by their peers we also have a new program called opio empowerment that we started just this semester it is a virtual after-school program that we opened up to youth across all the islands so we are in our going on our ninth out of ten weeks and we same thing talk about a variety of topics like goal setting and leadership skills relationships friendships um we think that it's so important to empower youth to make decisions for themselves to learn about who they are what they want in life and you know be there to guide them in any way that we can or be adult role models for them um we are available also online so i think i mentioned earlier our instagram account our teen alert program and our website tapdataway.org are great places for you to also get information um and then i think there's another part of your question but now i'm not sure what it was well i did want to follow up with you know with the the the young women and the girls that and their families that you've been working with what has really stood out to you um that you've learned that they've shared with you what has stood out that's a good question um i think this stood out to me is that when youth will come to us with questions they're not sure if they really should be coming to us what they've experienced they don't know if it's wrong so you know they might have experienced someone tracking them or demanding passwords and and not really think much of it so when they come to us it's kind of with the skepticism um so we're there to provide further education and and let them know that what they're experiencing you know isn't what a healthy relationship is um so i i would say that is maybe the most um i i've also noticed oftentimes after presentations we'll well we survey the youth and we ask if anyone wants to follow up with an advocate and we do get a lot who say that they have questions they know a friend they themselves are in a relationship and they want to speak to someone but then when we do go and reach out to them they're silenced so i think it kind of goes to show that going back to kind of being um uncomfortable coming forward or sharing your experiences i think in the presentations they feel you know that's me or or this resonates but then when it comes to getting help they're maybe not ready yet so it's something that we've noticed and are trying to help you so helping in different ways um steve let's get back to you and talking about the criminal justice system how it's working right now and what else uh is on the table what else you're working on what else you're focused on to make the system work better well again the whole approach to moving away from the a strict no drop policy is the biggest because we talked the two biggest uh associations for prosecutors are the national district attorney's association and association of prosecuting attorneys and i spoke to the working groups of both the leader trait uh tracy port in san diego and san diego has been a leader in domestic violence in many ways for years and talking to her was very interesting because the data and research shows that that strict policy does not have good effect on recidivism or reoffending and that other other approaches are better so supporting the victims is critically important giving them a choice talking to them hearing them setting up good training putting some of the best prosecutors in the office in that division that deals with domestic violence both felonies and misdemeanors getting the training stepped up so the cases that do go to trial the prosecutors are prepared for it when i when i worked at that office years ago and i was head of the first district and founding court division i would have the deputies in their suits on saturday morning at eight o'clock doing how to pick a jury how to do opening statements how to do direct exam cross exam you don't learn that stuff in law school you don't learn it in a book you have to practice it in court see other people that are good at doing it and so we will really be stepping up the uh the the whole training area we're doing it right now but every year that i was on the bench and at the prosecutors the public defenders would ask the court for a week off for training and so when we got started here some of the leadership team told me why don't we ask for that week off too because the judges would just have private attorneys during that week it really slowed down so i talked to chief justice recktenwald and mark browning they said fine so for a whole week in may we're going to have training all day every day in a variety of ways to help the deputies learn skills set to where they are in the office and nancy i want to turn that to you what what do you see what do you think needs to change or be improved to make the system work better for the people who need help ah well uh it's that's a that's a very important question but it's a very complex question um the whole system has to ratchet itself up the system has been failing survivors and their children for many years i think steve described some of that we certainly see that law enforcement would benefit from from some increased training currently they participate in three hours of training best practice is 20 hours of training you can't possibly understand the complexity of domestic violence or what you can expect to see when you respond to a domestic violence incident in three hours so we need every part of the system to understand their role to collaborate with one another and to work together on behalf of all the people who are leaning on the system for help now the health uh the law enforcement system or the criminal justice system is not the right avenue for everyone so there are other places businesses for example they have a role to play if they are creating a supportive workplace environment people may go to their supervisor or may go to their hr professional and try to ask for help if their hr professional or their supervisor isn't sufficiently trained they may not know how to guide their employee health care practitioners medical care is a perfect avenue for people to get access it's a point of entry for a lot of people if we had standardized screening universal screening by nurses nurse practitioners doctors intake at health clinics people could disclose their fear of their partner or the risk that they're facing at home and get guided in a direction where they could get help without having to rely on the police or having to go through the court system if you're an immigrant person or you're a member of an indigenous community or you've had a bad experience with the criminal justice system you're not going back there so we need to invent other ways for people to get the help they need now and of course no offense to you nancy and steve but i think the most important person to ask this question is that bridget is you know with what you've you've been through and what you're experiencing what do you think needs to happen what do you think would help as far as how the system is working what you've experienced and what could be made better um it's interesting a my ex-husband was um arrested and charged with felony assault and felony abuse of a minor and he spent 24 hours in jail it was dropped to a misdemeanor and then it was ultimately dropped and when i called the prosecuting attorney that dropped the case she told me that one of the reasons was because i on the body cam the police officer asked me he asked me if i wanted to to go to the hospital and i didn't want to i was in shock my 11 year old's next to me sobbing and he asked me you know i said if if they come today do i have to go to the hospital right now because it's midnight and i you know you're in shock and i said no i'm okay i'm okay because my daughter was right next to me and i'm not gonna say no i'm in pain i'm in shock i'm hurt somebody needs to take me now i just looked at him i'm like i'm okay cause my daughter's right next to me and the prosecuting attorney said you said you were okay clearly i wasn't my thumb was dangling um so i i don't even know where to begin because in a way i'm sorry steve but in a way i feel like the the court system failed my daughter and i um because i said i was okay when we all knew i wasn't um i think um dvec has been such a great resource i know for me and for other women as well the more um the more awareness there is about dvac um because there's it's so rich in resources and and people don't know i think when you are in a um in an abusive relationship you a you don't even know like the whole financial abuse thing i didn't even realize what was going on until i was so deep in it i couldn't get out i think there needs to be more affordable housing so when women actually can remove themselves from the situation i think a lot of times they stay because they don't feel like they can afford anywhere to live and that's a problem mostly in hawaii but really anywhere in the u.s it's difficult to be a single mom and to leave the situation with nothing but the clothes on your back and to find affordable housing so there's there's so many moving pieces um to making this all work i'm stephen i know you wanted to jump in there steven just uh and feel free to comment i just wanted to add to a question about um somebody asking about emergency housing is there enough emergency housing and funding for women who are in need but feel free to to respond then also if you don't mind uh respond to that question as well well the uh and no need to apologize you know that that's training for the prosecutor the fact that you said they're okay given the circumstances shouldn't have made any difference you know injuries like that are rare to see in court and clearly show it's a felony and that case should have should have proceeded to trial it sounds like a solid k there's all sorts of evidence that is not president it's horrible what happened to you but that's the kind of honestly that's the kind of thing that is good evidence to put in front of a jury because i have to say not putting any jurors down but you know the defense is going to play every uh stereotype every thing against the the state's witness the victim and some of the time the jurors buy into it because their knowledge of domestic violence is is very limited and so what you're describing uh you know in that situation is is a training problem that the prosecutor should have been better trained and proceeded to trial on that case now we've only got about five minutes left but but nancy maybe to you about this question about emergency housing and funding what's the situation i have two two thoughts about that one is emergency uh shelter is available but emergency shelter only goes so far after 90 days then what as bridget pointed out many people are forced to return to a dangerous environment if they can't seek an alternative secondarily as a community we have to have a greater investment and a bigger priority in addressing the problem of domestic violence from every sector so we can't just have relying on the prosecutor or relying on the police but we need affordable housing we need emergency shelter we need advocates we need legal services we need more judges we need courtrooms we need youth programs we need teachers trained we need health care providers trained the whole thing really speaks to safe families are at the core of a healthy community and if we are not taking care of our families it is going to go with them to school or go with them to work or go with them to court or go with them to jail or cost us a fortune now we only got a few minutes left i want to throw up these numbers again when i ask this question but i really wanted to make sure i asked all of you uh and this goes to lonnie's question about what can we as a community do to help those experiencing domestic abuse and you know what if if they suspect someone is being abused uh things to look out for maybe we'll start with you nancy well when the uh stay-at-home directives were first put in place the first thing we did was try to get the media allies that we have had that have been so generous with us to tell the community that we know people are being hurt behind closed doors and to tell other people if you know somebody who you suspect could be suffering the harm of abuse reach out to them let them know that you care about them let them know that you're a resource listen with an open heart there's a lot of victim blaming like is there something that she did that caused this problem to occur so as a community we have to say to people we care about you we care about your safety and guide them to places where they can get real help and like the domestic violence action center and laura to you for for the younger um folks out there who need help what do you want them to know what what do they need to look out for what's the most important things fair so for youth one of the biggest signs that we see is isolation so you know they no longer hang out with their friends or family their demeanor changes um for teachers things to look out for could be drop drops in grades or you know attendance but that obviously is hard now with school being online so um more so in person um just kind of changes in behavior the way that they present themselves on social media the way that they dress they're going through this change and maybe it's associated with their new relationship so realizing that there could be something else behind that now bridget i want to i want to get to in just a minute but really quickly uh steve any other thoughts as far as most important for people to know right now well because people are home kids aren't going to school so teachers don't see bruises and injuries so they're not able to report it other people women working at home may not be at work so people can't see it if people see a kid with black eyes they should call the police you see people with those kinds of injuries call the police the police aren't the only answer but it is an answer and having the police show up can have a good effect thank you steve and and bridget for the folks who are watching for maybe the women who are watching right now who might be thinking about picking up that phone what do you want to share with them pick up the phone make the phone call the first words that come out of your mouth are going to be the hardest ones because you're going to be embarrassed you're going to be scared and part of you is going to be excited because you know that there's a beginning there's an end to this whole thing but i would say make the phone call because there really is light and life and goodness at the end of this really dark tunnel that you've been in well bridget thank you so much and all of you for being here and we show the information that's always available for anybody out there who needs it you've been doing more as far as uh providing abilities for them to text and chat as well and so different opportunities in case they're in a dangerous situation so thank you for continuing to provide those resources and mahalo to you for joining us tonight we thank our guests nancy creedman ceo of the domestic violence action center teen alert program manager laura dell domestic violence survivor bridget kiyabu and honolulu prosecutor steve allm all right next week on insights the battle over residential waterfront development in kakaako makai dies in the legislature but the office of hawaiian affairs says it will continue its fight despite some community opposition we're going to hear from both sides please join us then i'm laura yamada for insights on pbs hawaii [Music] [Music] you