For Alaska to turn around its domestic violence epidemic, governor must get real on resources to fight it

As a law clerk for Judge Walter Carpeneti, I conducted hearings wherein victims of domestic violence asked the court to issue protective orders against their abusive spouses. In those days, our culture had not yet completely shaken the antiquated belief that men owned their wives and their children, and that they could harm them with impunity in the privacy of their homes.

Alaskans’ views about intimate partner violence, sexual assault and child abuse have matured over the past 40 years. We now have stronger laws providing greater protection for survivors of such violence. Our judicial and law enforcement officers are better educated about the complicated nature of this violence, and are better able to offer more meaningful protection for survivors.

We are not yet where we need to be as a community. We continue to speak words that demonstrate our “commitment” to survivors of abuse and assault. Recent administration decisions, however, demonstrate we do not yet fully appreciate the totality of what we must do to protect domestic violence and sexual assault survivors. This administration continues to recite the horrifying fact that Alaskans experience domestic abuse and sexual assault at rates that are the highest in the country. The UAA Justice Center found in 2015 that 50% of women in Alaska — half of us — experience domestic or sexual violence in our lifetimes.

Domestic violence and sexual assault do not discriminate. These pernicious crimes affect all people in Alaska — wealthy, poor, educated, non-educated, all ethnicities, races, genders, political affiliations, and religions. No group of people is exempt.

Alaska Attorney General Kevin Clarkson recently committed to encourage more attorneys in his office to represent survivors of abuse on a pro bono basis. As an attorney who has represented survivors of violence and sexual assault, I fully support this effort.

But the governor and attorney general must go much further with their commitments. Legal representation alone is but a Band-Aid that cannot resolve the myriad challenges faced by survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. A wide spectrum of essential services is critically important to the lives of domestic violence and/or sexual assault survivors. Survivors often experience extreme poverty, homelessness, substance use disorders, mental health crises, persistent health care needs and extreme vulnerability as a direct result of the violence suffered. These problems do not magically disappear when a restraining order or custody order goes into effect, or even when the offender serves jail time.

If the administration truly supports survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, the governor must reverse his cuts to Medicaid, subsidized housing, emergency shelters, mental health, and addiction treatment facilities. These vital means of survival are interrelated and cannot be siloed. At a minimum, survivors of violence need a safe place to live to be free from the constant threat of more violence. To become healthy, contributing members of our community who are able to support themselves and their children, survivors need a chance to breathe, seek medical attention and to heal, far from the violence that has dominated their lives. Funding cuts that force partial or total closure of safe shelters have already forced many abuse survivors out onto the streets for 8-10 hours per day. This puts our already vulnerable population at risk of further abuse and assault.

There are well-accepted, evidenced-based strategies that have proven successful in addressing and supporting survivors of domestic violence. Cutting essential support services is not one of these strategies. I urge the governor and the attorney general to maintain their commitment to effective legal representation. I also urge them to reevaluate the governor’s previous vetoes and support: emergency shelters throughout Alaska, Medicaid funding, affordable housing, substance abuse treatment, access to mental health care and a strong judicial system. Anything short of this would be a sham.

Donna Goldsmith is a retired attorney living in Anchorage. She was a clerk to Judge Walter Carpeneti, a special assistant in the Alaska Department of Law, an attorney in the Alaska Public Defender Agency and an attorney in the private sector.

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