Surge in domestic abuse feared in Arkansas; advocates say lockdown keeps victims from seeking help

FILE — A Little Rock Police Department vehicle is shown in this file photo.
FILE — A Little Rock Police Department vehicle is shown in this file photo.

The outbreak of covid-19 and efforts to reduce the spread of the virus may have an unintended consequence, as Central Arkansas law enforcement and domestic violence victims' workers anticipate a wave of domestic abuse claims after the covid-19 outbreak ends.

The Women & Children First Center Against Family Violence has received a drastic drop in its call numbers, which is a tell-tale sign of what's to come, according to executive director Angela McGraw.

"I personally feel like this is the quiet before the storm," McGraw said. "I think that, once the ban is picked up off of people and they're able to start moving around, we're going to get slammed, because people are going to have access to be able to get help where they're not able to right now."

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The challenge for McGraw in this time when the government is fighting the covid-19 outbreak is a different bout with unreported domestic violence. With everyone stuck in their homes, victims will have trouble getting help from domestic abuse groups like Women & Children First because their aggressors do not have anywhere to go.

"They're being isolated even more than they are usually being isolated at this point," McGraw said. "They're being told that they can't go to the emergency rooms to get help. I'm sure abusers are using this to their advantage, and I'm anticipating the abuse is probably really bad right now."

It may be bad enough to get physical. According to Little Rock police spokesman officer Eric Barnes, there is a small increase in domestic incidents officers are responding to when comparing this March to last March. It is also a situation the department is following closely.

"Earlier last year we had that grant that we received where we have a detective and a victim service advocate working together," Barnes said. "So, that's something that those two people and the victim service unit are monitoring with our crime analyst to make sure we're seeing any trends."

Little Rock police also realize the possibility of many unreported domestic cases, according to Barnes.

"We haven't seen that number yet," Barnes said. "It's not because it's not occurring it's just that the victim may not have reported it yet."

Most of the cases that the Women & Children First Center received from police since the outbreak began have been violent cases, according to McGraw.

"I know that a couple of the cases that we have had are [cases] that have come from law enforcement," McGraw said. "We see a lot of verbal, mental, emotional abuse that come into the shelter but not a whole lot of physical violence. We're seeing a lot of physical violence."

With many out of work and in a tough spot due to covid-19, McGraw thinks many are turning to vices that are directly correlated with increased domestic abuse.

"I believe that right now inside the homes I bet there's a lot of drinking, drugs, distress," McGraw said. "We know just from common knowledge that when there's unemployment, layoffs, a lot of extra stress on homes that domestic violence increases."

Despite limitations, the Women & Children First Center will continue to operate the shelter and work with police on domestic incidents.

"The shelter is available," McGraw said. "Our hotline has not been interrupted at all, so we still don't have a concern there. The things that have been limited are things like government offices. ... It's making the process harder and longer because of some of these restrictions that are being put down on businesses and stuff."

Although not mandatory, the Women & Children First Center is offering temperature tests to those in the shelter and are practicing good hygiene and social distancing. As a result of the outbreak, the capacity of the shelter has been reduced.

"Our capacity has been split in half," McGraw said. "We're hoping maybe there will be access to some hotel rooms or something if we're getting this hit that we're expecting to happen toward the end of April, and that's because, if they're still doing social distancing, we have 54 beds right now. But in order to keep enough space between the beds and stuff, we'd have to go down to 22."

Unfortunately for McGraw, the hotels have been unresponsive.

"We have tried and tried and tried to get ahold of hotels, and people aren't answering the phones," McGraw said. "We just have not had success in doing that."

McGraw is hoping for intervention from Little Rock government and Mayor Frank Scott Jr. to help find places for domestic violence victims.

"It would probably be better for someone higher up than me to be able to get a hotel to help us with that," McGraw said.

Metro on 04/13/2020

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