The NYPD saw far fewer domestic violence complaints citywide last year compared to 2019′s totals, according to department data published this month.
However, experts said the actual climate of domestic violence during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is a more complex picture.
Victims were forced inside with their abusers throughout much of 2020, advocates have said, and conditions caused by the pandemic — ranging from fiscal security to health concerns — could have made calling police for instances of domestic violence a non-option.
“People weren’t reaching out to the police for a variety of reasons, primarily because the abusive partner was often in the home and it felt very unsafe for police to respond,” said Kimberlina Kavern, the senior director of the Crime Victim Assistance Program at Safe Horizon — which operates within the borough’s Family Justice Center (FJC). “And if police were called and the responders stayed in the home, once the police left, the victim might be in more danger because of having called the police.”
The NYPD’s 2020 annual local law 38 report showed that the department logged 79,200 domestic violence complaints citywide in 2020, compared to 87,512 instances in 2019 — nearly a 10% decrease.
On Staten Island, every precinct but the NYPD’s 123rd Precinct on the South Shore saw a reduction in domestic violence complaints. Most stark was a more-than-21% decrease in the borough’s 120th Precinct, based in St. George — where overall complaints dropped from 1,838 in 2019 to 1,442 in 2020.
The number of chronic domestic violence offenders, which are labeled by the NYPD as individuals who have been arrested for a domestic violence-related offense three times within an 18-month span, also decreased heavily — falling more than 32% on Staten Island.
And chronic domestic violence complaints on Staten Island, which totaled 129 in 2019, fell to just 65 in 2020, the NYPD data showed. Those incidents are labeled by the department as crimes involving chronic offenders.
CHALLENGES EXACERBATED BY PANDEMIC
The pandemic exacerbated challenges domestic violence victims face outside of abuse, said Kavern, and those factors, including lack of housing stability and food security, are part of the holistic approach that she said advocates aim to address.
“If you’re worried about where your family is going to sleep tonight, you might not be as worried about the violence happening in your home,” said Kavern. “So, we really want to let people know that we’re here to try to meet all of their needs.”
At Safe Horizon, Kavern said a fluctuation of people using the organization’s services was observed throughout the past 16 months, with calls to its hotline increasing at the start of the outbreak before leveling off.
In March 2020, Safe Horizon’s 24-hour domestic violence hotline (800-621-4673) had stable numbers before calls peaked in the spring and summer, according to the organization’s data. June 2020 had 50% more calls compared to the previous year.
Since then, Safe Horizon has seen a steady decrease in calls as more options for safety planning open up. However, this past March’s calls still remained 42% higher than the same span in 2020 — when the pandemic was just beginning to take hold on New York.
COVID EFFECTS
While New York City has seen vast improvement concerning the coronavirus throughout the five boroughs, the battle against its lingering effects are likely just beginning.
Studies have shown that the delayed psychological effects of quarantine could be lingering for many. DeCarli said the agency’s services include a mental health therapist and a psychologist at each of the city’s FJCs.
“Staff has definitely told me that over the past 16 months they’ve had a lot of clients who, prior to the pandemic, they would say they were stable … and they have seen that some of those clients have reached out for help because the pandemic has triggered a lot of things for them and added more trauma and stress,” said DeCarli. “So, we definitely have seen an increased need for mental health services.”
District Attorney Michael E. McMahon, whose office has distributed resources for survivors of domestic violence throughout the pandemic and worked closely with the Mayor’s Office to ENDGBV, said he is “gravely concerned that the COVID pandemic has worsened the situation yet suppressed the outreach for help of many sufferers of domestic violence.”
McMahon said his office’s Domestic Violence Bureau will continue to work closely with the NYPD, the FJC, the Mayor’s Office to ENDGBV and Safe Horizon to address survivors’ needs.
“Victims of domestic violence should know they can always access the services offered through the FJC, my office, and other agencies regardless of their decision to move forward with the criminal prosecution of a case,” said McMahon. “We cannot stress enough the importance of having these critical resources available to victims, and we encourage anyone facing a domestic violence situation to contact my office or the FJC at any time; my office and our partners remain committed to doing the difficult work to ensure victims always have a place to turn.”