Gov sends $35 million to state’s DAs to prevent domestic violence
/
Governor Kathy Hochul announced $35 million in funding to expand the state’s ability to combat and prevent domestic violence. Photo by Susan Watts/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
By Ryan Schwach
City district attorneys will each be getting a portion of a $35 million pot allocated in the state budget this year to improve work in preventing domestic violence, which includes $1.4 million for the Queens DA.
Governor Kathy Hochul announced the allocation of the funding on Wednesday, standing alongside some downstate DAs including Queens’ Melinda Katz. The five city DAs are splitting $5 million of the pot, and $23 million will be allocated to district attorneys in 20 other counties.
The money is intended to improve prosecutors’ work with domestic violence and aid survivors long after police leave the picture, something that has already been a priority in Katz’s Queens Boulevard office.
“We are going to be laser focused, as we have been, but even more so with more intentionality, more resources, more effort, more media attention on what has happened to help in our fight against domestic violence and standing up for those whose voices that have been silenced for too long,” Hochul said.
“Violence perpetrated by someone you know is the ultimate betrayal, and we have to talk now about how we drive the incidents of domestic violence down the way we have other levels of crime,” she added. “We have to change and break that cycle of violence that's happening not on our streets, not in our subways, but in the security of that apartment or that home.”
The funding – which came out of this year’s state budget – will go to help counties across the city develop a comprehensive plan to address domestic violence.
STRIVE – or the Statewide Targeted Reductions in Intimate Partner Violence Initiative – requires counties to implement intervention and prevention programs.
Some of the initiatives the funding will help expand include Proact-DV, a program initially piloted in Queens by Katz’s office.
The funding will bring the program to all five boroughs.
“In order to truly combat domestic violence, we need to solve the isolation, we need to solve the fear, we need to solve the economic dependency of it all,” Katz said.
Proact-DV helps facilitate cooperation with local police, evidence collection, prosecution and care for the survivors in domestic violence cases.
With the help of the funding, DAs will have more resources to begin evidence collection immediately after the alleged crimes are committed, and prompts law enforcement to notify DAs about domestic violence reports and arrests as soon as possible.
“When a domestic violence occurrence happens, we start the investigation, and we get the evidence and collect the evidence and take pictures, and everything we need to do before we even have a defendant,” Katz said. “We don't have to wait till there is a defendant.”
$1.4 million in state funding will go toward expanding the domestic violence programs at the office of Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz. Photo by Susan Watts/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
The program also connects domestic violence survivors with services well after an investigation is complete.
“We do that before we get the defendant in custody, to make sure that our witnesses and our claimants and our survivors feel comfortable because those services are being given to them,” Katz said.
The DA’s office said that they will use their $1.4 million of the funding to expand their own implementation of the program in Queens.
“There is no doubt that every county is different,” Katz said. “With today's money…every county will be able to make sure that survivors know that they are safe, survivors know that there is coordination, and that law enforcement is doing exactly what they need to do to make people accountable for those crimes, and that survivors can move on and lead a great life knowing that we are supportive of them.”
In addition to the funding announcement, Hochul ordered several state landmarks to light up purple in recognition of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. That includes One World Trade Center and the Kosciuszko Bridge, which connects Queens and Brooklyn.
