By Thea Sebastian, Executive Director of the Futures Institute and Ilana Cohen, Futures Institute Fellow

Today, domestic violence (DV) affects over 12 million adults, or an average of 24 people every minute in the United States. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, those affected include more than 1 in 3 women, 1 in 4 men, and many children and young adults. The harms of DV are also unequal: transgender and/or gender non-binary people, people with disabilities, women experiencing homelessness, Black women, and low-income women suffer from violence at disproportionately high rates.

Unsurprisingly, then, many survivors fear contacting law enforcement. A 2021 survey of survivors of partner abuse found that 92% of participants who had not previously called police were “very or somewhat afraid or concerned” to call. 39% of participants who had previously called reported feeling less safe after doing so. While such fears are certainly not universal, they demonstrate a need for real alternatives — for policy options that prevent, respond to, and support DV survivors without involving the criminal-legal system. And thanks to community safety innovations sweeping communities nationwide, we have the ideas, tools, and know-how to build this comprehensive, community-centered alternative approach. 

An alternative approach to DV requires policy responses that support survivors at every step: preventative strategies that prevent such violence before it occurs, alternative response options that offer care rather than criminalization, immediate financial and housing supports to increase survivor autonomy, and repair options that both help survivors heal and engage harm-doers to prevent future violence.

Reimagining Survivor Supports: Prevention, Alternative Response, Autonomy & Repair

The first step to addressing domestic and interpersonal violence involves robust, sustained investments in programs and services that prevent or reduce abuse. Such programs can leverage the insights of evidence-based community violence intervention programs, which target and engage individuals at high risk of being crime victims or perpetrators. These may include education programs, such as those that engage men in opposing violence — recognizing that men are significantly more likely to perpetuate nearly every form of interpersonal violence — and offer culturally specific interventions. The New York City-based and LatinX-focused Violence Intervention Program, for example, offers a bilingual youth curriculum helping teens to recognize and reject violent attitudes and beliefs. 

The second step is having alternatives to law enforcement when abuse has occurred or is occurring, such as civilian models of crisis response, de-escalation trainings for community members, non-police crisis hotlines, and toolkits for individuals in crisis. The Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline, managed by The Network, offers multilingual safety planning for survivors 24/7. In Baltimore, LifeBridge Health operates three hospital-based programs offering survivors free and confidential services, emotional support, and connections to further resources. As these programs accept community referrals, survivors can get help while bypassing police engagement. In New York City, LIFE Camp operates a mobile trauma unit providing de-escalation and healing services to residents in crisis. And in Rochester, New York, the Office of Crisis Intervention supports trained social workers to address homicides, DV, and mental health crises.

Providing alternative responses to DV further requires jurisdictions to have the right resources available — specifically, to help survivors gain financial and housing independence. In Tennessee and Mississippi, the survivor-led Project E.A.T. of the GradUS Project supports survivors through a 60-day program that provides participants with a cash stipend for completing transitional work experience, then helps them to find a good-paying job. In New York City, the Sahki for South Asian women organization offers culturally sensitive and linguistically accessible services for South Asian women survivors, including legal advocacy, translation assistance, and weekly support groups. Programs that help survivors access affordable housing and cash assistance, including one-time payments and state-sponsored aid, can also have a transformative impact.

Finally, this holistic approach means offering reparative options to those who want them. These options include trauma-informed care and policies that offer survivors paid leave to find health-related supports. Supporting programming for harm-doers is also important, including for helping break the cycle of violence. The Men as Peacemakers (MAP) organization in Duluth, Minnesota, for example, hosts Domestic Violence Restorative Circles that involve trained community volunteers and men who have faced legal consequences multiple times for domestic abuse. One 2016 case study found that in four years of MAP hosting these Circles, only one circle participant re-offended. Meanwhile, the Department of Veterans Affairs runs an assistance program for veterans, their partners, and staff who use or experience IPV.

Moving Forward: The Policy Engagement Opportunity 

Actualizing a wholesale, alternative response to DV will require dedicated and sustained resources which, in turn, will require advocacy from on-the-ground practitioners and grassroots leaders already driving this work. Locally, governments can dramatically increase investments in the programs mentioned here, working closely with those who are most impacted. At the federal level, advocates can push for new funding that centers alternative approaches — including by creating a new Office of Survivor Safety within the Department of Health and Human Services, which focuses on funding these alternative approaches. Indeed, rethinking our balance of funding is crucial. Each year, we spend more than $80 billion on our prison system, but just a tiny slice on safety alternatives. To address domestic violence fully, we need our funding commitments to track what the evidence says — and what survivors are clamoring for. 

Ultimately, a more impactful paradigm for addressing domestic violence — and making all our communities safer — is possible. But we will only get there through a combined effort that centers survivors, their loved ones, grassroots practitioners, advocates, and all others dedicated to truly keeping survivors safe.