Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Director Rosemarie Hidalgo of the Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) met with representatives yesterday from 12 pilot sites across the country that receive funding and support through the Firearms Technical Assistance Project (FTAP) and announced a comprehensive strategy to address the lethal intersection of domestic violence and firearms. Meeting with FTAP grantees, Director Hidalgo emphasized the urgent need to enhance efforts to prevent and address this dangerous issue, which increases the likelihood of death for victims of domestic violence.
FTAP, an OVW grant program funded by appropriations through the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), provides communities with the tools and support needed to develop and implement effective strategies for preventing the use of firearms in domestic violence incidents and for strengthening a coordinated community response to increase access to safety and support for victims. OVW has awarded a total of $5.99 million to 12 FTAP sites across the nation, including one Tribal nation. These initiatives are part of the Justice Department’s broader strategy to reduce violent crime and enhance community safety.
The convening, coordinated by the Battered Women’s Justice Project, which runs the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence and Firearms, brought together grantees from the following sites: Tucson, Arizona; Georgia Department of Community Supervision; Detroit; Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) of Knoxville and the Tennessee Valley, Tennessee; Austin, Texas; Yakima, Washington; Birmingham, Alabama; Muscogee (Creek) Nation; Columbus, Ohio; Brooklyn, New York; State of Vermont; and Spokane, Washington.
In her opening remarks, Director Hidalgo highlighted a startling statistic: over half of the women murdered in the United States are killed by a current or former intimate partner, and the presence of firearms increases the risk of homicide by 500%. This heightened threat to individuals and public safety necessitates a coordinated community response involving law enforcement, prosecutors, civil and criminal courts, victim service providers, and community-based organizations. Effective intervention and support can mean the difference between life and death for victims, as well as for law enforcement officers responding to domestic violence incidents. In addition to increased lethality and serious injuries, firearms are used by abusive partners to inflict fear, intimidation, and coercive control.
Director Hidalgo noted the statement by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland following the Supreme Court’s 8-1 decision in United States v. Rahimi, in which he stated that the decision, “upholds Congress’s longstanding prohibition on the possession of firearms by people subject to domestic violence restraining orders. That law protects victims by keeping firearms out of the hands of dangerous individuals who pose a threat to their intimate partners and children.” The Attorney General also said, “The Justice Department will continue to enforce this important statute, which for nearly 30 years has helped to protect victims and survivors of domestic violence from their abusers. And we will continue to deploy all available resources to support law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, and victim advocates to address the pervasive problem of domestic violence.”
To support community efforts, Director Hidalgo unveiled OVW initiatives that are part of a comprehensive strategy aimed at raising awareness of federal laws that prohibit firearm possession by domestic abusers and bolstering partnerships across federal, state, Tribal, and local levels. She highlighted the increased collaboration among key Justice Department components, such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (FBI/NICS), Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA), OVW, Office of Justice Programs (OJP), and other Justice Department components. The Justice Department is dedicated to forging strong collaborations between federal partners with state and local prosecutors, law enforcement agencies, and victim advocates to enhance our collective response to this critical issue.
DOJ recently released the Misdemeanor Crimes of Domestic Violence Resource Card. This resource explains the tools available under existing federal law to prevent the purchase of firearms and prosecute DV offenders who illegally possess them — including through implementation of the new dating-relationship provisions recently enacted through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) that narrow the so-called “boyfriend loophole.” This resource is designed to ensure that law enforcement, courts, and the public understand the domestic violence firearm prohibitions to increase effective implementation.
Justice Department representatives recently conducted a training at the Conference on Crimes Against Women, held in Dallas in May, and shared information on the role played by different Department components in firearms relinquishment, and ways to strengthen implementation by law enforcement and courts at the local level. Next month, DOJ will launch new roll call videos for law enforcement to ensure accurate documentation of relationships in FBI/NICs records to properly implement the dating violence prohibitions that were recently enacted through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
To support communities in accessing federal resources and strengthening a coordinated community response, OVW and OJP have developed the Resource Guide for Addressing the Intersection of Domestic Violence and Firearms. This guide details the Justice Department’s funding, training and partnership opportunities aimed at enforcing firearms laws and strengthening efforts at the local, state, Tribal and federal levels to keep guns out of the hands of adjudicated abusers.
To complement department resources and training, the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence and Firearms (NRCDVF), an OVW-funded national training and technical assistance provider, will conduct additional virtual trainings. These trainings will focus on best practices for law enforcement, prosecutors, and victim service providers, ensuring communities receive the latest and most effective tools when implementing surrender or relinquishment protocols.
Efforts also include expanding outreach to raise awareness about OVW grant funding that can support community initiatives to remove firearms from adjudicated abusers. This included recently sending a letter to grant administrators in every state and territory informing them about opportunities to use Services, Training, Officers and Prosecutors (STOP) formula grant program funds to prevent homicides by addressing the intersection of domestic violence and firearms, as well as providing information about additional training and support to STOP administrators to enhance state implementation plans to address these issues. Additionally, OVW is notifying state domestic violence coalitions about ways communities can leverage both OVW formula and discretionary grant funds to prevent domestic violence abusers from purchasing or possessing firearms.
Later in the day, Director Hidalgo conducted a listening session with representatives from the 12 FTAP pilot sites to explore each site’s best practices and challenges in implementing their programs. The discussions provided valuable insights into effective strategies nationwide to address the intersection of domestic violence and firearms. Key topics included fostering trauma-informed approaches that center around survivors; best practices for enhancing partnerships between law enforcement, prosecutors, victim services providers, community-based organizations, courts and other system and community partners; identifying areas of support needed to increase the effectiveness of their programs; and ways OVW could further support partnerships at the local level with federal partners, such as U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and ATF.
In particular, representatives of the FTAP pilot sites highlighted the progress they have made in their jurisdictions by forming multi-disciplinary teams to identify barriers and challenges to implementation and then developing collaborative strategies to address these barriers. This included: developing protocols and updating court forms in the civil and criminal courts for the relinquishment of firearms by adjudicated abusers; addressing issues with high rates of civil protection orders that were not being served; providing timely information to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System; improving training for law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, and community partners; identifying storage facilities for relinquished firearms, which can be a particular challenge in rural areas; improving language access and partnerships with culturally-specific community-based organizations; developing co-responder models for advocates to respond to the scene and provide support for victims of domestic violence; and increasing access to advocates for victims to navigate complex systems and obtain trauma-informed services.
Director Hidalgo emphasized that these resources and efforts highlight the crucial role of a coordinated community response, a cornerstone of the Violence Against Women Act. By fostering effective partnerships, these initiatives seek to remove firearms from dangerous situations, ensure community safety, support survivors and their children, reduce community violence, and prevent the use of firearms to cause injury or instill fear and coercive control in domestic violence situations.