Yolo County Superior Court Judge Donna Petri is intimately familiar with those problems. She handles custody cases in the county's new Domestic Violence Court. And with rare exceptions, she allows batterers only supervised visits with their children until they make significant progress in treatment. She thinks Kuehl's bill sounds like a sensible approach. Requiring batterers' visits to be monitored by a supervisor creates yet another problem, however.
Many counties have few if any formal supervision services.
Those that do exist can be expensive. There is only one service providing supervised visitation services in El Dorado County, and two in Placer County, according to victims' advocates. Arla Buckwalter, executive director of the Placer Women's Center in Auburn, said she often sends families to Sacramento to find a supervisor. Already at war, the parties often can't agree on which family member to use. Supervisors are supposed to monitor the batterer's behavior and intervene if it's inappropriate, she said, something relatives often don't feel comfortable doing.