Those crying children, many of whom are victimized themselves, are more likely to become the next generation that acts out on the street and at home. Even with new emphasis on mandatory arrest, no one is na ve enough to suggest that arrest alone provides a simple quick fix. Becoming user friendly As a survivor of domestic violence, I know what it is like to look into the rage-filled eyes of someone you love, realizing that this could be the time you die. Even today, I can still taste the blood and remember the horror of seeing my broken face in the mirror - and feel the sting of shame, knowing that I was not yet ready or able to leave. Getting out of an abusive relationship is a process, not a discrete event.
Research confirms that women are at greatest risk of being killed when they try to break away.
Part of the solution therefore must be to provide victims the sustained support that allows them to gain the information and the strength required to make the break safely. Back in those ugly days, now long gone, I would fantasize about having a police officer for a friend, someone I could talk to between crises. Past experience made me question whether the police were my friend. Growing up in a low-income neighborhood, the police were the strangers who rode in pairs and rarely exited their patrol cars. When they did, some of them treated the people that I knew with indifference, contempt, or outright abuse.