jmiller320
Ultimate Member
Easy to read between the lines.
There was a time in our not-too-distant past when, as a society, we operated under the belief that domestic violence and sexual assault – as long as it wasn’t happening in our homes and to our family members – wasn’t our problem to solve.
Today, we know that personal violence destroys not just individual homes and individual lives, but communities. It does lasting harm to our children, and forces too many Marylanders to live in fear. Changing our culture of violence starts in our homes and in our neighborhoods – each of us, no matter where we live, needs to do more to stand up, speak out, and stop domestic violence and sexual assault.
But the commitment cannot – and will not – end there. Government’s most important responsibility is to protect its citizens, and that includes working to end domestic violence and sexual assault in all of our communities.
Over the past seven years, we’ve made tremendous progress in this effort. We’ve removed guns from the hands of abusers, allowed victims to receive unemployment insurance, provided tenants who are victims with the ability to break their lease, given judges the ability to mark a case as “domestically related” in order to better track patterns of abuse, and worked with law enforcement officials and advocates to implement the life-saving Lethality Assessment Program in jurisdictions throughout Maryland.
The results are clear: we’ve seen a 20% decrease in domestic violence-related assaults, and a 32% decrease in the number of women and children who have lost their lives due to homicide.
But for all of our success, we still have work to do. We’re going to end domestic violence in Maryland by passing laws that protect victims and survivors, deterring and holding abusers accountable and making resources available to anyone who needs help.
Too many families have been devastated by domestic violence, including mine. When my cousin Cathy was shot and killed by her estranged boyfriend five years ago, I knew that loss would stay with us forever.
We can’t bring back victims like Cathy, but we honor their memories by working, each and every day, to end domestic violence throughout our state.
There was a time in our not-too-distant past when, as a society, we operated under the belief that domestic violence and sexual assault – as long as it wasn’t happening in our homes and to our family members – wasn’t our problem to solve.
Today, we know that personal violence destroys not just individual homes and individual lives, but communities. It does lasting harm to our children, and forces too many Marylanders to live in fear. Changing our culture of violence starts in our homes and in our neighborhoods – each of us, no matter where we live, needs to do more to stand up, speak out, and stop domestic violence and sexual assault.
But the commitment cannot – and will not – end there. Government’s most important responsibility is to protect its citizens, and that includes working to end domestic violence and sexual assault in all of our communities.
Over the past seven years, we’ve made tremendous progress in this effort. We’ve removed guns from the hands of abusers, allowed victims to receive unemployment insurance, provided tenants who are victims with the ability to break their lease, given judges the ability to mark a case as “domestically related” in order to better track patterns of abuse, and worked with law enforcement officials and advocates to implement the life-saving Lethality Assessment Program in jurisdictions throughout Maryland.
The results are clear: we’ve seen a 20% decrease in domestic violence-related assaults, and a 32% decrease in the number of women and children who have lost their lives due to homicide.
But for all of our success, we still have work to do. We’re going to end domestic violence in Maryland by passing laws that protect victims and survivors, deterring and holding abusers accountable and making resources available to anyone who needs help.
Too many families have been devastated by domestic violence, including mine. When my cousin Cathy was shot and killed by her estranged boyfriend five years ago, I knew that loss would stay with us forever.
We can’t bring back victims like Cathy, but we honor their memories by working, each and every day, to end domestic violence throughout our state.