September 27, 2011

HOUSE SPEAKER CHRISTOPHER G. DONOVAN HONORED
BY DOMESTIC VIOLENCE COALITION

The Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence (CCADV) honored House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan (D-Meriden) with its “Coalition Crusader” honor at a breakfast at the Crowne Plaza in Cromwell on Wednesday, September 28.

According to the CCADV, Speaker Donovan is being honored along with the General Federation of Women’s Clubs for “outstanding achievements toward assisting victims of domestic violence.” He will receive the “Coalition Crusader” honor for his work to establish the Speaker’s Task Force on Domestic Violence. Over the past two years, the task force is responsible for strengthening Connecticut laws to help victims.

Speaker Donovan also is being recognized as a “First 100” honoree by CCADV, one of 100 men across Connecticut who have made a commitment to ending domestic violence in the state.

“I started the task force because I believe we owe victims of domestic violence answers and solutions to the complex problems they are encountering,” Speaker Donovan said. “The need for changes to Connecticut’s systems for dealing with domestic violence is urgent. I am proud that the task force, with the support of CCADV and others, has begun to make significant changes to Connecticut’s systems for dealing with domestic violence. We owe the victims and their families nothing less.”

In 2010, the General Assembly passed legislation based on the Speaker’s Task Force recommendations that marked the most sweeping changes to Connecticut’s domestic violence statutes since the Tracey Thurman law in 1986. Those changes included:

• adding $1.75 million in the FY 11 budget to provide 24 hour a day, 7 day a week staffing at the state’s emergency shelters for victims of domestic violence
• improved training for educators in teen dating and domestic violence
• increase support services, such as protecting victims who terminate their housing rental agreements to protect their safety
• improvements to the justice system including a pilot program to monitor high risk offenders using GPS and improvements in the enforcement of protective orders by making Connecticut’s orders recognizable in other states
• Expansion of domestic violence dockets to three additional courts for a total of 12 throughout the state

In the 2011 legislative session, the Speaker’s Task Force recommended improvements to the state’s response to domestic violence that became law including:

• strengthening access to restraining and protective orders
• changing the bail bonds system to strengthen the Insurance Department’s regulatory authority over surety bail bond agents and address the practice of undercutting
• maintaining funding for 24/7 staffing at the state’s domestic violence emergency shelters
• improving information sharing between state agencies
• allowing victims who have experienced a pattern of threatening or stalking to request a restraining order and clarifies that people of any age, including teens, can request a restraining order to protect them from a partner who has subjected them to abuse
• requiring offenders to surrender their firearms to police or sell them to a federally-licensed firearms dealer if the offender is barred from possessing them due to a restraining or protective order
• providing restitution to the families of victims of domestic violence like that provided to families of other crime victims
• fixing a contradiction in the statutes that exempts people in dating relationships from arrest when a domestic violence crime is alleged to have been committed, so that police have clear authority to make such arrests.