Front Burner - A radical program to address the domestic violence crisis

Episode Date: March 9, 2020

In Canada, domestic violence has reached crisis levels. But in Saint Paul, Minnesota, a radical domestic abuse intervention project is showing the way forward, and how to save countless lives. Katie Nicholson joins Jayme Poisson to explain the “Blueprint for Safety” program and how it’s protecting victims of domestic violence.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. 986, you've put on a suspicious collar reporting a male walking around the home. For Officer Michael Shedd, this is just another call on an ordinary night shift. So how many domestic calls do you usually get in a shift? In a shift, I'd say anywhere around five to six domestic killers and probably arrestable ones of domestic assaults, probably one or two.

He's a cop in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he works with the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project. But for my colleague Katie Nicholson, this call is a chance to get a look inside a radical program, one that has proven to save countless lives. Here in Canada, a woman or girl is killed by her intimate partner about every six days. So today, we're going to follow St. Paul's team overnight and into the morning to find out what their police, prosecutors, and victim services are doing right. And what we're doing wrong. I'm Jamie Poisson. This is FrontBurner. And a warning, this episode contains disturbing descriptions of violence.

Hi, Katie. Thank you for being here with me today. My pleasure. So you were there in the back of this police car. Actually, this is extraordinary access that you were able to obtain. Tell me what happened when the call came in over the radio saying there was a domestic disturbance. ride. We're bouncing around the streets of St. Paul. It's a city of about 300,000. And it is very Minnesota. It's a bit like Fargo in the movie, right? But it's a beautiful city. It's any town USA. It was winter, you know, icy roads. We were just sort of going down the main stretch when all of a sudden, you know, the call comes in from dispatch. His screen lights up. It's a domestic call. And almost immediately, all call comes in from dispatch. His screen lights up. It's a domestic call.

And almost immediately, all this information starts popping up. So he knows what to expect in that house. Were there previous firearms calls there? How cautious do they need to be? Were there other domestic calls there ever? What's the history of this place? Who lives there? What do we know about it? And the call for backup goes out and they sort of, because you can't go to these things alone. We're like a few blocks out, but we'll still wait for backup. Domestics are always dangerous. You don't know what you're walking into. And, you know, this is one of eight calls that he'll get that night that are domestic violence related calls. So this is, this is a well-oiled machine that's about to go into high gear for us.

Again, right now, you're under arrest for domestic assault. You've still got to look for your mystery and find out which level, right? So they pull up at sort of distance from the actual house. You want to not sort of be right on the doorstep. You want to have a little breathing room there. You want to be able to walk cautiously to approach the house. Oh, that's interesting.

Why? I think part of it is if you're up there with sort of sirens flashing, you're sort of really adding to the emotion of the scene. It's harder to sort of really assess what's happening. So they go in as a team. And the first thing they do is they separate the couple. So in this case, it was a male suspect who he was quite sweaty. His shirt was off. He was covered in blood. As Officer Shedd is taking him out of the house. And his, Jessica Stiffarm, stays inside.

And she's running through a number of questions that she has been specially trained to ask. And these are questions that police and prosecutors came together and decided would help increase prosecution. And the idea is these are questions that gauge on the scene the lethality of the situation. What is the victim's risk? What does she feel? What level of fear does she have? How many times has an assault like this happened and police weren't called?

What other injuries do you have? Well, we need to make sure you're safe, right? And we have to understand what went on, why we were called today, understand why you have that much blood in your ear. They're assessing the scene. They're looking to see if there's broken glass, if there's, you know, is there broken furniture? Is it obvious that there was a scuffle here? What's the state of the victim? Is there bruising?

Are there contusions somewhere? Are there handprints around her throat? They're looking to gauge all of this because in Minnesota, what they've done is they've taken the onus of laying charges off the victim. Oh, interesting. They put it on the police, on the state itself. And so they could lay a charge even if the victim didn't want to speak to the police. Exactly. They're all about gauging that evidence. So part of it is through the special questions that they're asking the victims to sort of get a better report for the prosecutor in the morning.

The other thing that's happening is outside, while Stiffarm is inside talking to the victim and getting this history from her, we have Michael Shedd outside taking photos. He's asking the perpetrator all kinds of questions. He's asking, you know, is that all your blood or is that hers? And, you know, he's getting him to admit whether or not there was an assault or not.

He's asking, did you push each other? What was happening? He's getting that side of the story as well. And so what you're witnessing here, you know, Officer Stiffarm inside with the victim and Officer Shedd outside taking pictures of the alleged abuser. This is all part of this blueprint safety program. What brought you to Minnesota in the first place? Yeah. So the blueprint for safety is really about sure and swift consequences for domestic violence.

It is amped up in their response. for domestic violence. It is amped up in their response. And what happened was years ago, it was just before 2010, police and prosecutors and victim services, they were all doing their jobs really well, but they weren't doing them well together.

And that was creating gaps in the system. They were not getting the convictions they felt they should get. They were not making the arrests. And most of all, they felt they were failing victims. So what they decided to do, they got a grant. They all came to the table and said, what can we do to help each other do our jobs better? What questions can investigators and police ask on the scene? What can police do to shore up those cases? And what do prosecutors need to move forward quickly? And then what then can the

victim's advocates do to help support both the prosecution services and police? And it's all based on numerous studies that show that if you have swift consequences, it doesn't matter how severe the consequences are, if you have swift consequences for domestic violence, then that means that there is a better outcome for the victim. The victim is more likely to be forthcoming, to take up services, to take up the advocate's offer for services. They're more likely to assist police and prosecution services. And also it means that it sends a very strong message to the perpetrator that there are consequences for this behavior. Okay, and I understand that this program has been incredibly successful, right? So, okay, there have been homicides.

There have been homicides in St. Paul. And we know that in the U.S. nationally, right, one in three women who are murdered are murdered by an intimate partner. It's a horrendous statistic here as well in Canada, right? It is. Yeah, I mean, we have hovering around in the high 80s number of intimate partner homicides every year in Canada. And it is a problem. And that's really why the St. Paul group came together. And what they did since 2010, what they have seen,

while there have been intimate partner homicides in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Ramsey County, for sure, they have only had one intimate partner homicide involving a case that was on the Blueprint for Safety's radar. So that's in 10 years. They're very proud of this statistic. They're very proud of the impact that they have had with this project. They say they have had higher participation from victims. They believe that they have shepherded more people to safety through this program.

And, you know, the statistics are showing us there are more convictions. And it also brought them all together to sort of look at other ways that they could help victims. One thing is a really big problem they have was gone on arrival. So this is a domestic violence case where you show up and the perpetrator is gone. Right. So different than what you witnessed where the alleged perpetrator was there. Yeah. Yeah. And like 10 years ago, it took them 76 days to catch up with these people and lay charges. What they decided to do, again, police and prosecutors decided we're going to prioritize these cases because these women are at risk. And when we don't immediately charge,

it sends a message to the perpetrator that if you just flee, you can get away with this. And so then they brought that down from 76 days of charging to like eight days to charging. And that was just by prioritizing these things. Yeah. So the blueprint questions are asked once at the night by us or whatever during the day when we do them, and also they're asked again when an investigator follows up and calls the victim. It kind of gives us more work to kind of figure out if we do need to make an arrest.

Let's go back to what you witnessed during the day that you spent with the people involved in this program. So, you know, if we could pick up where we left off at the scene. Officer Michael Shedd is outside. He's with the alleged perpetrator who is covered in blood. Officer Stiffarm is inside asking, you know, very specific questions of the victim. So what happened after that?

So the victim didn't want to cooperate, which is fine. But again, in Minnesota, she doesn't need to. What's happening with her? She was hesitant, reluctant. She really didn't want to get involved in this. I think she, according to Stiffarm, felt maybe there might be some retaliation for her. She just wanted the violence to stop. She was a bit surprised that police showed up, as is the case with many domestic violence victims.

They want the violence to stop, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they want the relationship to stop. So she was, I think, thrown a little bit when police did show up. And what she was doing when Stiffarm left was she was waiting for a ride, someone to take her to another place. Okay, because she did not call the police. No, she didn't. It was someone else in the house that did call and report that violence. So Officer Stiffarm leaves her card behind and says, you know, if you do change your mind, I'm on until 2 a.m. She comes outside. We're immediately off to the station. He is put in a cell. Three officers are in a report room and they invited us into this report writing room. Three officers are in a report room and they invited us into this report writing room.

They have all spoken to witnesses who witnessed the abuse, who witnessed her pleading for help, as well as, you know, Officer Stiffarm was able to write a report based on her interactions with the victim. Officer Shedd wrote a report based on his interactions with the perpetrator. And so besides these notes that they're taking, statements, what other kind of evidence do they have at this stage? They have photographic evidence of the scene of the victim and of the perpetrator with, with the victim's blood all over him. So there's, there's that. And,

you know, we did see a very, we saw pictures of the level of violence on her body, including a severely bloody eardrum or ear. You know, it wasn't immediately clear to us upon looking at it, you know, where all the blood was coming from, but it was definitely a disturbing image and very clear that something violent had happened to her. We don't know the extent, like she could have a bust eardrum or anything like that.

So we just take pictures and kind of, these are straight pictures that the prosecutor sees. So they have a chat with their captain about what kind of a charge they should suggest. And they go with the maximum just to be safe. And the formal charges, that's up to the prosecutor the next morning. But just to be safe, they wanted to make sure they had a felony assault on the books for him. Those three very exhaustive reports were written within that hour. And he was locked up.

So the next morning, it was like hours later, the sun's up, and the sergeant for the family violence unit is sitting down with the city prosecutor. They're going through all the domestic violence cases over the weekend and overnight. I'll call his probation officer, because I am going to charge this one. And she basically is going through looking at the, you know, there's evidence on a large screen. They're looking at women with contusions, women with like swollen cheeks, all of this photographic evidence. They're deciding what charges, which cases they're going to charge, what the charges will be, what's prosecutable. And then in the cases where there are serious cases, that gets bumped up to the county level. And then in the cases where there are serious cases, that gets bumped up to the county level.

And so there's a lot of sort of passing the cases back and forth, depending on where best they think they can get a conviction. Okay. So that from right from there, I mean, it was less than 12 hours and a decision is made as to how to charge this guy. And then he is before a court within 48 hours. Wow. Yeah. And is formally charged with, in the end, a misdemeanor assault. But the other thing that happens there is judges routinely in Minnesota hand out no contact orders from that first appearance. Right. Which are sort of like restraining orders. Yeah,

essentially. Yeah. You're not allowed to go anywhere near the victim. And again, this is so routine, it's not even questioned in Minnesota. It's just a very fast system. Okay. So we've been following the alleged perpetrator here. What has been happening with the victim during this time? I know you mentioned before the female officer left her card. That will not be the only interaction the victim has. There is something else that happens that morning.

As we are sitting at that table with the prosecutor and the sergeant, another team has been deployed. And this is another unique part of this blueprint for safety model. So what happens is a police officer and a victim's advocate pair is immediately deployed every morning to visit every single victim of domestic violence from the overnight calls. Wow. every single victim of domestic violence from the overnight calls. Wow. And again, it is so fast and so soon after the assault that police say this ensures that, A, the victim knows police take this seriously, that they care, and because they're there with the victim's advocate,

they see that they're also trying to bridge them to the support services that they need. And these two people are working quite independently. So the police are there to help share the case. You know, they're looking for more evidence. They're looking to see if the victim will cooperate. But the advocate is there to tell them what they can expect through the system. The advocate meets with them separately and confidentially, tells them what services are available. Do you want to leave? Do you want to stay? Do you have a way to make ends meet? What are you know, do you have children? Do you have a safety plan? All of these things are worked through with the advocate. And sometimes then by making a connection with the victim, the victim is more willing really made victims of intimate partner violence more safe. It's interesting listening to you talk about this initiative, which feels like it's sort of wrapping its arms around the entire process, but the victims in particular.

It does sound so simple in so many ways. And that's sort of what a lot of the people who are involved in the program say was like, it's kind of a no brainer. It was really about just doing all of our jobs better, playing on the same team. And it didn't take much. It just takes, you know, one victim's advocate and one police officer visiting those victims the very next day. It just takes changing the way police ask questions of victims to get a better history for the prosecutor. It just takes a swift response from the prosecutor where you just the very first thing in the morning, you review those cases and you make sure that there are charges. Like that's really just how it's the speed and the emphasis that they put there that they believe made the difference. The other thing is the Blueprint program in its 10 years has become so well known to male perpetrators that they'll often have been overheard. One of the prosecutors told me that's making calls out to their lawyers saying,

I've been blueprinted. No way. It's like a verb. It's like a verb. So it's well known within the city. So St. Paul, if you go there and you talk to the people who are involved in the blueprint program, they'll say this is known as a city where you can't get away with domestic violence. Wow. Yeah. So what was it about St. Paul's Minnesota that made this possible? What was it about St. Paul's, Minnesota that made this possible?

You know, one of the things that makes this St. Paul program possible is VAWA. So that's the Violence Against Women Act, which was brought in in 1994. President Bill Clinton signed it in. We really had a national consensus that we had to do something. And what that did is it criminalized certain parts of certain aspects of domestic violence. It made sure that protection orders that were issued in one state had to be observed nationwide. And it also, and this is critical, unleashed funding to states so that they could shore up their judicial responses, their police training, their shelter programs. Each state could then figure out the best way to create a response to domestic violence. And this particular St. Paul model still gets VAWA funding. In fact, that critical unit

of the police investigator and the advocate that play that crucial visit every morning to the victims, their positions are funded entirely by VAWA. So, you know, one of the things that we've Right. Afterwards to the victim. of the services together or to at least help fund provincial responses so that they can create program effective like this in every province and territory. And we don't have something like that. I mean, the other criticism that has come up is that Canada doesn't have a specific provision in the criminal code for intimate partner violence either. These things are dealt with under existing provisions, things like assault, that sort of thing. So, you know, one of the suggestions has been why don't we sort of pack that into the criminal code, a domestic violence, a coercive controlling behavior, sort of charge within the code. And that's something that England and Wales did in 2015,

to help police establish patterns of controlling behavior and criminalize that. So, you know, we have asked whether, you know, there should be some sort of like national legal strategy that where there is some sort of broad overview that helps the provinces shore up their acts and shore up their domestic violence acts. Should we criminalize IPV in Canada's criminal code? We haven't heard back from Minister Lamedi yet. Justice Minister David Lamedi? Yeah, Justice Minister David Lamedi. We do hope to, I guess, maybe get some sort of a response. What about Minister for Women's Issues, Mira Monseth?

Now, she did sit down with us and she says, everything is on the table right now. Gender-based violence, intimate partner violence is preventable. It's costing us way too much. And she, you know, it's not necessarily a confirmation that this is something they're going to push through, but they certainly are entertaining ideas. And she said Canada should and can do better. And she also said that they will be turning this discussion to Canadians. They will be asking Canadians what they want to see in terms of how to deal with domestic violence in the courts. Okay. Katie Nicholson, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast and talking to us about this incredible initiative. We're really appreciative.

Oh, my pleasure. All right. So Katie's investigation is part of a larger series looking at the crisis of intimate partner violence in Canada. You can find more coverage online at CBC News. And if you or someone you know needs help, visit sheltersafe.ca or endingviolencecanada.org. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and talk to you tomorrow.