Lawmakers push tougher domestic violence laws

Hamilton’s Carruthers co-sponsor of bill to expand protections.

One in four women and one in seven men will be a victim of domestic violence in their lifetime, and a pair of Ohio lawmakers want to increase penalties for those crimes.

House Bill 3, known as Aisha’s Law, was introduced on Feb. 4 in the Ohio House by primary sponsors Reps. Sara Carruthers, R-Hamilton, and Janine Boyd, D-Cleveland Heights. The bill would expand the definition of domestic violence to include strangulation, create a temporary emergency protection order that can be requested outside a court’s normal business hours and create a study committee on the prosecution of domestic violence cases.

Boyd and Carruthers testified last week before the House Criminal Justice Committee on the bill named for Aisha Fraser, who was killed in November 2018 by her ex-husband following years of domestic violence in suburban Cleveland. In May 2020, the Ohio House unanimously passed

Ohio Rep. Sara Carruthers, R-Hamilton

Ohio Rep. Janine Boyd, D-Cleveland Heights

an earlier version of Aisha’s Law, but it failed to make it out of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee.

“All Ohioans deserve to feel safe in their homes,” said Carruthers. “Incidents of domestic violence take place in every corner of Ohio and are in far greater numbers than often realized.”

In 2018, the Ohio Attorney General reported 38,475 domestic violence incident charges in Ohio. Of those charges, 1,112 were in Butler County, according to Carruthers’ testimony on Thursday.

In 2020, YWCA Hamilton’s Dove House provided services to 868 victims, up more than 100 from those served in 2019, said April Hamlin, YWCA Chief Operating Officer. She said the shelter “is consistently full, and our advocates

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