Saugerties added to domestic violence prevention program
SAUGERTIES, N.Y. » An Intimate Partner Violence Intervention program has expanded from Kingston into Saugerties, according to Ulster County District Attorney David Clegg.
Clegg said the move is the first phase of a countywide expansion of the initiative.
Through a partnership of prosecutors, law enforcement, victims’ advocates, social service providers and community members, the Intimate Partner Violence Intervention Task Force intervenes early on with intimate partner violence offenders known to the criminal justice system, according to a Monday press release about the program’s expansion.
The initiative, developed by the National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College, aims to prevent further incidents of intimate partner violence by clearly communicating the risks offenders could face if they chose to offend again, the release stated. It said the initiative offers supportive service to offenders and, when necessary, addresses the most dangerous individuals through enforcement.
“Intimate partner violence is a pervasive community problem,” Clegg said in a statement. “It is our responsibility to hold accountable persons committing acts of intimate partner violence, to stop the violence and break the intergenerational cycle of abuse.
“Victim safety is paramount to the IPVI (Intimate Partner Violence Intervention) strategy, which focuses on the offender and aims to prevent any further violence by clearly communicating that the prosecutorial response to further offenses will be swift and certain,” Clegg added.
Clegg said he has been committed to the intervention program since taking office in January and made it a mission of his first year to begin expanding it countywide.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw an increase in chronic offenders reoffending with heightened violence,” Ulster County Senior Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Culmone-Mills said, also in a statement. “We are eager to expand this collaborative
response to the town and village of Saugerties.”
Culmone-Mills heads the Intimate Partner Violence Intervention Task Force in
Ulster County.
The District Attorney’s Office and Kingston Police Department began the intervention initiative in the city in January 2017, with the guidance of the National Network for Safe Communities and the state Division of Criminal Justice Services,
and began implementation on March 6, 2018. Since that time, Kingston has seen a steady reduction in domestic incident reports, the Monday press release stated.
In March 2020, the National Network for Safe Communities reported the city of Kingston experienced
a 36 percent decrease in the number of domestic incident reports among people classified as intimate partner violence offenders, the release stated.
New Paltz is to be the next jurisdiction to which the Ulster County program expands.