Stop crowding victims and abusers together in courthouse hallway

Survivors of domestic violence face so many difficult decisions and challenges. The disorienting kaleidoscope generated from fear of the future and the present can paralyze a victim in taking the necessary steps to leave their abuser. However, once a decision is made to seek emergency protections from the courts and leave, we need to make sure the process to obtain those protections is as accessible, safe and dignified as possible.

Three years ago, the Broward County Chiefs of Police Association formed a committee to comprehensively examine the process in Broward County for victims of domestic violence seeking emergency court-ordered protections from abusers. The 2015 committee report was the product of collaboration among various stakeholders, including the Clerk of Courts, Judiciary, Court Administration, Broward Sheriff ’s Office, municipal law enforcement agencies, State Attorney’s Office and Victim Advocates.

Last week, the committee published an update report which, on the one hand, spotlights significant improvements implemented through the collaboration of those stakeholders, along with the Broward County Commission, including now allowing emergency petitions to be filed at the Plantation Regional Courthouse, the implementation of enormously important and helpful child care services and many other enhancements.

However, the report also spotlighted serious concerns over security and safety at the new courthouse, the stalled effort to allow filing of petitions at regional courthouses as other counties allow, and other necessary enhancements meant to make the system more efficient to obtain and serve petitions.

Domestic violence is more than physical contact; abuse also comes in the form of emotional intimidation. Many abusers, from the moment they are served with a temporary injunction, plot and scheme for the moment when they can intimidate or emotionally abuse their victims. Despite courtordered temporary protections, the courthouse in Broward was historically the one place abusers could further intimidate their victims outside the hearing rooms. Victim advocates complained for years regarding the abuse and intimidation allowed to occur each day in the courthouse.

Through collaboration, we mitigated the intimidation factor at the old courthouse, but the new courthouse failed to meet the basic standards of care to ensure separation strategies, both in design and personnel. Real steps were taken to address this on one floor where domestic violence victims have final hearings.

However, one floor above, where family law cases are heard that also involve domestic violence emergency protection hearings, victims and abusers are again crowded in narrow hallways, with no separation and strained security personnel. This situation is intolerable and must change. The county must provide funding for separate waiting rooms and enough courthouse security to protect victims and their families.

As a result of the June 2015 report, the committee recommended using the regional courthouses in Deerfield Beach, Hollywood and Plantation, as other counties provide. The Clerk of Courts unequivocally supported the recommended expansion.

However, nearly three years later, while celebrated, the only expansion was to the Plantation regional courthouse and only during certain hours. Efforts to expand to the Hollywood courthouse, for instance, have all but stopped.

Over the past three years, an estimated 26 percent of petitions came from south and southwest county. There is space at the Hollywood Regional Courthouse. Yet, because the county continues to debate whether to replace the Hollywood courthouse, a project we know will take a decade, victims are receiving a lesser service and the process is more burdensome than compared with other counties.

We must be vigilant to ensure we are collectively doing all we can for victim survivors and their children. They are our neighbors, our friends, our family and our residents.

Mike Ryan is a lawyer, a member of the committee studying Broward’s domestic violence injunction process and the mayor of Sunrise.