Domestic violence needs more attention from general public

In Sunday’s Frontiersman we ran a story about a man accused of domestic violence. After more information came to light, he was charged with attempted murder.

Our police blotter seems to have domestic violence charges in almost every edition.

For every one reported, common sense would tell us a lot more go unreported. To some extent many of us are at fault for that. Some of us know people who are in a physically or emotionally abusive relationship and yet we say nothing. We don’t want to intrude. But we must.

The police or troopers can’t get involved without knowledge of abuse. Many spouses — some are men — are reluctant to report abuse because they think they will have nowhere to go. Maybe they believe they are the cause of the abuse, that they aren’t worthy of having a healthy lifestyle. Abusers aren’t just mean, they are manipulators who feed off the insecurities of others.

That’s why people who have a friend or relative in a bad relationship need to act. In the case of the Sunday story, only an act of near homicide brought an end to the abuse. What if he had continued his attack and the victim was killed? If someone knew of the abuse and said nothing, they would have to live with that death the rest of their life.

You can bet this act of violence wasn’t the first. The victim likely was living in emotional and physical trauma for a long time.

The problem with domestic violence and sexual assault is so large that Gov. Parnell recently began a statewide campaign to fight this social plague. Alaska is always among the top states per capita in reported domestic and sexual assaults. The governor has a multi-pronged attack plan that includes a new domestic violence-sexual assault prevention coordinator as well as harsher penalties for perpetrators and more resources for victims.

Here are some troubling numbers from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence:

• Nearly 75 percent of Alaskans have experienced or know someone who has experienced domestic violence or sexual assault.

• There were more than 6,000 such cases reported in 2005.

• Alaska’s rape rate is 2.5 times the national average.

• Alaska leads the nation per capita in the cases of men killing women.

The first line of action is with us. We need to help those who can’t seem to help themselves. We need to become more vigilant. We need to help the governor and the crimefighters. We need to be their eyes and ears so Alaska can get off the top of a bad list.