Twenty-two women have lost their lives to domestic violence in Shreveport and Caddo Parish in the last 15 months. The violence against women extended into the new year, as the first three homicide victims of 2024. Louisiana ranks fifth in the country for women killed by men. A leading advocate for victims of domestic violence is calling on more people to step forward and help if they have the means to do so.
That advocate is Britney Green, appointed in late 2018 as the section chief of the First Judicial District Attorney’s Domestic Violence and Stalking Unit. The Special Victims Unit (SVU) provides information, support and assistance to crime victims and their families. Green says one of their biggest challenges is that the alleged abuser knows everything there is to know about the victim’s life, from where they work, to where the children attend school, and to the victim’s daily schedule. This often means continued access for the abuser, and therefore a continued threat of another attack in the future.
Green points to one law in particular that can help a great deal. “Here in Louisiana, we’re lucky because we are one of the states where it is a felony to commit domestic violence acts in the presence of a child, age 13 and younger. That’s not the case in some other states. But here in Louisiana it’s taken more seriously because we know that children that witness domestic violence are more likely to become abusers or to become victims of abuse.”
Green says she still sees a high level of victim blaming for domestic violence. She’s often asked, “Why don’t they [abuse victims] just leave?” Green’s response: “leave and go where?” After leaving an emergency shelter, she says there is little transitional housing for abuse victims. “So, if in fact we have the expectation that a victim should just leave an abusive situation, what are the pieces that are in place that enable that victim to one, leave and two, to stay away?”
Green rhetorically asks, “Is there enough shelter space beyond the emergency shelter? Have we invested in transitional housing? For instance, have we examined whether some of these unused properties, old hotels or vacant apartment buildings or even commercial space?”
Green knows the answer to her questions is a resounding “no.” That’s why she poses a different kind of question, to people in a position to help others, urging them to ask themselves ‘what have we done to provide an avenue of escape for victims – so that they can begin new lives?’” Green ultimately concludes that when you consider 5,000 women in Louisiana are impacted every year by domestic violence, this is a crisis with no end in sight.
· Project Celebration Domestic Violence Shelter:
(318) 226-5015 or (888) 411-1333.
· Domestic Violence Investigation Unit: (318) 226-6200
