when there is a call to police.
I am not an expert in domestic violence, nor affiliated with any organizations focused on domestic violence. I am lucky enough not to be a domestic violence survivor, and ethical and empathetic enough not to be a perpetrator.
What I am is a person who, having done my Feminism 101 on my own time, has learned a bit of attention to domestic violence over the years.
Here's the deal: people who are being subjected to domestic violence, usually but not always women (and not always in opposite-sex relationships) are not people with otherwise healthy relationships whose partners suddenly hit them one day.
Abuse in intimate partnerships tends to build over time, and comprise a spectrum of behavior. Often it starts with the abuser being jealous or controlling, or verbally abusive. The abuser typically attempts to cut their victim off from others who might object or provide a different perspective. The abuser attempts control the victim, not just physically, but emotionally.
The abuser may control the victim's finances and if and where they work. The abuser may threaten the victim's children, or pets. The abuser, if male, may sabotage his female partner's birth control. He tells her (or him, or she tells her, or him) that she (or he) is ugly, stupid, incapable of living on her own, and that no one else would ever love her or him.
The abuser may use aspects of the victim's identity (race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, trans status, religion, education level, weight, appearance, family background, etc.) to further undermine the victim's self-respect, or to justify their abuse and control.
Most of all, the abuser lies to the victim about their self worth and human dignity, and enforces those lies with control and violence.
When are the victims at most risk? When they try to leave.
When police show up on a "domestic", lots of history has shown that many victims refuse to press charges. Why? Because they've just gotten hit, kicked, raped, etc., and they know that the retribution for pressing charges is likely to be even worse. They're afraid. Or they don't see a way out. Or they're even convinced that they deserved what they got.
The laws that require an arrest to be made are the result of countless instances of abusers killing their victims after police have left the scene.
These laws are a result of decades of police considering domestic violence "a private matter" until the victim is dead. (And if a male perpetrator ends up dead because a female victim fought back, she ends up with much more jail time than the male abusers who go "too far" and accidentally kill their female partners prisoners.)
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Does any of this excuse this Ralkina Jones's death in jail? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Once any person is in jail, or in custody, the police/jailers are responsible for their health and safety.
But there is a big difference between "she should not have died in jail" and "she never should have been arrested." She can be worthy of mourning and anger and investigations and calls for justice even if her arrest was justified.
Conflating the two issues implies both that victims of police violence or neglect need to be perfect, and that intimate partner violence is on a par with jaywalking or failure to signal. Neither is a good message to send.
