At the height of the New York coronavirus lockdown, domestic violence in all five boroughs skyrocketed, according to the data.
When the pandemic first hit the ground, experts predicted that the mandatory closings and rising unemployment would cause an increase in domestic abuse, and the figures now confirm this, with reports of domestic violence in some agencies doubling and even tripled in recent months.
“We have never been busier,” said Nechama Bakst, senior director of the Met Council’s family violence program.
“We have seen people who have never experienced violence beginning to experience violence, and people who have experienced violence experience worse violence.”
The nonprofit typically receives about 70 new cases a month, but in April they juggled 135, another 145 in May, and 146 more in June, the organization said.
“We see more suffocation, more sexual violence, much more intense and serious crime,” said the director.
At Sanctuary for Families, which also works with survivors, there was a similar increase in calls to their helpline.
In May, the group received 206 calls, compared to 102 the previous month. In June, calls tripled, with 259 compared to 73 last year.
“Domestic violence is fundamentally about power and control,” said Dorchen Leidholdt, director of the SFF Legal Center. “The coronavirus pandemic gave abusers a powerful control tool because their victims were much closer to them, 24/7 in many cases, and had less access to sources of support and assistance.”
In many cases, the pandemic became just another tool in the perpetrators’ arsenal, experts said.
Some abusers would retain the personal protective equipment of their victims so that it was not safe to leave home. In other cases, if an abuser ended up catching the coronavirus, he would embarrass and blame his partner for it or become physically violent, advocates said.
Some would also refuse at a social distance or wash their hands, and then “tease” their victims about it in a way that made them “feel insecure,” Bakst said.
An abuser warned the victim, “You better watch your back … because the courts are closed, so there is nothing you can do,” said SFF, who helped the person in need obtain a protection order.
High unemployment caused by the virus only exacerbated the situation because the abusers are more physically violent, and are likely to kill, when they are out of work, experts said.
“It was a twin tsunami,” said Leidholdt. “On one hand, the abusers were unemployed, angry and more abusive than ever with more access to their victims than ever. … And then the victims were more financially dependent than ever. ”
Amid the blockades, the battered were trapped inside with their perpetrators all day, forcing some to hide in their toilets in the dead of night so they could whisper frantic pleas for help on their phones while their abusers slept, he said. David Greenfield of the Met Council. CEO.
In response, both the SFF and the Met Council created a text-based helpline for victims, which was a much safer way to communicate.
Experts noted that the most dangerous time for a victim is when they try to leave their abuser, which is why most escapes take place when attackers are outside the home.
With coronavirus orders to stay home, running away became more difficult, and therefore more dangerous, making “situations that are already bad … exponentially worse,” Greenfield told The Post.
In one case, a woman and her children were in a “very, very dangerous” situation with an abuser who had weapons in the home, Bakst said.
The torment against the victims intensified amid the pandemic, and the woman asked the Met Council for help to get her and her children out.
“We found out one hour a day, it was literally 15 minutes she had where they weren’t looking at her,” Bakst recalled.
“And in those 15 minutes, we coordinated a way to get her to a place where she can get out and get safe.”
Still, for many victims, getting there is never easy, and it became even more difficult amid the pandemic, advocates said.
There was a woman who said she was too scared to call 911 because she was concerned that police officers were giving her coronavirus, Bakst said.
“Seeking help outside the home was more difficult than ever because the courts were virtually operating, there was a period when New York City police were dealing with their own coronavirus crisis, and we did not see the same level of response when a survivor called 911 “. Leidholdt added.
“The only way to get help is on the phone, and using a phone when you’re around an abuser [is nearly impossible]. “
When victims had the opportunity to ask for help, they used “codes” devised with their social worker to discreetly communicate if the offender was nearby.
“If someone starts giving us directions to the mall, that was the code to say ‘I have to go’ without saying ‘I have to go, he is here,'” Bakst explained.
“For some people it is ‘I have to put dinner in the oven,’ and that means for the social worker, ‘FYI, he is here.’ “
For abusers accustomed to attacking vulnerable people, a global pandemic perfectly set the stage for further exploitation, Leidholdt said.
“Abusers tend to be serial perpetrators. They look for vulnerable victims and take advantage of the victim’s vulnerability, and the coronavirus pandemic significantly increased the vulnerability of women and children, particularly in New York City, “she said.
“He increased his vulnerability financially, he increased his vulnerability in terms of public health, he increased his vulnerability in a really very scary environment in which venturing without protection can cause illness and even death,” the lawyer continued.
“Abusers take advantage of such situations, use and exploit them to increase their power and control over victims.”
At times, Leidholdt and his team found themselves “quite overwhelmed by the need” for survivors of domestic violence amid the pandemic, he said.
“Although we were assisted by eight large law firms, we received more calls and clients who needed assistance than at key moments we were able to help,” Leidholdt recalled.
Ultimately, no one was rejected, but the nonprofit receives “far more referrals” than it has the capacity to help, shedding light on the need to increase services for victims of domestic violence, staff said.
The coronavirus pandemic has plunged the Big Apple’s billions of dollars into red, and many programs for survivors of domestic violence have been cut in the 2013 fiscal year budget, according to fiscal reports. The cuts include programs that support survivors after victimization and funding from various district attorney’s offices that allow for better prosecution, even when crimes related to domestic violence such as murder, rape and assault have increased, according to reports.
Funding for domestic violence programs under the Human Resources Administration fell by almost $ 1 million, the largest decline it has faced in years, according to reports.
While Leidholdt said the cuts could have been much worse, funding was not enough even before the pandemic.
“This is certainly not new, but we see it more during the time of the coronavirus pandemic. There is a much greater need for legal services, clinical services, economic empowerment services, and housing services than currently exists. For all of these services, there are waiting lists, ”said Leidholdt.
“The sad reality is that they are not remotely adequate.”
Additional reports from Nolan Hicks
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