Russians Are Saying Nyet to Spousal Abuse

In Russia there is no such crime as spousal abuse.

They don’t even have the concept of a restraining order. In fact no distinctions are made between killing your spouse and killing your neighbor, or beating your child and beating a bar mate.

But that could change when six high-ranking Russian officials return home from Ventura County, taking with them the tools to define and combat the problem of violence within families.

The Russian dignitaries, the highest-ranking officials in the departments of social services, prosecution and law enforcement, are spending 10 education-filled days in Southern California. They began in Los Angeles and arrived in Ventura County on Thursday.

Here, they are touring jails, speaking with prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies and learning the nuts and bolts of what some consider one of the most effective and well-integrated domestic-violence programs in the nation.

In Russia, “the crimes are underreported and our response is at a very basic level,” said Marina Pisklakova, who founded the first women’s crisis center in Russia in 1992. “We want to get all our agencies working together as your agencies do--so the police, prosecutors and crisis shelters, as well as judges and doctors, can see the same picture.”

Pisklakova, president of the Assn. of Crisis Centers in Moscow, applied for the Ford Foundation grant that brought the officials here to see the success of a multidisciplinary program.

She hopes to take what they learn and apply it to three pilot programs in territories about the same size as Ventura County.

Their trip started last Saturday in Los Angeles, where the group, including two translators, visited the Los Angeles city attorney’s office and the Los Angeles Police Department. “That was a look at a big-city system, and then we came here to see a smaller system,” Pisklakova said. Tom Parker, a member of Human Rights Watch and the American partner that helped bring the group to Ventura County, said the Russians are at the initial stages of a process Americans have been learning through trial and error for 25 years.

“A lot of this is about changing police attitudes and recognizing domestic violence in the home as the root of other violent crimes,” Parker said. “Crimes need to be looked at from the standpoint of cause and effect, that these types of things are not just family matters.”

The Russians agreed and asked Ventura County sheriff’s deputies and prosecutors questions ranging from how to handle cases when victims recant to what exactly an officer can do when a woman calls the police in fear for her life.

Valeriy Romanov, deputy chief of public security, asked prosecutors how they break the cycle of domestic violence and alcoholism.

Michelle Contois, deputy district attorney with the Domestic Violence Prosecution Unit, said it is important not to let alcohol and drug problems be excuses for violence.

“We can make anyone have alcohol- and drug-abuse counseling with the threat of jail time over their head,” she said. “Although we would try to deal with it altogether, we remember that it is a violence problem, not just an alcohol problem.”

Pisklakova said one of the most useful tools available to California law enforcement is the restraining order.

“There are those dangerous moments when violence is escalating and the tension is so high,” she said. “Here the police officer can issue a temporary restraining order. I think that could be really effective for us because our courts are so overloaded. It is a good model.”

Gary Auer, chief of the district attorney’s bureau of investigation, said the impetus for the trip was the changing nature of gender relations in Russia.

“They are making an effort to give the female half of the population more rights in terms of protecting themselves,” he said. “Our programs help them see how to implement that.”