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Kristina Rose: Yeah, that's a very good point. I'd like to take — I think we're running a little
bit over, but I would like to offer the opportunity if anyone would like a chance to ask one of
our panelists a question. I realize some of you have planes to catch, and this has been, you
know, three days of listening and talking, but is there anyone? We have a couple of microphones
set up around the room. Would anyone like to ask a question? Oh, yes, ma'am, please.
Diane Kupelian: What are other countries doing or what are their rates like, and what can we learn
from them? Rose: I'm sorry. I didn't quite hear that. Did you ask about — Kupelian: Are there
other countries that have better outcomes or less, fewer, lower rates, and what can we learn
from them, if so? Rose: Panelists, is anyone familiar with what's going on in other countries?
Catherine Pierce: I think, without question, we can always learn from what other countries are
doing. I'm very hopeful that the International Violence Against Women Act will be passed in the
near future, and that that will provide us with opportunities to exchange ideas and to exchange
what we've learned through the years. I will say that when I was at the Office on Violence
Against Women, I was always so heartened by the visits that we received from delegations of men
and women from around the world who came to us to learn from us, and they were always in awe of
how much we were getting done and how much money we had, and they wanted to learn about our
legislation and how to pass it. But what struck me always in listening to their stories was that
each community, as I said in my remarks, has its own way of approaching this problem, and I
have no doubt that if we were to spend time in villages and small communities around this world,
we would learn so much more than we know now. I have no doubt. Lynn Rosenthal: I mean, this is
a global problem. One in three women will be victims of violence around the world. And what I
have seen in working and meeting with some of those same groups is that grassroots groups of
women around the world figure out very creative ways, sometimes with very few resources, and
that we have a lot to learn from what other countries are doing as well. Michael Paymar: Can I
just say one quick thing? Because I've had the opportunity to travel internationally doing this
work over the years, and one thing, just an aside to this, what I was struck by is when you hear
about the explanations or the — that batterers give or the rationalizations that they give for
why they assault their partners, they are exactly the same as the ones that I have heard in my
batterers groups for the last 20 years. They say the same thing. So it really is sort of an
attitudinal shift that has to be made, not just in this country, but globally, and it's clearly
a gender issue wherever you go. Rose: I remember I was with the police chief in Singapore, and
I asked him about the issue of domestic violence, and he told me they didn't have any.
[Laughter.] I think it's — I don't even know what to say about that. Karen D. Carroll: I've had
the pleasure, like I said, to meet police officers from Italy, and I was quite surprised. And
these were detectives, and they didn't have a very organized way of even investigating ***
assault and domestic violence cases. We had three visitors to the Bronx just this summer from
Japan, and they were lawyers who were taking it upon themselves to begin to look at laws and to
make changes because they had one person trained to do forensic interviews of children in all of
Japan, one person for a population of that size. Kenya just recently, recently wrote and passed
a *** Offense Act, and that was in 2009. They didn't have any laws that spoke to it before
that. Before we went over there to train, nurses and doctors who actually provided the care to
victims weren't allowed to testify in court. As a matter of fact, nurses couldn't testify at
all. So a patient was seen in the hospital. The police surgeon would read the record, and then
the police surgeon would make the determination as to whether or not this person was *** or
sexually assaulted. And the first thing that jumped to my mind is you're asking a medical person to
draw a legal conclusion. As bad as we are, other countries are looking to us, and I think with
the resources and the knowledge that we have, we should be the leaders in this effort throughout
the world. And so we have a lot of work to do. Rosenthal: I will say the Department of State
has really showed a very strong leadership role in working with the UN last fall. When the
United States chaired the Security Council, the UN passed Resolution 1888, putting teeth into
coordination of responses to *** violence in areas of armed conflict. We've seen the State
Department make a major commitment to this issue. So I really believe we are making our voice
heard around the world, and we still have quite a lot of work to do. Rose: We are running over.
I know we have two people that are going to ask questions. Can we do it real quick? We'll give
you both the opportunity. Sir? Solomon Liao: Sure. Hi. I'm a geriatrician from the University of
California. I've not yet heard in this panel discussion much about violence against older
women. Given the aging of America, would the panel like to comment about the challenges of
addressing violence against older women? Pierce: Well, I'll say right now — and I'm so glad you
raised that — that I believe just today, the Associate Attorney General, Tom Perrelli, is with
the Director of the Office on Violence Against Women, Judge Sue Carbon, and they're meeting with
a group of women in California to talk about this very issue: women whose lives have been
devastated by abuse over many years' time and who are older women. And without question, work
like the National Coalition Against Abuse in Later Life and many of the other coalitions around
the country, the work that they're doing to raise awareness about this issue is extraordinary,
and we cannot, cannot ever leave that population out. And I'm so glad you raised that because
it's absolutely so significant and very much a part of the VAWA. Bernard K. Melekian: One of the
investigative points and one of the other speakers had touched on it, this whole issue of abuse
and *** assault is really — has very little to do with age, race or anything else, but there
is, I think, a tendency to make an assumption, and it is a false one, that there is some sort of
magic age at which this stops being an issue. And from both statistical studies and just from
operational experience, it's not true, and so I very much appreciate that the question was
raised because it is an important one. Rose: Good point. Yes, ma'am. You'll be our last
question. Janice Fride: Thank you very much. I want to thank all of you for the work you've been
doing on this topic. It's tremendous. I'm a clinical psychologist from Maryland, and I just
thought it was extremely interesting that the two men on the panel are the ones who talked about
the information that is coming in, in terms of video games and music and what have you, forming
the opinions of boys as they are growing into young men and all of the — just the whole media
is such a big problem in this area in terms of really objectifying women. And I don't know
exactly where we start on this, but there's just no question at all that that has an effect.
Persuasion works. That's why we have commercials, and there are meta-analyses that have been
done in the American Psychological Association Journal, of years and years and years of
research on this. If you see something, you learn from it, and over and over, you learn even
more. I don't know exactly where to start with this in the criminal justice field, but, if you
have any ideas of where you would like to see all of us work on it, I'd love to hear what you
have to say. Melekian: I think it would — and I don't know where it would land legally, but, at
some point, some definitive work that sort of academically establishes that connection is
critical because, to me, the whole free speech argument, which is what clouds all of this and
sort of prevents us from dealing with Internet *** and dealing with just the whole
messaging that goes on. I think people always raise it as, "Well, there's no linkage; there's no
causal linkage that you can show." And I think for the academic researchers in the audience,
that's an important place to go. We need to have something besides somebody's personal opinion
to point to. Pierce: It does exist. Rose: I think Barney makes a good point, and it's one that we've
been trying to make throughout this entire conference is the purpose of the research is to
confirm what we feel in our gut, right? To be able to go to the judge, to be able to go to the
mayor with the evidence to show that what is happening is real, that there's scientific evidence
to support what we know is happening out there. So I think that's a perfect way to end this
panel. I want to thank the troopers in this room who have stayed with us all of this time. Thank
you so much. Thank you to our panelists. You were magnificent. Thank you, Paula Zahn, for your
remarks. [Applause.] Rose: And I will officially adjourn the NIJ conference for 2010. Thank you.
[Applause.]