Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, October 27, 1995                   TAG: 9510270051
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BEAT UP THE WIFE OR KIDS? GO TO JAIL

It happened earlier this month, in northern California. The woman survived to tell police about it.

In Virginia, no less than in California and the states between, criminologists and women's advocacy groups fear the message sent by the outcome of the Simpson case. Domestic violence continues to run rampant in America.

In Virginia, we need to send a different message: that there will be zero tolerance of brutal, injurious behavior; and law-enforcement officials will move as aggressively to stop it behind closed doors as on the streets.

One way to do this - recommended by Attorney General Jim Gilmore to the General Assembly's Commission on Family Violence Prevention - would be to require statewide that police arrest the ``primary physical aggressor'' when responding to domestic-violence calls.

Mandatory-arrest laws are on the books of at least 25 other states, and the evidence suggests they can help reduce domestic homicides.

At the very least, if the aggressor is taken into custody, it ends the violence for one night, giving the perpetrator time to contemplate the seriousness of his behavior, and giving the victim and/or victims - sadly often children - a chance to get from harm's way.

In Virginia, some jurisdictions already have mandatory-arrest policies. Others, including Roanoke, Roanoke County and Salem, have what police call pro-arrest policies, even if they do not strictly require an arrest in all domestic-violence situations.

Still, in too many areas, law-enforcement officials have a tendency not to treat domestic violence seriously enough - to discount it as a family matter, and to avoid, if at all possible, getting involved.

This attitude is unacceptable in a day when nearly 14 percent of Virginia homicides result from domestic violence, when literally thousands of Virginia women are beaten and battered in their homes every year - by so-called loved ones.

Mandatory-arrest laws remain controversial. Advocacy groups for battered women are divided on the issue, some fearing that automatic arrests of already enraged individuals may drive a portion of them to even greater violence once police set them free. The more important point is that a manda-

tory-arrest law removes from the victim the pressure of having to decide whether to swear out a warrant for the abuser's arrest. In some cases, it can reduce the abuser's anger.

At the very least, Virginia should have a law uniform across jurisdictions - and wider awareness and training among law-enforcement authorities. One feature of Gilmore's proposal is special training for police to help them accurately assess, in often complex situations, exactly who is ``the primary physical aggressor."

Mandatory-arrest laws, of course, are not the total solution. Police intervention, after the fact of violence, is not on a par with preventive efforts.

But domestic violence, it must be understood, is a crime that escalates and reverberates. Children who grow up seeing dad abusing mom, or in a home where they are physically abused themselves, often become abusers themselves.

If tougher laws can help break the pattern, they need to be tried. The violence has to stop.