A report on domestic and sexual violence found that Onondaga County’s Department of Probation investigated a total of 958 domestic violence cases and supervised 207 registered sex offenders in 2016.

Vera House, an agency that advocates against domestic and sexual violence issues, presented its 28th Annual Report to the Community at an event on Tuesday.

The 2016 annual report on domestic and sexual violence gave a detailed view on the number of cases answered by the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office and Syracuse Police Department. SPD answered 10,963 sex offense calls, while the Sheriff’s Office answered 6,696 calls.

The Onondaga County Family Court issued 1,023 temporary orders of protection and 105 permanent orders of protection last year.

The number of sex offenders supervised is down from the previous year, with 220 offenders being supervised in 2015. The number of temporary orders of protections increased last year, up from 959 in 2015.

Throughout the year, Vera House sends out request for information to community partners, law enforcement and agencies doing similar work. The organization asked for all the data from 2016 for this issue.

“We spend several weeks to ensure all the data ties together and that it’s correct,” said Randi Bregman, executive director of Vera House. They verify the obtained information with the police’s database.

Syracuse’s Domestic Violence Court handled approximately 586 new misdemeanors and 192 new felonies in 2016.

William Fitzpatrick, the Onondaga County District Attorney, said his office advocates 2,000 cases every year from the city and the county. He added that 25 percent of county homicide cases are related to domestic violence.

“We do the same analysis on domestic violence offenders because they are very likely to intervene unless we intervene and stop them,” he said.

Bregman said domestic and sexual violence usually takes place privately, and people think the issue should not be known to the public.

“We think that every incident of domestic and sexual violence is, in fact, a public issue,” Bregman said. “Having a public opportunity to talk about the impact, to let the survivors’ stories be heard, is essential.”

Vera House offers multiple services for victims of domestic and sexual violence: the advocacy program, a 24-hour crisis and support hotline, a therapy program and the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner program that responds and advocates for victims.

Eric McGriff, a prevention educator at Vera House, said one in every 16 men commit a felony because they think men around them do the same thing.

McGriff provides prevention education in high schools, teaching children about rape culture and how to prevent it. He also runs therapeutic services and youth education programs.

“Silence is exactly how we communicate and perpetuate violence,” McGriff said.

Various services provided by Onondaga County are available for victims, including shelter services, free legal aid, child protection services and elder abuse adult protective services.

Published on October 4, 2017 at 11:30 pm

Contact Eshalaxmi: erbarlin@syr.edu