Mystery Move by Department of Justice

The headline caught my attention — A Slate article entitled “The Trump Administration Quietly Changed the Definition of Domestic Violence and We Have No Idea What For” slid across my Facebook timeline, startling me into reading it. The article, from January 2019, flags the fact that the Department of Justice changed the definition of Domestic Violence on their website, without telling anyone or offering an explanation. (See Link 1 for the whole article).

The definition on the Office on Violence Against Women’s website (an office of the Department of Justice), as of today 07/22/2019, is as follows, (See link 2 if you want to read it yourself)

“The term “domestic violence” includes felony or misdemeanor crimes of violence committed by a current or former spouse or intimate partner of the victim, by a person with whom the victim shares a child in common, by a person who is cohabitating with or has cohabitated with the victim as a spouse or intimate partner, by a person similarly situated to a spouse of the victim under the domestic or family violence laws of the jurisdiction receiving grant monies, or by any other person against an adult or youth victim who is protected from that person’s acts under the domestic or family violence laws of jurisdiction.”

The earlier definition, which was researched and decided upon during the Obama administration, stated the following (archived version found at snopes.com – see link 3).

“A pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.”

As you can see, the old definition is much broader in scope, including manipulation, psychological abuse and coercion. In contrast, the new definition defines domestic abuse as solely felony or misdemeanor crimes, and then spends a lot of time explaining who counts as a domestic partner. Snopes.com reached out to the Office on Violence Against Women to ask about the change, and received this response (Again, see link 3 for the whole article):

“The Department is strongly committed to enforcing the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and combating domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, and sex trafficking, and to do so in a manner that is consistent with the law enacted by Congress. Domestic violence is clearly defined in VAWA, and OVW has always used the statutory definition in carrying out its mission. By following the statute, the Department ensures the funds made available by Congress are employed in the most effective manner possible to reduce violence and to assist crime victims.”

It continues,

“In fiscal year 2018, OVW awarded a record $467 million under VAWA. President Trump’s request for fiscal year 2019 OVW funding was the largest ever requested. OVW discretionary grantees serve an average of 125,000 victims every six months and formula subgrantees serve over 400,000 victims each year. VAWA funding supports victim advocates who answer over a million hotline calls and provides over 2 million housing and shelter bed-nights for victims and their children annually. Every year, VAWA-funded professionals assist victims in securing more than 200,000 protection orders.”

There’s something very annoying about this response. It never directly answers the question, why did they change the definition on their website? Instead, it talks a lot about the Violence Against Women Act and the how much money they were given to work with in the last year. The sentence “Domestic violence is clearly defined in VAWA, and OVW has always used the statutory definition in carrying out its mission” implies that they’ve changed the definition on the website to reflect the definition that is in the bill aka the definition they base their work on, which makes some logical sense. However, if that were the case and it’s a logical point, why wouldn’t they just say so? Well, let’s look at what is in the bill.

The Violence Against Women Act or VAWA was first passed in 1994 (with bipartisan support) and gave 1.6 billion dollars towards “investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women”. In addition, it imposed mandatory restitution on anyone convicted on a charge of domestic abuse (this means the abuser has to pay for any/all costs that were incurred by the victim as a result of the abuse – medical bills, therapy, lost wages, etc), and allowed victims to take their abusers to civil court if District Attorney decided not to prosecute (because the DA’s office does have the power to decide what gets prosecuted). Since 1994, the bill has grown and changed each time it’s been renewed. (See link 4)

In 2000 it was renewed with the added clause that victims could not sue their abusers in Federal Court (so you can’t end up in Federal Civil Court – this was decided in Supreme Court Case United States vs. Morrison – See link 5). In 2012 it took forever for VAWA to be reapproved and spurred intense debates because protections were added for victims in same-sex relationships, and a section was added that provided protection and visa opportunities for unauthorized immigrants who were victims of abuse here in the United States (more on that later). After a long back and forth the bill was finally reauthorized in 2013 (See link 6 for the text of the 2013 version). So basically, VAWA is mostly a bill about funding — it funds agencies that help abuse survivors and helps fund the prosecution of abusers.

Additionally, under VAWA, local prosecutors can refer a case up to the Federal Courts, which means you can get tried federally for crimes of domestic abuse in certain situations. When I first discovered this I thought “ahh this is why they changed the definition, so it would reflect the grounds on which they prosecute people federally”. But I was wrong. You can only get tried in Federal Court on a domestic abuse charge if you crossed state lines to stalk, harass, assault (etc) your domestic partner, because that takes you out of a single state’s jurisdiction (See link 7). So obviously only a tiny percent of domestic abuse crimes get charged federally, because the majority happen all in one state and are (hopefully) dealt with by state or county officials without any federal involvement. This means that the change in definition cannot be to reflect the grounds for federal prosecution.

And here’s another thing. One of the protections that VAWA offers is to undocumented immigrants who are the victims of domestic abuse by a US citizen partner. I did a lot of these applications when I worked for an immigration attorney, and the definition of what counts as “domestic abuse” in that setting is way more broad than what is currently on the Department of Justice website. Under current immigration law, you’re eligible for an immigration benefit if you are the victim of battery or extreme cruelty, which includes a bunch of stuff: physical abuse, threat of harm to others, intimidation and degradation, economic abuse, social isolation or forced detention, sexual abuse, threatening to call immigration, jelousy and harassmant, and verbal abuse (See link 8). So if all of these things count as domestic abuse under VAWA, then the implication of “we changed the definition on the website to match the bill” starts to seem a bit… Fake.

Besides– VAWA did not even get reauthorized this year. It expired December 21, 2018 while the government was partially shut down. There had been debate about the reauthorization of the bill even before it was allowed to expire, but the government shut down basically decided it (See Link 9). On January 25th of this year it was reinstated but then it expired again February 15th. Since then the House of Representatives has voted to reauthorize it, but with a few additions. One) Money alloted specifically for transgender victims of abuse and two) a clause saying (in short) that anyone convicted on a felony or misdemeanor domestic violence charge would be banned from owning a gun. Unsurprisingly, the Senate has ignored the bill all together, so it remains not-reauthorized (See Link 4).

So this brings us back to the change in definition. The Office on Violence Against Women implied that they changed the definition on their website to reflect the way they enforce it in real life, in accordance with VAWA. But that response falls apart for three reasons– 1) Only very specific domestic abuse crimes are prosecuted federally, a tiny percentage, 2) Under at least the immigration section of VAWA, the definition of domestic abuse is much broader than the definition on the website and 3) VAWA doesn’t even legislatively exist right now, so it’s a weird time to reference it.

What I’ll end with is, I have no idea why the OVW and the DoJ changed the definition on their website. What I do know, is that domestic abuse is way more common in the United States than most people realize. If you want to read more about it, and the stats are seriously so sad, check out this fact sheet put together by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (https://ncadv.org/statistics). I wish I had a more conclusive way to end this piece, but I urge you to keep an eye out for more updates on this changing definition. The fact that they changed it to be more restrictive, without any fanfare, makes me very suspicious. If you hear anything regarding the definition or changes in legislature, please let me know. Until then, watch out for each other, and if you find yourself in need of help — here are some numbers you can call.

1-800-799-SAFE (7233) – National Domestic Violence Hotline
303-839-1852 – National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
1-800-656-HOPE – Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network
415-252-8900 – Family Violence Prevention Fund
800-903-0111, ext.1 – Battered Women’s Justice Project

Mystery Move by Department of Justice

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