Press Conference Comments by Sandy Barnett
Executive Director, KCSDV
Thursday, January 24, 2008

Good afternoon and thank you for coming to the 5th annual Safe Homes, Safe Streets Press Conference, organized by the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence. I'm Sandy Barnett, executive director of KCSDV.

This event is organized each year to bring attention to the issues of sexual assault and domestic violence, two of the most pervasive social problems facing our nation and our state. It is particularly fitting that our event occurs in January this year, because this is National Stalking Awareness Month.

KCSDV and the staff and volunteers of the 30 victims advocacy programs that make up the Coalition, are here today to talk with legislators about stalking and other issues facing victims of sexual and domestic violence in Kansas. We have a particular focus on stalking because perpetrators of sexual and domestic violence also stalk their victims, and the issue needs to be addressed by the Kansas Legislature.

National research on stalking clearly demonstrates the close link between stalking and both sexual and domestic violence:

The impact of stalking on victims is tremendous and can be just as challenging as the impact of other forms of violence. A national survey showed that:

Nationally, 1 in 12 women and 1 in 45 men will be stalked in their lifetime (more than 1.3 million annually). But even given those statistics, Kansas law enforcement report only 183 stalking cases in Kansas in one year's time, in contrast to more than 4,000 protection from stalking orders filed in Kansas courts during the same period. Perhaps this is an indication that the current criminal statute is too cumbersome.

This year the Kansas legislature will take up a revision of the Kansas crime of stalking. We are here to remind legislators that stalking is a problem in Kansas. Whether stalking is committed by intimate partners or by strangers, we need a Legislative response to the problem.

We hope this stalking revision will bring more attention to the issue by law enforcement, prosecutors, and the public. We hope it will also make it easier to charge and prosecute stalkers. And the statute must recognize those stalkers who pose the most danger. In other words, it should include a penalty enhancement when stalking occurs in violation of a protection order or if there has been a previous conviction for stalking.

It will take all of us here, our allies across the state as well as our legislators to address stalking. It will take all of us to achieve safe homes and safe streets in Kansas.

KCSDV thanks Representative Kasha Kelley for her dedication and work on this Bill. We also thank Representative Mike O'Neal and the Judicial Council for their careful consideration of this issue.

In addition to a focus on stalking, KCSDV is also supporting an important legislative initiative from the Governors Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board that will allow the criminal justice system to track domestic abusers through the system - when this initiative passes- no longer will abusers be able to avoid their histories of violence.