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Photograph by Jeff Kearns
Dimple Malhotra, an attorney who works with the Support Network for Battered Women, says hundreds of Sunnyvale women have benefitted from the program's 24-hour crisis phone line and one-to-one counseling.
Support Network saves lives and helps victims
By Sam Scott
Dimple Malhotra has a busy job. Every police report on domestic violence, in every city in the county (except one), gets passed to her. While the police and district attorneys deal with punishing the batterers, Malhotra focuses on reaching the victim. She and a team of volunteers at the Support Network for Battered Women call each of the hundreds of women identified in the reports.
A significant number come from Sunnyvale. In 1998, the city had the fourth-highest rate of domestic violence calls in Santa Clara County.
"Our goal is to see if she's OK, to educate about the criminal process, and to refer her to the crisis line for future reference," Malhotra says.
"Basically we want to do an early intervention instead of waiting for them to come to us."
Support Network callers tell the victim about the network's services. They also inform the bewildered victims of the legal advice that the network's attorneys provide on divorce and getting criminal restraint orders. All services are provided on a sliding scale.
"We're a very together organization," Maria Acosta, a counselor, explains. Acosta is bilingual in English and Spanish, the languages in which all the network's programs are offered. Other languages are accommodated using volunteers from a local language bank.
The calls aren't always successful. Some women don't want to think of themselves as battered, Malhotra says. However, she can see other examples of success walk in each day.
Malhotra and her volunteers also work on building rapport with the local police departments. For October, Domestic Violence Awareness month, one of them spoke to each shift at every department, scheduling meetings as early as 6 a.m. and as late as 11 p.m.
"The whole point is taking domestic violence and looking at it from a holistic point of view," she says.
Malhotra's contact in Sunnyvale is Detective Bill Borzone says that Sunnyvale's volume of reports reflects the department's awareness of the problem. In incidents in which battery isn't obvious, Borzone says, Sunnyvale police will ask questions that can uncover an abusive situation others might not have seen.
Borzone and Malhotra agree that a shift has occurred in the past decade in the way police respond to domestic violence. Borzone's position, for example, didn't exist a decade ago. Other changes are carried out in the field.
"Instead of trying to have people work it out," Borzone says, "now it is such that usually we have to identify who the primary aggressor is and take action and arrest them."
Police can make an arrest even if the violence took place out of their sight, a unique situation for a misdemeanor.
Borzone says a strong connection exists between domestic violence and homicide. "People look back and saw where the majority of homicide and violence is against women and saw that the roots of all that is in domestic violence against women," he says.
Borzone is thankful for the assistance that the Support Network for Battered Women provides. "They take a lot of heat off our back," he says. "In the past, we would have to do it or it just wouldn't get done."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
