SC Domestic Violence Numbers Improving, But More Work to be Done

The South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (SCCADVASA) gave out its annual awards Wednesday to those doing outstanding work to reduce domestic violence and help its victims. Director Vicki Bourus says the state has improved but still has a lot of work to do.

"Right now, we rank 8th in the nation for numbers of women killed by men, and we average about 35,000 to 36,000 law enforcement reports annually," she says. "Now we have been as high as number 1, so coming to number 8 is progress."

She says the improvement comes from more attention on the issue from state leaders and tougher laws. As for what else needs to be done, she says there needs to be more training for judges and law enforcement officers.

"When you fail to hold a batterer accountable, you send a message that, 'We really don't care and it's okay what you're doing.' So I think higher levels of accountability, judges and law enforcement officers who are willing to make those charges and increase those bonds, sentence time, refer them to treatment, do those things that we know will help," she says.

She says the group will also work to set up a statewide domestic violence fatality review board. Any time someone dies as a result of domestic violence, the board would do an extensive investigation.

"So we're looking very carefully at the domestic homicides to try to figure out where did that victim fall through the safety net? What steps do we need to take to close that safety net and keep people from being killed and injured at the levels we see in our state?"

She says North Carolina, Kentucky, Maryland, Florida and other states have domestic violence fatality review boards and those states have seen their domestic violence numbers improve.

Lorie Hino thought she would end up as one of those domestic violence fatalities. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, her husband abused her emotionally and physically.

"Black eyes. And I've been shot at. I've been stabbed, several times. Strangled. Knocked down, sat on, I mean punched in the face. I mean just, tried to get away, run off the road and busted out my car window to yank me out of it. I mean it was terrible," she says.

She says at first, she stayed because she was like a lot of other victims of domestic violence, who think the abuse is their own fault. "Because I felt like I was the perpetrator, in the sense that when he hit me it was because I was so stupid, you know, that I just couldn't do anything right and I messed up again and he got angry and it was my fault, is what I kept thinking," she says.

She also felt like she didn't have anywhere else to go because she had no family support, no job and two children. She did call the police after some of the worst abuse, but says her husband never spent more than a few nights or weekends in jail. Then when he got out he was furious, which made things even worse.

"It ended tragically," she explains. "In an argument, I ended up shooting my husband. I did. I shot my husband. I killed my husband. The police came to the house. I called the police. They came to the house and first thing one of the officers said was, 'Lorie, we always thought it would be you.'"

She was charged with murder but eventually pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. She says with better representation and a willingness to fight the charge, the case would probably have been considered self-defense. Her husband had a knife with him when he was killed and earlier in the night had threatened to kill her. But she says she pleaded because she felt guilty, despite the years of abuse.

She was sentenced to 18 years in prison and served 7 years. While in prison, she joined a domestic violence support group, where she found that her story was not unusual.

Now, she works for SCCADVASA, helping other victims and trying to prevent more.