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• “Our goal is to reduce a very real barrier for abused individuals seeking safety by knowing their pets are cared for and safe.”

  Suzanne Tomkins

  Director, UB Law School’s Women, Children and Social Justice Clinic

By ILENE FLEISCHMANN

Published: March 1, 2012

Domestic violence victims often remain in abusive relationships to prevent their partners from harming or killing their pets. Animal Shelter Options for Domestic Violence Victims, a new project of the UB Law School’s Women, Children and Social Justice Clinic, is designed to remove this barrier to safety for individuals and their pets.

With funding from Verizon, and collaborating with the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), law school faculty and students are working to provide individuals seeking emergency shelter with resources to help protect their pets, as well as raise awareness about barriers to escaping domestic violence faced by victims who have animals.

“We know firsthand from catastrophes like (Hurricane) Katrina that individuals will not seek safety if they have to leave their pets behind,” says Suzanne Tomkins, UB clinical professor of law who directs the clinic. “Our goal is to reduce a very real barrier for abused individuals seeking safety by knowing their pets are cared for and safe.”

Data demonstrate the reality of the link between domestic violence and pet abuse. Seventy-one percent of pet-owning women entering shelters reported that their batterer had harmed, killed or threatened family pets for revenge or to psychologically control victims. Likewise, between 25 and 40 percent of battered women with pets feel helpless to escape abusive situations because they worry about what will happen to their animals if they leave.

Although an increasing number of shelters have added kennels or instituted animal foster care programs in an effort to protect victims, their children and their pets, more needs to be done.

In October 2010, the DCJS’ Violence against Women unit, along with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the New York State Humane Association, hosted three regional seminars that examined these issues and how they impacted New York. Shortly afterward, DCJS began a survey seeking information on existing relationships between domestic violence shelters and animal shelters to provide emergency shelter for pets. The UB Law School's Women, Children and Social Justice Clinic was brought on board to create a more formal survey, administer it to domestic violence agencies and animal shelters across the state, and develop a database.

This database, the first its kind in New York, is available online. Organized by county, it provides domestic violence victims, domestic violence agencies, law enforcement and advocates with information on programs that can either house victims’ pets or provide direct referral systems to agencies that will accept a victim’s pets.

The database also includes animal agencies that, even if they don’t yet have a direct partnership with a domestic violence organization, will provide shelter for domestic violence victims’ pets.

“As we consider how to locally address this nationwide dilemma, we are excited that the UB Law School clinic is helping develop a New York database to ease this very common problem facing domestic violence victims,” says Kim Oppelt, program specialist with the Violence against Women unit of DCJS.

The UB Law School clinic’s work will have immediate, practical impact. For example, a link will be made available in the “Domestic and Sexual Violence” section in the Law Enforcement Suite of eJusticeNY to aid officers in assisting victims of domestic violence at the scene. With this new database, officers will have viable options for victims and their pets at the time of incidents.

In addition to creating and implementing the database, the UB Law School clinic is working closely with the counties in Western New York to bring awareness to this project and to demonstrate ways in which communities can provide temporary shelter for pets. Clinic faculty and students will travel throughout the region demonstrating the capabilities of the database and giving presentations on the laws associated with the protection of pets of victims of domestic violence.

“This clinic project allows me to work in two areas of law that excite me—animal rights and domestic violence,” says UB Law student Karalyn Rossi. “It is so rewarding to know that my research is being applied directly to help victims with pets as they seek shelter.”