ALBANY (AP) -- New York has begun building a new electronic data base for quick use by police, their dispatchers and later by prosecutors and researchers listing domestic incident reports in 57 counties.
The state Division of Criminal Justice Services should have it operating by April, acting Commissioner Sean Byrne said. New York City already has a similar data base.
Byrne said the detailed reports, about 175,000 each year, will be input and cross-referenced so they can be quickly researched by computer. Police should be able to identify past incidents by address or by those involved, even if they were not arrested before or have moved from another jurisdiction.
"Domestic violence is a serial crime, and it is a series of acts that often escalates in severity," Byrne said. "And so it is a matter of victim safety, and of officer safety that they know this information when they're responding to the call."
The state already has a data base maintained by the court system for about 2 million orders of protection. Family courts, criminal courts and state Supreme Courts can all issue them, and violating one is grounds for arrest. The incident reports represent a larger body of information, Byrne said.
DCJS data on domestic violence in 2009, including homicides by intimate partners, showed most victims were women.
In Albany County, for example, the agency counted 2,527 domestic violence victims last year, 1,632 women hurt by a partner, 327 men hurt by a partner, and 568 people who were victims of other family members. Totals included 2,070 assaults, 228 aggravated assaults, 210 violations of orders of protection and 19 sex offenses.
DCJS reported that state courts issued 262,327 orders of protection last year, up 21 percent from a year earlier. State law in 2008 allowed intimate partners - including dating, teenage and same-sex couples - to seek civil orders of protection against abusers.
There were 130 domestic homicides reported last year statewide, with 89 by intimate partners and 41 by other family members.
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