[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 142 (Tuesday, October 4, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 4, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1230
 
      THE CRIME BILL IS ONLY A START ON CURBING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

  (Mr. MEEHAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise because October is Domestic Abuse 
Awareness Month. Before I got elected to this Congress, I was a 
prosecutor in Middlesex County and I had the experience of walking into 
a home during the middle of the night and seeing a woman who had been 
murdered with her child in that home. Another victim of domestic 
violence.
  Domestic violence is permeating American society. We have taken the 
first step as part of the crime bill, including the Violence Against 
Women Act, the domestic violence part of that crime bill.
  But we have to do more. In courthouses across America, women who are 
victims of violence are walking into courtrooms without a victims' 
advocate to help them through the process, with a prosecutor who has 
too many cases to given that woman the type of assistance that she 
needs. Domestic violence continues without people being held 
accountable in courts, without the educational programs we need in 
America to deal with this problem. Every level of government--the 
Federal level, the State level, and the local level--have to step up to 
the plate to do something to stem this tide, and we had better start 
now. That is why we are giving recognition in October to begin to put 
pressure on every level of government to fight this abuse; we must do 
more.

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