[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 105 (Monday, September 11, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1441]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, September 11, 2000

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following for the 
Congressional Record and recommend that all members read and consider 
it when looking at the issue of Violence Against Women. I hope members 
find it helpful when considering reauthorization of the Violence 
Against Women Act.

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 8, 2000]

               Battered Girlfriends Need Protection, Too

                             (By Judy Mann)

       Barbara Dehl, a 44-year-old mother of four girls, lives a 
     lot of her life in hindsight. Every day, she wonders why she 
     didn't get ``Cassie's Law'' passed before her 17-year-old 
     daughter, Cassandra, ended up dead--the victim, her mother 
     has testified, of an abusive relationship with a boyfriend.
       After Cassie's parents divorced and her mother moved near 
     Boise, Idaho, Cassie chose to remain with her father, Curtis 
     Dehl, in Soda Springs and finish school there. When she was 
     14, she met Justin Neuendorf, a former altar boy at her 
     church, who was three years older than she was. For the next 
     year, she went out with him off and on.
       Her parents didn't realize that their daughter was 
     undergoing verbal and mental abuse. In testimony before a 
     state legislative committee, Barbara said she found out 
     later, from Cassie, that Neuendorf would tell her such things 
     as she wasn't pretty enough for anybody else to love. ``Once 
     a wedge had been inserted between Cassie and her family and 
     friends, the physical abuse began,'' Barbara testified.
       In the spring of 1998, Barbara testified, he choked Cassie 
     hard enough to make her bleed from her nose and ears and ruin 
     a white coat. Cassie had been staying with a girlfriend while 
     her father was out of town. About six weeks after the 
     incident, the girlfriend told Cassie's father about it, and 
     he confronted his daughter. Cassie denied it. He intercepted 
     a letter in which Neuendorf said he was ``sorry for almost 
     killing you'' and explained that he had been on drugs. Curtis 
     intercepted another letter in which the boyfriend mentioned 
     slitting Cassie's throat.
       ``We gave these letters to the local police, the 
     prosecutor, the probation officer and to his parents,'' 
     Barbara says in an interview. ``Nobody believed a teenage 
     girl living in her parents' home could be abused by her 
     boyfriend. They just said, `Why doesn't she walk away?' 
     Nobody believed abuse could happen to a young girl who wasn't 
     married to the abuser. . . . He had her so manipulated that 
     in her mind she thought she was in love with this guy, and 
     she was as helpless to leave him as a victim of battered-wife 
     syndrome.
       ``When she was 16, she said, `If I was only better, he 
     wouldn't have to hit me.' When I would confront her, she 
     would tell me it was her fault.''
       It's a 350-mile trip, each way, between Boise and Soda 
     Springs, and Barbara says she drove it weekly, trying to get 
     help for Cassie. ``We put Cassie into domestic-abuse 
     counseling twice, but they didn't have training in dealing 
     with young girls and dating violence,'' Barbara says. ``We 
     never allowed him to see Cassie. He'd take her out of school, 
     out of work, out of state.
       ``Idaho did not have a domestic-violence order to cover 
     girls her age. I filed for one, anyway. We went before the 
     judge, and he said we had all the evidence in the world, but 
     there were no domestic-violence laws to protect Cassie.''
       On the night of Dec. 3, 1999, Neuendorf picked Cassie up 
     from a girlfriend's house and did not allow her to get her 
     coat, according to Barbara Dehl. It was below zero. ``After 
     midnight,'' Barbara says, ``the truck crashed down an 
     embankment. He was not in the truck. She was. We don't know 
     how he got out. He was slightly injured, with a broken wrist.
       ``The accident was not reported for more than 15 hours,'' 
     she says. ``The fact that she was in the accident and left at 
     the scene was not reported for 18 hours. When the sheriff's 
     deputy arrived on the scene, she was dead and her body frozen 
     solid. That's how they found my baby.''
       Neuendorf has been charged with vehicular manslaughter.
       ``Her sisters and father and I decided we had to make sure 
     no parent ever had to walk in our shoes,'' Barbara says.
       The Idaho legislature started in January. Barbara wrote 
     what became known as ``Cassie's Law,'' which allows judges to 
     issue a domestic-violence protection order for people in an 
     abusive dating relationship. It allows parents to secure this 
     restraint even without a child's help. Barbara quit work, 
     cashed in her retirement and used her savings to lobby the 
     legislature. The bill passed, was signed into law by the 
     governor on April 3 and went into effect July 1.
       Barbara Dehl is now helping the National Task force to end 
     Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women lobby for the 
     reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. The act, 
     passed in 1994, expires in October, and unless Congress 
     reauthorizes it during what remains of this session, the 
     agencies that help victims of domestic violence will be 
     greatly weakened.
       Over the past six years, $1.6 billion has gone to states 
     and communities to train law enforcement officials and 
     counselors on how to deal with domestic violence. ``A lot of 
     it is going to police and prosecutors and shelters and 
     community education,'' says Pat Reuss, chair of the 
     coalition. ``It's been a very good bill.''
       In 1993, women experienced an estimated 1.1 million violent 
     offenses at the hands of an intimate partner, according to 
     the Bureau of Justice Statistics. By 1998, the estimate had 
     declined 21 percent, to 876,340 offenses, even though women 
     have become more likely to report crimes of domestic 
     violence. And the number of women killed by an intimate 
     partner declined 23 percent between 1993 and 1997.
       The Violence Against Women Act is every bit as important as 
     some other political hot topics, such as prescription drug 
     coverage and hate crimes. It is saving lives. The House 
     version covers women in dating relationships; the Senate 
     version does not.
       What happened to Cassie Dehl should persuade the Senate to 
     go along with the more inclusive House provisions. If 
     anything, teenage girls are more susceptible to abusive 
     relationships than mature women.
       The bills have strong bipartisan support, and they should 
     be passed promptly. They are too important to be caught up in 
     the last-minute rush of election year politics.

     

                          ____________________