Southeast Kansas officials launch task force to combat domestic violence
PARSONS, Kan. — Domestic violence continues to plague southeast Kansas. But officials have ideas about how they hope to change the trend.
“Domestic violence is one of the areas of our community’s concern. It’s been a problem in not just Parsons, but throughout southeast Kansas for the past 40 or 50 years,” said Parsons Police Chief Robert Spinks.
Chief Spinks said domestic violence calls are roughly the same as they were this time last year, but his department is pro-actively working to get those numbers down more. Officers are also working with advocates at the Safe House Crisis Center to help those dealing with domestic violence.
“Well I know how important it is to not know the resources or feel alone and not have the support. And that’s the main thing that we are here to support 24 hours, seven days a week,” said Megan Rogers, Safe House Crisis Center Victim Advocate.
“When survivors have a team around them and feel like they’re supported, you know, that is a huge confidence boost for them and that could lead to them having really positive outcomes in achieving the goals they want. Beyond the violence,” said Brooke Powel, Safe House Crisis Center Executive Director
The police department recently received a half a million dollar grant to fund a new domestic violence task force, that will enable them to hire a new detective sergeant, and a civilian victim advocate specialist.
“To try to get to root causes of domestic violence and that larger working group will look at these cases. But we will have representatives from higher education from K through 12, from helping agencies, from marginalized communities,” said Chief Spinks.
“I see it as a win win to enhance those services to victims in the parsons area to to work together to help them seek justice, help them file protection orders, help them feel like they have people that got their back,” said Powel.
The new domestic task force is a high risk team working to help improve responses to domestic violence cases, to try to break the cycle of abuse.
“We do a lot of prevention education within our school systems and to social services organizations. And part of what we talk about is preventing that cycle from happening,” said Powel.
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