CULLMAN — In a state with a dubiously high national ranking in per-capita incidences of domestic violence and abuse, rural counties like Cullman are sometimes perceived to pull more than their statistical weight to drive those numbers up.

Cullman County is, in fact, not a statistical leader in domestic offenses among Alabama’s 67 counties. The Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center reports that 152 cases of simple domestic assault occurred here in 2011, and only three cases of aggravated assault.

Compared with other Alabama counties of similar population, Cullman County could have it worse — a lot worse. Talladega County, with a population of 82,000, had 1,087 cases of simple domestic assault in 2011, and 29 cases of aggravated assault.

But things could be better, too. Limestone County, which also has 82,000 people and shares many demographic characteristics with Cullman, reported 61 cases of simple domestic assault last year, and 7 cases of aggravated assault. 

The number of times Cullman County sheriff’s deputies have to answer domestic violence (DV) calls works out to roughly thrice per day. In the first eight months of this year, the sheriff’s office wrote 945 incident reports for domestic violence.

In the first eight months of 2010, the sheriff’s office made 325 arrests in which the alleged offenders were charged with at least one form of domestic violence. For the same period so far this year, that number stands at 465. There are still four months left before the numbers for 2012 can be totaled. If that pace continues until the end of this year, 700 local people will have been charged with domestic violence.

Add in DV incidents and arrests between the county’s two municipal law enforcement agencies — Cullman and Hanceville — and an average of nearly two people per day are being placed in custody for spousal abuse, domestic assault, child neglect or abuse, harassment and similar family crimes.

For some perspective, the sheriff’s office hasn’t had to respond to more domestic violence calls this year than it did last year — it’s just placed a lot more people under arrest on the calls its deputies have answered in 2012 than it did in 2011. Last year’s number of 945 DV incident reports has remained stable  — there’ve been 951 reports this year.

Local law enforcement officials and social advocates point to a number of aggravating factors that contribute to the frequency of domestic violence here. Drugs and alcohol are often at the periphery of abusive relationships. So is poverty. So are the frustrations engendered by the region’s comparatively high rates of obesity, diabetes, school dropouts, and, in recent years, unemployment.

Those are all societal factors, and their effects are hard to qualify.

Take alcohol, for example.

Alcohol is, as the crow flies, easier to obtain in Cullman County than it’s ever been. All three of the cities here have voted to go wet; two already have established businesses that sell liquor more than 12 hours a day, every day but Sunday.

Alcohol gets blamed for a lot. When police statistics jump, as the sheriff’s domestic violence incident reports did from 2010 to 2011, liquor’s detractors see an obvious culprit — demon drink.

But, said Donna Jacobs — the executive director of Harbor Haus, Cullman’s always-open shelter for victims of domestic violence — alcohol doesn’t cause domestic violence or increase its frequency. The numbers don’t back it up.

“It does not matter that we’re wet,” said Jacobs Saturday. “Cullman was ‘wet’ before we got the taxes from the alcohol that we now are getting. It doesn’t cause the violence. It may give somebody an excuse; do something to their inhibitions, but we have not seen an increase in incidents because of alcohol.”

According to Cullman police records, the city averaged 12 DV incident reports a month in early 2011 — including January and February, when alcohol hadn’t yet become available. For the same period this year, the average has held steady at 12.65 reports per month.

Jacobs says crimes perpetrated against relatives and loved ones stem from a factor even more difficult to quantify than substance abuse; indeed, than the whole spectrum of cultural influences: the failure of abusers to master the primitive, inborn human compulsion to aggrandize power; to achieve control over the closed environments where their presence can’t easily be relegated.

In other words, anyone can be an abuser at home — but most people have accepted the yoke of social and civilizing influences that help them rule their base natures. The few who don’t? They don’t fit into a single demographic, but, in Jacobs’ estimation, they represent the majority of DV cases.

“Domestic violence is a power and control issue — it’s all about power and control. It’s not about environmental factors. Someone who’s going to perpetrate violence against their family is just trying to control their family,” she said. “We tell people who are just leaving a violent relationship that, right at first, they’re in more danger after they’ve just left their situation than they may have been when they were at home. And that’s because the perpetrator has just lost all of their control, and a person like that will do anything to regain that control.

“It’s important to note that domestic violence doesn’t know any social or economic or political boundaries,” she added. “It’s in every walk of life. Perpetrators of domestic violence can be police officers, doctors, lawyers, accountants — the whole gamut. In terms of the perception that domestic abuse is just a ‘poor people’ problem, the mistake comes a lot of times because it seems, from the outside, that those with few resources are the only victims of domestic violence — but that’s not true. They come more frequently to the shelters because they’re the ones who don’t have the resources to leave their bad situations by hiring a lawyer; by paying to move somewhere else.

Rich or poor; esteemed or anonymous, the psychology of abuse — of family dominance — is often the biggest obstacle preventing DV victims from seeking help.

“I answered a call one day, and a guy had dragged his wife out on the side of the road, and he had roughed her up,” recounts Cullman County sheriff Mike Rainey. “Their neighbor had actually already broken up the fight by getting his shotgun and holding the man at gunpoint until we arrived. When I started handcuffing him, the woman — the victim, mind you — went berserk, wanting me to help this man; to release him. She said, ‘I still love him — he’s beaten me worse than this before. He’s even broken my arm before. Don’t take him away from me.’”

No law can account for that. The laws, complex and ever-changing as they are, are in place to give DV victims access to protection and to offer them recourse that can, if followed, extricate them from abusive cycles. They aren’t perfect, Rainey’s quick to note. But, he said, their efficacy is only as sound as the victims’ will to break away from their abusers.

“That’s why we have the law, and if people don’t follow through with it...well, most of the time, yes — we’ll be making repeat visits back out to the same residence,” he said.

The longer a cycle of family violence is allowed to iterate, the direr the consequences can be for victims who wait to break free.

“There’s a different story for everybody who comes to us,” said Jacobs. “Just this year, we saw the man at Baileyton who [allegedly] returned to his wife after getting out of a hospital, and killed her.

“Several years ago, we had a client here who did some public speaking; who helped advocate for us. Her perpetrator was horrible — he would try to hurt her; to run her over in the car whenever they exchanged their children. This went on for years. Then it seemed to settle down. She remarried to a wonderful, supportive husband, and she kind of let her guard down. Then one day, when she went out to the house to exchange their children...the ex got a gun and shot. Her new husband stepped in front to protect her, and he was shot and killed. This was in front of their children.”

Domestic abuse, by its nature, is an insidious crime. It only happens where it’s happening, and if that’s not around you, it can be difficult to comprehend the magnitude of its cumulative effect on others, and on the community.

“We all look at Cullman as being a safe and wonderful community, and in so many ways, it is,” Jacob said. “But we have all the problems of a big city, too. For a lot of people, those problems just aren’t as visible. But they’re right here.”

A United Way-supported arm of the nonprofit Victim Services of Cullman, Harbor Haus maintains an open crisis line that victims of domestic abuse can reach anytime by calling 256-734-6100.

For more information on Harbor Haus or one of the other domestic abuse resources available through Victim Services of Cullman, call the shelter’s administrative office at 256-775-2600, or visit the website at www.vsoccullman.org.



* Benjamin Bullard can be reached by e-mail at bbullard@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131 ext. 270.