The Madison County courts handle about 100 petitions for orders of protection in domestic violence cases each month, and some of the faces behind those petitions haunt Associate Judge Lola Maddox.

"It's troubling because I remember the women with a black eye or a missing tooth who don't come back for the next hearing. I wonder about them," Maddox says at her desk behind her courtroom in Edwardsville.

She hopes those women didn't need to come back, that they broke away from the men who abused them. Or that the men were helped to turn away from violence. But too often, Maddox fears, abusers have threatened the women into backing down, or beaten them into submission again.

Maddox has reason to believe that's changing. She's the point guard for the Third Judicial Circuit's new Domestic Violence Court, which encompasses Madison and Bond counties.

The special court is part of a growing statewide effort to help the victims of domestic violence, and to stop the abusers. In 1993, the state Supreme Court set up a coordinating committee to guide Maddox and her colleagues in Cook County and the 21 judicial circuits who want to establish such courts.

Seven circuits are already developing domestic violence courts. And more — at a rate of about three a year — are signing on to the idea. To boost involvement, the Supreme Court's Family Violence Coordinating Council offers symposiums on the topic. The aim is to get everyone who can help deal with domestic violence cases involved as quickly as possible.

Last summer's session in the Third Circuit drew more than 500 participants, including judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys, probation and police officers, social workers and members of the clergy.

Growing social problem
As they do at other sessions, experts on domestic violence called for a revolution in understanding a growing social problem. Stop asking women why they stay in abusive relationships, they advised, and start asking how to get them out, and why the men are abusive. Ask whether the victims need a safe place to stay. Whether they need help caring for the children. Whether abusers need alcohol or drug treatment. Whether they need jobs. Whether they need to go to prison.

After the Madison County workshop, Chief Circuit Judge Nicholas G. Byron set up a steering committee, which began by centralizing domestic violence cases in Edwardsville, ending the practice of hearing such cases at satellite courts throughout the county. State's Attorney William R. Haine believes the move provides consistency in dealing with domestic cases. Maddox says the scope of the problem was immediately apparent. The schedule for domestic battery cases and for violations of orders of protection brought overflow crowds to her large courtroom, forcing her to schedule sessions on the first two Thursdays of each month. Sixty-five cases were set for the March 6 session alone.

She says one barometer of the problem is the number of petitions for orders of protection — a judicial ruling barring an abuser from striking, harassing, sometimes even approaching a victim. There were 565 petitions filed in Madison County in 1992. By 1994, that number had grown to 1,156. The 1,217 filed in 1996 translates to 100 new requests for help each month. "That's a heavy caseload."

Maddox attributes the leap in the numbers between 1992 and 1994 to a growth in awareness about domestic violence and to increased attention to alternatives for women trapped in abusive relationships. She credits the O.J. Simpson case. Maddox says some of the women have even told her their boyfriends or husbands had done "an 'O.J.'on me."

Up in the 10th Judicial District, the statistics are even more surprising. Mary Carla Grube, supervisor of pretrial services in Peoria County, says 4,500 to 5,000 orders of protection are now issued each year.

In 1995, Peoria County prosecuted. just four domestic violence cases. In 1996, more than 900 cases were filed. In January alone, there were 90 cases.

The new program has been so effective that the Peoria Police Department obtained a grant allowing officers responding to domestic violence calls to take a victims'-rights advocate with them. The advocates assess alternatives and explain how to fill out petitions for orders of protection.

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Grube says an advantage of the program has been getting all five counties in the circuit to use the same paperwork for orders of protection, a change that took two and a half years to accomplish. She says the circuit's five county sheriffs' departments and 56 police departments now use the same arrest protocol, which calls for the police to file charges in domestic violence cases. That relieves the victims of responsibility for prosecuting the case, and reduces chances they will be pressured into dropping charges.

The new approach underlines the need to intervene quickly and decisively, Grube says.

In Madison County, prosecutor Haine implemented the same arrest protocol in 1992, and credits the police departments with putting it into effect despite the extra work involved. He hopes the system's willingness to carry the burden of prosecution and provide help for victims will send a message and help reduce violence.

"It will become the norm in neighborhoods that, if you physically assault someone in your household, the law will respond," he says. "The law can make a difference in how people treat each other. The only long-term solution is to change people's attitudes. They have to learn that violence is not an option for reaching a settlement in family disputes."

Haine credits women's shelters in the county — especially the Oasis Crisis Center in Alton and the Phoenix Crisis Center in Granite City — with helping to change community attitudes. He says such groups protect and educate women and keep the public informed about the frequency and severity of family violence.

"They are the heroes, along with the police," he says. "They're the ones on the front lines, picking up the wounded."

Haine says the General Assembly has given the courts and communities the tools to fight domestic violence. First-time offenders must serve probation, pay court costs and attend counseling. A second conviction is a felony and could lead to jail time. "Now it's up to us to give it our best efforts."

Lydia Walker drew the biggest response at the Supreme Court's Madison County workshop. A psychologist and social worker from Cosby, Tenn., who combines biting humor and a tough approach, she believes the majority of batterers are men who abuse women "because it feels good, and because they can." She shoots down what she calls myths about abusive men. They do not, she says, beat women because they come from violent families, because they were abused as children, because they drink or because they can't control themselves. Instead, they make conscious choices to use violence against others.

Walker compares battered women to prisoners of war and says they stay in abusive relationships for six basic and logical reasons:
* Fear, including the possibility that leaving could get them killed.
* Worry over their children.
* Economics, because most women who flee abusers slide into poverty.
* Religious pressure against divorce.
* Social stigma.
* Low self-esteem.

Her long-term treatment plan is indicative of her hard line against abusers: "It's called prison."

Workshops are scheduled May 22-23 in Cook County's Fourth District. Sessions are scheduled June 19-20 in Kankakee in the 21st Circuit.

Charles Bosworth Jr. covers Illinois for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Illinois Issues May 1997 ¦ 33