No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

by Rachel Louise Snyder

And there are other recommendations, too, all of them seemingly small tweaks, and some that have come from other fatality reviews: invite clergy to trainings so they know how to deal with domestic violence. (“More women talk to their pastors than police or domestic violence advocates,” Websdale told me once.) Talk to the VA about ways in which their medical treatments and prescriptions can be accessible to other doctors electronically. Close the technology gap in the courts. By the end, more than twenty recommendations are listed, but Dale and the team whittle them down, and ultimately only a handful will go on to be included in their report, and though the reports cover at least four reviews done by the team, the recommendations aren’t linked to any case specifically for privacy. So that by the time the team issues their report for the period in which I sat in on the review, I recognize only two or three as likely originating from the case of Timothy and Ruth, and they include expanding the use of lethality and Danger Assessments, training judges, law enforcement, and healthcare workers on the complexities and contexts of domestic violence cases.