Budget cuts hinder domestic violence plan

Those cuts will curtail the department’s plan to start having the sheriff’s department handle calls for domestic violence in Police District 4, which includes Oxon Hill, Fort Washington, Accokeek Temple Hills and Camp Springs, Col. Paul Drula told county finance officials.

‘‘The services will be reduced to what levels of staff we have,” Drula said during a staff review of the department’s $36 million budget for next year. ‘‘[It will be happening] at a much slower pace.”

The department will still try to respond to domestic violence calls in the new coverage district starting this summer, but will not be able to handle the whole area as they had originally planned, he said.

County police will continue to respond to 911 domestic calls that deputies can’t handle.

The slowdown marks a setback in county efforts to have deputies respond to more than 2,300 domestic violence calls each year that have attracted national attention for their frequency and barbarism.

Between 2001 and 2005, 48 people — mostly women and several children — were killed in domestic violence-related murders, according to state advocacy groups. Every year in the county’s district court, spouses and partners file roughly 5,000 petitions for protective orders, the highest in the state.

The prevalence and brutality of the cases led national magazine Essence to publish a feature in 2005 calling domestic violence ‘‘the secret shame of Prince George’s County.”

The media attention spurred new county action, including making the sheriff’s department the prime agency for handling the calls. All the department deputies were trained specifically to understand and deal with domestic violence cases, and efforts began to have the sheriff’s office respond to 911 calls for domestic violence rather than police.

‘‘We like to think that we free up the police to act elsewhere,” sheriff’s office spokesman Sgt. Mario Ellis said.

Because deputies also deliver protective orders, divorce papers, enforce child support and handle other family-related actions, victims are able to deal with one agency, officials said.

‘‘It’s a holistic approach to a family issue that we are still committed to,” Drula said. ‘‘This lets us centralize the response to these calls, and we can immediately link a victim with an advocate.”

Those advocates include civilian counselors who help victims with everything from finding emergency shelter to emotional support. Counselors are also provided through the county state’s attorney’s office to help victims through the court process.

For the last two years, federal grants have paid for the nine counselor positions, Drula said. But the grant money goes away when the fiscal year starts July 1, and the county can only pay for four positions.

Drula said deputies working on desk duty and limited duty will fill in for the civilians as much as possible. Officials said they are also close to securing a new $750,000 grant to rehire the five other civilians.

‘‘We want to wait until we have the money in hand before we can promise,” he said.

Officials had hoped to do the same in District 4, which has a population of roughly 141,000 people and runs along the southwest corner of Prince George’s County. Other districts are expected to be added later.

Michaele Cohen, a spokeswoman for Bowie-based Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence, said the efforts have been working.

‘‘So far, we were very pleased with their efforts,” said Cohen, who called the cutbacks ‘‘disappointing.”

County officials say they had to slow down expansions across the county in this year’s budget, the first to come after the national economic downturn.

‘‘We had a $100 million deficit that we had to close,” said John Erzen, a spokesman for Johnson, who pointed out that the sheriff’s office is still getting additional deputies.

‘‘Our goal was to maintain a modest amount of growth so that one department did not suffer more than the others,” Erzen said.

A County Council committee is scheduled to discuss the department’s budget May 5.

Department officials said they are still able to help anyone who needs assistance.

For help, call the domestic violence hotline at 301-731-1203.

E-mail Daniel Valentine at dvalentine@gazette.net.