In this weary season of budget slashing, the latest of many, the Georgia Legislature is considering a cut — about $80,000 — to funding for free legal representation of folks, women and children mostly, who are victims of domestic violence.
The money would come out of grants from the state Judicial Council made to legal aid organizations and private lawyers in the state who provide free representation in family violence cases. The Judicial Council’s total budget is being cut by 4 percent.
Amid the millions of dollars of cuts, this may seem like small potatoes. In theory, yes.
But to Amy Anderson, it means life itself.
Her husband had threatened to kill her and her children if she left him.
But as happens so often, the dangers of staying with the batterer began to outweigh the dangers of leaving. His violence was increasing in frequency and severity.
Mustering her courage, she contacted Georgia Legal Services Program, and we helped her obtain a Family Violence Act Temporary Protective Order.
The TPO restricted her husband’s contact with Anderson and ordered him to undergo drug and alcohol treatment before he could see the children.
In the process, the sheriff’s office confiscated 24 weapons from the batterer. Anderson, her children and the community are all safer as a result of this work, done by lawyers funded by money from the Judicial Council.
The cut to the Judicial Council’s domestic violence funding would mean a reduction of about $51,000 a year, or about $25,000 for the remainder of this year for GLSP.
That is enough to fund representation of 64 clients in domestic violence cases.
That’s 64 women like Amy Anderson, women fighting for their lives, facing homelessness, injury and even death, in cases where a lawyer could help them safely leave the abusive relationship, gain custody of their children and find a place to live.
We do this for hundreds of family violence survivors every year, but as our budget shrinks, so do the numbers of clients we can serve.
Between 2003 and 2009, 834 victims were killed by their batterers. Children were present in 42 percent of those cases, according to the Georgia Commission on Family Violence.
Is the saving of so little in a $15 billion state budget worth it?
Vicky O. Kimbrell is director of the Family Violence Project at the Georgia Legal Services Program, which provides free legal representation in civil matters to low-income Georgians in 154 counties outside metro Atlanta.
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