FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, April 16, 2007
CONTACT: Doris Sanchez , Press Secretary
Phone: (512) 463-0385
Senate Approves Sen. Lucio's Bill Creating Address Confidentiality Program
Helps protect victims of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking
AUSTIN, TX -- Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr. announced the Senate last week approved his bill
that would create an address confidentiality program to assist eligible victims
of family violence, sexual assault or stalking.
Senate Bill 74 directs the Attorney General to establish the
program by designating a substitute post office box address that a victim of
these crimes can use in lieu of a physical address.
"There
is currently no mechanism in Texas designed to help victims of family violence,
sexual assault or stalking from keeping their locations confidential to protect
them from their assailants," said Sen. Lucio. "This program affords such
protection."
These particular crimes are
intrusive to the victims because of the ongoing threat that those who harmed or
stalked them can still locate them. "I think about the address confidentiality
program as something which could have saved my grandmother's life if it had
been available to her," said Donna Bloom
of the Texas Advocacy Project, who testified in support of SB 74 and whose
grandmother was killed in her home by her grandfather after she had ended the
relationship.
In cases of family violence, the
violence often escalates when victims leave the relationship and seek a new
address. According to the Texas Council on Family Violence, 143 Texas women
were killed by their male intimate partners in 2005. Sixteen of those victims
were killed as they were leaving the relationship or after they had already
left.
More than a million women and
nearly 400,000 men are stalked annually, and one in 12 women and one in 45 men
will be stalked in their lifetimes. The majority of victims are stalked by
someone they know. Of those women who have been killed by an intimate partner,
76 percent were stalked by that partner in the year before their deaths, and 81
percent of women stalked by a current or former intimate partner are eventually
physically assaulted by that individual.
Sen.
Lucio added, "Often, victims of these crimes remain in danger even if they
move, so if we can create a safety net for them through this program, then perhaps
we can protect more lives."
The bill must now be considered
in the House.
Note. Policy Analyst Kate Volti (512-463-0127) handles this issue for the Senator.
