LOGAN — Mark Wynn knows the fight to stop domestic violence well. He said he survived domestic violence as a child, and spent a career focusing those efforts with the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department, retiring as a lieutenant.
Now he travels, helping communities better focus their responses. He also travels as a consultant with the State Department and Justice Department to help communities find solutions to homicide, rape, child abuse and elder abuse.
“You can’t arrest yourself out of this problem,” Wynn said. “And that means everybody, wherever that victim walks the grocery store or the school, hospital, police station, shelter, everybody has to play a part in looking at the obstacles from that victim for believing (them).”
Wynn was the keynote speaker Wednesday at the fourth annual Northern Utah Conference to End Violence, which was put on by Utah State University and Citizens Against Physical and Sexual Violence, or CAPSA.
Nonprofits, volunteers, and law enforcement agencies were among the groups that came together to better focus their community response when it comes to helping survivors of violence.
Attendees were able to learn about various topic discussions, from eating disorders to digital stalking and substance abuse, all focused on the theme of “A Call for Collaborative Leadership.”
“We each have unique and related expertise that can help support survivors and healing and being safe in their own homes,” Citizens Against Physical and Sexual Violence CEO Jill Anderson explained. “It takes an entire community coming together to respond to ensure that survivors are believed, that we’re taking action and that we’re supporting them with their needs and also holding offenders accountable.”
Anderson said a recent bill passed by the Utah Legislature has increased the number of survivors that come to them for help. The law requires law enforcement agencies to conduct lethality assessments when responding to domestic incidents, referring survivors to community-based resources.
“We know that it is saving lives and reducing the number of homicides in our community that are domestic violence related,” Anderson said. “Dr. Jacqueline Campbell out of John Hopkins (University) in her research found that only 4 percent of survivors who had been killed had ever been connected to a community based service.”
At the same time, organizations like Citizens Against Physical and Sexual Violence are facing uncertainty when it comes to federal funding that they’ve depended on for many years. Anderson said the Department of Justice recently reopened applications for grants that were previously closed, but there’s still no assurance that they’ll get what they need.
“Being able to respond to that increased number of calls is critical right now. So we’re reaching out to community and other folks that can help support services and providers,” Anderson said.
In the meantime, Wynn said everyone has a responsibility to try to prevent domestic abuse. He said there needs to be a focus on how men see and value women, as men are overwhelmingly the offenders. If those discussions are avoided, he said the problem will get passed on.
“I think that’s just irresponsible,” Wynn said. “That’s been done before. That’s why we’re here today.”
Domestic violence resources
Help for people in abusive relationships can be found by contacting:
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
