JACKSON -A domestic violence related bill sponsored by Attorney General Jim Hood has been signed into law. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour signed SB2426, which makes it a misdemeanor for someone to prevent a victim from seeking emergency medical or law enforcement assistance.
The maximum fine is $1,000 and/or up to six months in jail.
Attorney General Hood stated, “Although the law is not specific to domestic violence, this type of interference often occurs when the offender refuses to allow the victim to seek medical attention for treatment of injuries or yanks the phone cord out of the wall or tears up the cell phone to prevent the victim from calling 911 for help.”
General Hood continued, “This also occurs in non-domestic offense as well – such as a car-jacking or a burglary in which the victim is prevented from seeking assistance.”
For these type situations, this bill now gives law enforcement officers more options as far as charging.
An offender can now be charged with the underlying criminal offense and for preventing the person from seeking assistance. This could even apply to a third party who did not inflict any injury, but who prevents the victim from seeking assistance.
Senator David Blount authored the bill and it goes into effect July 1.
Domestic Violence or Intimate Partner Violence is abuse that occurs between two people in a close relationship. The term “intimate partner” includes current and former spouses as well as dating partners. Intimate Partner Violence is also a continuation of abuse ranging from a single episode of violence to an ongoing term of physical, mental, emotional or verbal abuse.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), domestic violence is a serious, preventable public health problem affecting more than 1.5 million Americans a year. Other sources estimate that more than 78 percent of all women, at one time or another, have been pushed, slapped or hit by a partner.
Domestic violence has risen to all new level with the escalation of murder-suicides where the aggressor kills the intimate partner and then themselves. Also on the rise is what many agencies refer to as the “family annihilator,” where the man kills his wife or intimate partner, their children, and other family members, before killing himself.
Mississippi continues to have one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the nation.
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