SF program’s goal: Identify at-risk domestic violence victims

In this file photo, San Francisco Police Officer Espinoza is flagged down by a citizen. The department is launching a pilot program to help officers identify domestic violence victims and connect them with services. less In this file photo, San Francisco Police Officer Espinoza is flagged down by a citizen. The department is launching a pilot program to help officers identify domestic violence victims and connect them ... more Photo: Brant Ward Photo: Brant Ward Image 1 of / 44 Caption Close SF program’s goal: Identify at-risk domestic violence victims 1 / 44 Back to Gallery

The San Francisco Police Department launched a pilot program Tuesday that seeks to help officers identify domestic violence victims who face the most risk of being harmed or killed and quickly connect them with services.

Officers assigned to the Bayview area are being trained to ask victims a series of questions and then, depending on the answers, to immediately get them on the phone with a domestic violence advocate from La Casa de las Madres, a nonprofit crisis center and shelter in the city.

An interagency panel will meet once a month to review the most sensitive cases and discuss potential solutions.

“We have to do better,” Mayor Ed Lee said at a news conference Tuesday. “We’re still seeing 3,000 reports of domestic violence in our city every year. If we don’t watch how these factors come together, we will miss those opportunities to prevent the lethal consequences of domestic violence.”

Some of the questions are commonsense ones that officers already ask, such as, “Has your partner ever threatened you?” But experts say domestic violence is complex and that victims often put themselves through mental gymnastics to justify staying with partners.

“It’s important that the officer walks the victim through each of the questions,” said Minouche Kandel, director of women’s policy for the city’s Department on the Status of Women, who has been training officers in the program since May.

“We had some pushback of, ‘We already know the answer,’” she said. “But it’s important to walk the victims through because we need them to understand how dangerous the situation is.”

Sometimes, Kandel said, it’s not until victims are forced to confront such questions head-on that they come to terms with the abuse. That’s when connecting a victim to services is critical, said Emily Murase, director of the Department on the Status of Women.

National studies have shown that only about 4 percent of victims made use of a domestic violence hotline or shelter in the year prior to being killed by a partner, even though nearly one-third of the victims came into contact with the police in some way.

Other jurisdictions that have pursued similar programs have seen a decrease in domestic violence homicides and an increase in victims utilizing services, Murase said. Maryland saw a 34 percent decrease in domestic violence homicides in a five-year period after initiating a program.

“This is an evidence-based program that will save lives,” she said.

The program, funded by a three-year, $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Violence Against Women, will launch out of the Bayview police substation because of the high rate of domestic violence calls in that neighborhood, officials said.

But Chief William Scott said he hoped the program would eventually expand citywide.

“There was a time in the law enforcement world where it was thought that domestic violence was not a preventable crime, and we have evolved so far from that time,” Scott said. “It is an evolution that as a law enforcement professional I am very proud to be a part of.”

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo