Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office seizes firearms in just 13% of domestic-abuse cases. Victims say it’s unacceptable.

After her then-husband broke her nose in 2020, Whitney Brown decided she’d had enough.

After her then-husband broke her nose in 2020, Whitney Brown decided she’d had enough. She went to get a temporary protection-from-abuse order.

Introduction

But once she went to court, her husband’s behavior became more erratic. And that’s when she started to worry about the gun — the one he’d always told her he had.

The Importance of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

“He was still stalking me,” Brown said. “He was still bringing chaos.”

Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office Fails to Enforce Protection-from-Abuse Orders

It would be two more years before a Philadelphia judge granted her a final protection-from-abuse order — thereby invoking a four-year-old state law designed to protect people such as Brown.

Non-Compliance with Weapon Relinquishment

Immediately after that ruling, the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office should have served him notice and, within 24 hours, either retrieved his firearms or obtained an affidavit saying he didn’t own any.

Lack of Enforcement in Philadelphia

But that never happened.

“They never went to his property,” said Brown, 38, who is no longer married to him. “They never went to take his gun.”

Nor did it happen in thousands of other cases like hers since April 2019, when the law went into effect.

Impact of Domestic Violence and Firearms

Judges may request weapon relinquishment for temporary protection orders, but once a final order is granted, the law states requires it. Nearly two out of three domestic violence homicide victims were killed with a gun last year in Pennsylvania, and women, in particular, are five times more likely to be killed if their abuser owns a firearm, according to domestic violence advocacy groups.

Low Compliance Rate in Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office received notice of 10,028 protection orders that required weapon relinquishment, such as Brown’s, between April 2019 and June 2023. But in that time, deputies had marked just 13% of those cases as completed, according to Pennsylvania State Police data. The four collar suburban counties, by comparison, had 45% to 61% compliance in that same period.

Efforts to Improve Compliance

Sheriff Rochelle Bilal requested 72 hours to answer questions from The Inquirer last week, and then declined comment.

Philadelphia’s low compliance rate persisted through a pandemic spike in shootings among partners and family members. Homicide cases in which domestic violence was the motive jumped 64%, and non-fatal gun assaults rose nearly 83% between 2019 and 2022, according to Philadelphia police data. This year is on pace to match last year’s record violence.

Bilal, who took office in 2020, has set a 70% firearm relinquishment rate as a goal and has requested millions more in funding to hire new deputies amid office-wide staffing shortages. It’s not clear whether more deputies have since been hired to the protection-from-abuse enforcement unit, though the weapon relinquishment rate in 2023 increased slightly to 16% through June.

Importance of Collaboration and Database Management

Advocates said successful enforcement also requires buy-in from police and courts, as well as rigorous bookkeeping in the statewide domestic violence database that tracks thousands of cases each year. In the absence of effective enforcement, however, Philadelphia’s backlog of cases has continued to grow at a far faster rate than neighboring counties.

Impact on Survivors and the Need for Urgent Action

Marcella Nyachogo, director of the bilingual domestic violence program at Lutheran Settlement House, said the dismal compliance numbers in Philadelphia sow distrust in law enforcement and put survivors at greater risk — especially as they often wait months or years for the courts to process their cases.

“When a survivor is getting a final PFA, all of those steps are making an abusive partner more and more angry and more and more dangerous,” Nyachogo said. “You can kill someone in less than 24 hours.”

Weapons, Unrelinquished

Fatima Abdul Johnson, a domestic violence victim in Philadelphia who runs a nonprofit for victims called Queens United Against Domestic Violence, said women sometimes pleaded with police to take weapons out of the house after incidents of abuse.

“The weapons are used as a symbol of control,” Abdul Johnson said. “And there’s a feeling that law enforcement is not on our side because these things are often overlooked.”

Act 79 and Its Impact

Act 79 was supposed to change that in Pennsylvania.

It took years for the law to prevail in the Republican-controlled legislature, where firearm regulations have long been political non-starters. Then-Gov. Tom Wolf hailed the passage as the “the first major gun safety bill in decades in Pennsylvania.”

Victims and advocates rejoiced. A lifeline, they thought, had finally arrived.

“A lot more victims would come forward if they knew they had the protection,” said Eunice Allen, 52, a former Philadelphia police officer and domestic violence victim. “It would deter abusers from doing the things they would do.”

Enforcement Challenges and Slow Progress

Under Bilal’s predecessor, former Sheriff Jewell Williams, the first few months of Act 79′s life saw only an 11% compliance rate. Two years later, even as domestic violence-related incidents soared during the pandemic, the rate inched up to just 13%, and now up to 16%.

Months after the law went into effect

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

• SDG 5: Gender Equality – The article discusses domestic violence and its impact on women.
• SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions – The article highlights the need for effective enforcement of protection-from-abuse orders and the role of law enforcement and courts in addressing domestic violence.

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

• SDG 5.2: Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in public and private spheres – The article focuses on domestic violence against women and the need for better enforcement of protection orders.
• SDG 16.1: Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere – The article highlights the need for effective enforcement of protection-from-abuse orders to reduce domestic violence-related deaths.

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

• Indicator for SDG 5.2: Proportion of ever-partnered women and girls aged 15 years and older subjected to physical, sexual, or psychological violence by a current or former intimate partner in the previous 12 months – The article mentions that nearly two out of three domestic violence homicide victims were killed with a gun last year in Pennsylvania, highlighting the connection between domestic violence and firearms.
• Indicator for SDG 16.1: Number of victims of intentional homicide per 100,000 population, by sex and age group – The article mentions the increase in domestic violence-related homicides and non-fatal gun assaults in Philadelphia, indicating the need for better enforcement of protection orders to reduce violence.

Table: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

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Source: inquirer.com

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