In the wake of the death of Sarah Coit, three New York State legislators are again pushing forward with a bill that would create a Domestic Violence Offender Database. Though the idea of creating a domestic abuse registry similar to the one already extant for child abusers has been around for a while, the death of 23-year-old Coit allegedly at the hands of Raul Barrera (who had multiple previous instances of abuse on the record), is being used by State Senator Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn), Assemblywoman Vanessa Gibson (D-Bronx), and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) to help move the law forward. A similar bill didn't cut it in the Ledge last year.
"We have to protect women, and we do not want to wait for any murders to occur as they have done before we take action," Gibson said at a presser yesterday. "We have already seen incident after incident, crime after crime, and there is an urgent need for us to do this like, yesterday."
The proposed registry would be very similar to the existing sex offender registry. “We would duplicate the same process and the same type of software, so we already have the wheel invented—we’re just adding a new spoke on the wheel,” Adams said at the same conference.
This proposal is sure to generate some discussion of logistics and finances (the Voice points out that a similar bill was rejected in Virginia on financial grounds) but in the meantime, now seems a good time as any to ask: Is a database of domestic abusers a good idea? Would knowing your potential partner has a history of violence keep you from entering into a relationship? You can read the actual proposal here.
