Weaknesses Within Oklahoma’s Victim Protective Order System

BLUF (bottom line up front), tldr: 

• Oklahoma’s victim protective order (VPO) system contains more weaknesses than strengths. It is a resounding issue that VPO petitioners in Oklahoma understand VPOs are softly enforced in many counties by both law enforcement and the district attorney offices. If legislation is corrected or changed to provide more or actual protection to a petitioner/victim and harsher/realistic punishment to offenders, offenders will less likely violate a VPO. 
• If action is not taken to improve the weaknesses within Oklahoma's VPO system, the safety of innocent victims is at stake.
• This change needs to occur with a sense of urgency to protect Oklahoma's citizens from repeat VPO offenders who understand that the system is "broken." With these weaknesses still in place, Oklahoma’s VPO system potentially exposes its victims to repeated harassment, violence, injury, and possibly death. 

*Please continue to read for specific outlined weaknesses and proposed solutions:

Weakness 1 – Immediate Family is Not Included

Residential or immediate family is surprisingly not included in VPO, but only the “petitioner” (also further referred to as the “victim”). While the court system is very specific and pragmatic when it comes to awarding a VPO, it should stand to reason that, in addition to the petitioner, the petitioner’s immediate/co-residing family is included, unless stated otherwise. In many cases, petitioners reside with a spouse, children, and even elderly parents. With this said, an offender (also further referred to as a “defendant”) will, at times, not only harass the petitioner, but also his/her immediate family. 

Hypothetically, if a petitioner and defendant are neighbors, the defendant may repeatedly harass or communicate with the petitioner’s family members in order to negatively affect the petitioner. When the petitioner makes a complaint to law enforcement officials and the immediate family member is not listed, the VPO is not violated. This is a major fallacy within the VPO system.

Weakness 1 Proposed Solution: If the VPO is filed against an offender that is not a partner, spouse, or individual who shares children or elderly parents residing with the petitioner, etc., it should include the family members within the petitioner’s household. A VPO should, unless stated otherwise, include the entire residence in the VPO and, therefore, the entire family is protected from a violator. Why is there a need to file multiple protective orders or specifically list every family member in a VPO? Logically, in many circumstances, if a petitioner is seeking protection, he/she is also concerned for the family member, as well. So, on the VPO form, include the option to not include co-residing family members; if the option is not exercised, then it is assumed that the entire residential family requires protection.

Weakness 2 – Violators Do Not Immediately Go to Jail

When violating a VPO, surprisingly the offender does not immediately go to jail; a warrant must be created and served to the offender (which can be a timely process). With the arrest warrant’s lengthy process and, at times, lack of seriousness concerning a violation (see below), it leaves the offender open to harass and potentially utilize anger against victim as retribution for calling authorities; this is dangerous. Even more, when arrest warrants are created, it can take days or weeks for law enforcement to serve the warrant to the offender. 

Actual Reported Event(s): A VPO offender violated an issued VPO. The petitioner called the law enforcement office and they either responded or collected a report over the phone. After inquiring about the said events, law enforcement and the DA lacked regard or urgency for the report. Concerning one event, law enforcement spoke with both violator and petitioner, collected a report, and then left the scene. Thereafter, the offender continually harassed and threatened the petitioner for attempting to enforce the VPO, harassed the petitioner’s wife and children, and, eventually, a few days later, verbally threatened to kill the petitioner’s minor child. 

Weakness 2 Proposed Solution: If an offender is deemed enough of a risk to receive a VPO sanction, it should be understood that a violation – any violation – is a punishable offense, and, thus, shall be punished. Some, not all, offenders realize that “if [they] are given an inch, [they] will take a mile” in such circumstances; this leaves a victim open to harm or to take responsibility for their own circumstances, where law enforcement should provide the appropriate protection levels. This also dually leaves the victim and defendant in unnecessary danger of one another; in some circumstances, as tensions rise, so does aggression. Logically, if an offender violates a VPO, should he/she taken into custody, until the situation is deemed necessary for release? This will potentially allow for the violator to harass the victim (or worse).

Weakness 3 – The District Attorney’s Office Overlooks Minor VPO Offenses and Lacks a Sense of Urgency on Offenses

When protective order violations occur and authorities are notified, the authorities sometimes show up, take a report, then turn in evidence to the district attorney’s (DA) office. From there, the DA assesses the evidence and decides whether to proceed with filing charges (or not). There are times that the DA decides to not file charges – even if, by definition, the incident is an actual violation. What may not be realized is that (and aforementioned), when this occurs, it conditions the offender to realize they are possibly able to violate a VPO without recourse. This becomes a potentially dangerous situation for the victim. As the offender becomes conditioned to understand the authorities and DA will potentially disregard charging an offense, harassment or violations potentially occur at elevated levels. It is not difficult to understand or realize that criminals will continuously increase levels of violence and violation, if it is understood that the DA will fail to charge for VPO infractions. Again, this is a dangerous situation for a victim.

Weakness 3 Proposed Solution: Reasonably, while some offenses may not seem to be urgent enough to file charges, a “paper trail” can and will benefit the victim. It is proposed that, if an offender violates a VPO three or more times, he/she should receive an elevated level of punishment. Again, this would require consistent, persistent, and proper documentation. If, theoretically, the DA systematically overlooks constant previous minor infractions and then later decides to charge an offender with a first offense (for a later moderate or major infraction), then the initial infractions appear as if the offender only violated the VPO once. In reality, the infractions were constant and needed to be documented for the victim’s safety. Additionally, if violators understand that VPOs are zero-tolerance issuances, less infractions would occur. This would conclude that, over time, it would potentially reduce the amount of VPO violation calls and provide more time for law enforcement and the DA to focus other legal aspects, due to violators understanding there is a zero tolerance policy in place.

Weakness 4 - Protective Orders Do Not Regard Criminal History – Only Petitioner-Defendant Issues

In a nation and state where increasing criminal activity is treated with escalating punishments, why is Oklahoma’s VPO system treated without the same process or prejudice? When judging whether a VPO shall be instituted/issued, district court judges do not give attention to previous criminal activity. This seems to be counterintuitive to the legal process.

Weakness 4 Proposed Solution: Firstly, it could be argued that danger levels of VPOs could be introduced into the court system. Hypothetical risk levels could include “low,” medium,” and “high” to assign to offenders. A high-risk offender would be an offender with previous multiple non-“white-collar” felony offenses. A low-risk offender could be an offender with little or no criminal activity. Time elapsed since offense can be a determining factor, as well. 

In addition to the VPO acquisition process, previous charges, VPOs, offenses, police reports, and convictions should be regarded to allow for judgement and issuance of a VPO. When VPOs are treated as insular, isolated court proceedings (i.e. if a potentially dangerous offender’s criminal history is not regarded within the process), then less restrictions can be placed upon an offender. (This is said in regard to the final VPO form has boxes that the judge or Project SAFE will check to place limitations upon the offender.)

Additional Consideration

Some offenders know how to “play the system,” thus escaping jail, and, instead, going to receive mental health care, in order to alleviate taking responsibility for their transgressions. In some instances, if the police respond to an offender violation, violators who want to avoid processing through the jail can claim they are wanting to commit suicide. This creates a situation where the policing agency is required to take the offender to a mental health facility. Then, when released, the offender is able to walk free and go back home. This is because HIPPA laws prohibit hospitals and medical facilities from divulging offender release information to law enforcement agencies. So, this allows the offender to return to normal population, potentially able to offend again!

Actual Reported Events: In most of the calls made to law enforcement, where, the offender is placed in handcuffs, the offender claims to be suicidal to avoid going to the county jail. The offender is then is referred to Oklahoma’s “120-hour Rule” for mental health treatment. Subsequently, the offender is released after 5-7 days to come back home, where he harasses the petitioner.

Note: It is understood that mental health treatment is of significant importance, and nothing should be taken from that stance. Hence, the proposed solution suggests a differing process order, while still regarding mental health needs.

Additional Consideration Proposed Solution: When called out to a VPO violation or harassment call, the offender is processed through the jail system prior to being taken to the medical facility. This creates a proper situation to where the offender is the returned back to the jail system and not back home or among innocent civilians to become increasingly more violent and, thus, repeating to offend his/her VPO.

Conclusion

Oklahoma’s victim protective order violations should be treated  with the tenacity as other crimes. Oklahoma victims rely on the VPO system to receive protection from offenders. However, if a random sampling is taken from Oklahoma’s VPO-issued petitioners, who have reported offenses to law enforcement and/or conferred with district attorney offices, it would likely reveal that victims do not feel as protected as they rightfully should. In an increasingly more violent and accessible society, controlled deadly substances are easily acquired, influential aggression is visually shown in entertainment media, electronic locations are easily viewed, and concern for personal and legal boundaries are disregarded, change in the existing, archaic VPO system is needed and required. Spelled out, “victim protection...” should actually provide victim protection to the extent that it claims to provide. Please consider this survey, albeit one-sided, to invoke change in a failing system. With this write-up’s displayed VPO weaknesses, actual and hypothetical results to weaknesses, and suggested solutions to remedy the listed weaknesses, it can be seen that the above suggested legislative changes and solutions can and will remedy Oklahoma’s inadequate VPO system. These changes will, in turn, provide greater protection to victims and eventually curtail increasing violations, due to a zero-tolerance policy.