DEPUTY Superintendent of Police (DSP) Jacqueline Dillon, head of the response team manning 10 domestic violence intervention centres (DVICs) islandwide, says while the centres have been a godsend, not having a budget or assigned service vehicles to respond to emergencies, however, is proving to be a challenge.

Speaking on Friday during an official tour of the South St Catherine DVIC at Greater Portmore Police Station, DSP Dillon said the situation was tragic, given the “dramatic” increase in the flow of domestic violence cases into centres nationwide.

“The fact [is] that we have no budget; we have absolutely no budget. It therefore means that sometimes when we get a client who needs help to be transported from place to place we have to dig in our pockets or rely on the division or the station to assist with transporting that individual. Not even for my unit do we have a service vehicle assigned to us. That, in itself, is a challenge because when it comes on to domestic violence, oftentimes you have to move and move now; you cannot be delayed. So those, for me, are the two greatest challenges we have; we have no budget and we have no transportation,” DSP Dillon lamented.

Currently DVICs are domiciled at police stations, but separated from the general hub of the station. Each DVIC is run by a trained police officer offering intervention through counselling, referrals, law enforcement intervention, protection, follow-up, home visits ,and other services, based on need.

Before mid-2021, the constabulary had only four such centres islandwide. The network expanded to 10 when six additional containerised centres were established with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Multi Country Office in Jamaica under the European Union-financed Spotlight Initiative. This was combined with a survivor-centred training series delivered by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Speaking on Friday, DSP Dillon emphasised that, despite the resource constraints, “based on the response of the general public, the DVI centres are a blessing in disguise”.

“I wish I could get some more. One of the concerns I think many of the managers has is that sometimes when the victims come they have to use the general facilities, like for example the restrooms, and they might not necessarily want anybody to know they are there, and if you notice we have nowhere for anybody to wait, there is no waiting area because it was never created for that,” she pointed out.

Friday, Linda Maguire, UNDP Deputy Director in Latin America and the Caribbean – which covers 42 UNDP territories — who is in Jamaica as part of a three-nation mission and toured the Portmore DVIC to hear first-hand how the centres operate, agreed with DSP Dillon that more could be done.

“What I am seeing is a real commitment by the JCF (Jamaica Constabulary Force)and the Government, by extension, to address the issue of domestic violence, whether the survivors and victims are male or female, to give it the treatment it deserves; and this project is of course one initiative. Every country is different, but what I have seen here is a real nuanced and sensitive approach to the issue by the police. This is a great resource, but it’s not enough, and particularly given what we saw across the region during COVID, the uptick in domestic violence cases. The resources are not enough, the Spotlight Initiative is a very good…but it’s not enough,” Maguire told the Jamaica Observer.

In the meantime, in explaining why the centres are housed on the compounds of police stations, DSP Dillon said this was strategic.

“I tell people it’s the only way we can protect people. If I put it in a community centre, there is no guarantee the police will always be there. We need to ensure that the persons who intervene in the process are safe and the persons who need the services are safe, that’s why we put them in police stations,” she said.

She noted that the locations also provided a certain amount of dignity and privacy in the process as individuals looking on would not be able to tell offhand the reason for the visit to the station.

In the meantime, she said domestic violence figures continue to stun.

“I think COVID opened our eyes. Our numbers shot up and it’s yet to come back down, or taper off. This is the DVIC that gets the most cases of all the centres across the island. They are dealing with five to six hundred, 1,000, cases per year at this centre and so they have a lot of work. In 2021, when we actually opened the centres, we have seen a dramatic increase in numbers with 8,746 cases reported across the island last year,” she said.

“The day we got these centres is a blessing in disguise, we are beginning to see the reward of the fruits. I am hoping that as we move forward we can get a centre in every parish. We have some parishes that are a real concern, that don’t have a centre where there is an uptick in incidents; Manchester is one of those parishes asking when are we going to get a DVI centre,” DSP Dillon said.

In 2022, 1,324 cases were referred to the DVICs, compared to 1,145 cases in 2021. In 2022, DVICs islandwide recorded 1,720 intimate partner violence cases and 924 family violence cases, with more than 650 reports made by children. Males are also reporting to the DVICs despite perceptions that question the manhood of abused men — some 743 between January and October 2022 — but cases reported by females continue to outstrip the males nearly three to one and stood at 2201 by October 2022.

Based on data, 28 per cent of Jamaican women experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. In 2018, 71 per cent of girls under 18 who were victims of crime had been raped. Two out of 10 girls aged 15 to 19 years think it is okay for a husband or partner to hit his wife or partner, and 85 per cent of children experience violent discipline at home. A 2016 women’s survey showed that one in four women has reported experiencing physical or sexual violence in their lifetime.