2 Wisconsin Communities Awarded US DOJ Grants To Improve Domestic Violence Response

Two Wisconsin communities have been awarded nearly half a million dollars each from the U.S. Department of Justice to improve response to sexual assault and domestic violence crimes.

The U.S. DOJ’s Office on Violence Against Women awarded more than $30 million to 50 applicants nationwide, including the city of Superior and Sauk County. Superior Police Chief Nick Alexander said the $440,969 grant will fund a full-time detective to work solely on domestic violence cases.

“To have somebody dedicated to the follow-up and give the victim special attention and to dedicate investigative resources too — that’s certainly going to have an impact,” he said.

A victims advocate with the Center Against Sexual and Domestic Abuse in Superior will work part-time with the detective to help improve outcomes on cases. Superior’s police chief said area law enforcement responded to 585 domestic violence calls last year.

Alexander hopes the funding will help with making victims feel safe, reducing barriers to reporting sexual assault, and improving accountability among offenders.

Sauk County Assistant District Attorney Rick Spoentgen said they hope their $450,000 grant will strengthen relationships between the DA’s office, law enforcement, and Hope House — a local victims advocate group.

“The DA’s office and law enforcement are obviously in the system. They’re within the criminal justice system. Hope House is a private agency that we work with so they’re technically outside the system,” he said. “But, if we can try to bring them in as much as we can and try to utilize them as best as we can, we can overall improve the victim experience in the process.”

Spoentgen also hopes the grant funding can help improve their response to reports of sexual assault.

“Hopefully, we can do that by not only getting them onboard with advocacy right away … but we can also improve our systemic responses. We can improve our interviews. We can improve our investigations, and we can improve our ultimate prosecution to hopefully hold more people accountable,” he said.

Spoentgen said they also hope to expand on trainings they’ve already provided about trauma-informed practices for law enforcement and attorneys, including the impact trauma can have on a victim’s ability to recall what occurred.

The grant will span the next three years.