VAWA must be reformed for domestic violence rates to come down

Article here. Excerpt:

'Neither the Democratic nor the Republican versions of the Violence Against Women Act survived the last Congress. Now Democrats, headed by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, vow immediate action on a new VAWA that does little to alter current flawed policies on domestic violence. The long hiatus in VAWA authorization represents a golden opportunity to get right what we’ve gotten wrong for so long.
 
VAWA’s detriments are too numerous to deal with here, but surely if we’re going to spend almost half a billion dollars to combat domestic violence, don’t we want a law that actually decreases its incidence?

The sad fact is that, almost 20 years after its first passage, VAWA proponents can point to no evidence of its success at doing so. True, late last year former NOW president Kim Gandy claimed that a recent report by the Department of Justice “showed conclusively” that VAWA has reduced rates of domestic violence. In fact, it’s done no such thing.'