DAYTON, Ohio — One in four women and one in seven men experience domestic violence in their lifetime, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But oftentimes, those crimes go unreported. To provide a more welcoming environment for survivors in Dayton, the city has created a one-stop location called the Family Justice Center.

What You Need To Know

  • The Family Justice Center will open Oct. 19 in Dayton

  • The facility is a one-stop location for survivors of violence to report and process their case

  • The YWCA and Artemis Center are partner agencies who will have advocates on staff to help provide full wrap around services for survivors

  • The team effort hopes to encourage more victims to report domestic violence

The goal is to provide a safe space for victims and their children to report and work through criminal cases.

The new facility, which is located downtown, takes all the services that were previously separate entities, including the investigative unit, and complies them into one space. 

What's easy to notice: The area is designed to calm the nerves of the children who visit. Supervisor Roberta Bailey says the new location is a big improvement compared to the Dayton Police Department Safety Building.

“It wasn’t as warm and inviting for our victims to come over there,” she said.  

Bailey said new location eliminates the chance of the victim crossing paths with their abuser or someone who is on probation, for example. 

It also provides a direct link to partner services like the Artemis Domestic Violence Center and the YWCA. 

Executive Director of the Artemis Center Jane Keiffer said having everything in one location provides ease of access for victims which will hopefully encourage victims to report their abusers more frequently.

“To have us all here in one spot, that does eliminate some barriers for us,” Keiffer said.

The center has two interview rooms with noise-canceling technology where survivors can detail their case with detectives and prosecutors in a private setting. The funding for these rooms was contributed by Spectrum cable and the Drug Enforcement Agency.

YWCA Clinical Director Michelle Sayer said domestic violence is a prevalent issue across the nation, but it’s tough to monitor due to the fact that it often goes unreported.

 

And during the pandemic, severe cases of domestic violence are rising across the nation, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

“The lethality of the calls that are coming in has drastically increased,” Sayer said. “We’re getting three times as many calls that are classified as an emergency situation where we have to get someone out of the situation immediately.” 

Bailey said the new center with complete wrap-around services for survivors is paramount to saving lives. 

“In other locations, they noticed that their domestic violence rates decrease, and they saw their homicide rates decrease in relation to domestic violence over time,” Bailey said.  

Sayer said the team at the Family Justice Center is looking forward to helping as many people as possible. 

“We can really collaborate with the Dayton Police, with Artemis and other resources as we continue to grow here to bring more services in one place for survivors to have less barriers.”   

The Family Justice Center officially opens on Oct. 19.