Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced on Friday, May 4 that, in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence (OCDV), a successful program that has increased the response to stalking incidents in both Staten Island and Queens is being launched in Brooklyn.
The Coordinated Approach to Stalking program (CAPS), Gonzalez explained, is a collaborative initiative between the district attorney’s office, OCDV and the New York City Police Department to increase the identification and reporting of intimate partner stalking cases, enhance stalking arrests and prosecutions, and connect victims to services.
The city cites national statistics which find that 54 percent of female homicide victims reported stalking to the police before they were killed by their intimate partner.
“This specialized training is an important part of our continuing commitment to protecting victims of intimate partner violence,” said Gonzalez. “If we can identify potentially dangerous behavior such as stalking early on then we can utilize all of our resources to try to intervene and keep this potentially criminal behavior from escalating to physical injury or death.”
After its respective launches, the CAPS program led to a 177 percent increase in stalking arrests in Queens and a 233 percent increase in Staten Island.