TRENDS OF ORDERS OF PROTECTION ADMINISTRATION FOR ADULT ABUSE CASES IN ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MISSOURI
This study examined the disposition of petitions for protection orders in St. Louis County, Missouri. Two major issues were examined. The first issue investigated in this study concerned the ability of adults claiming to have been abused in St. Louis County, Missouri to obtain ex parte orders of protection from their purported abusers. The second issue investigated in this study concerned the ability of adults claiming to have been abused in St. Louis County, Missouri to obtain full orders of protection from their purported abusers.
Two disturbing findings of the research performed for this project were that (1) the proportion of petitions for ex parte protection orders granted in St. Louis County is decreasing substantially and (2) the proportion of petitions for full protection orders that are dismissed in St. Louis County for reasons of either the failure to serve a subpoena on respondents when the locations of respondents are known or the failure of petitioners to appear in court is increasing substantially. A strong case may be made for the linkage of these two findings. When ex parte protection orders are denied, the respondent is virtually free to harass and threaten the petitioner to either withdraw the petition or to fail to appear in court. While the findings of the research performed for this study do not provide a causal link between these two findings, these findings most certainly provide a strong basis for an hypothesis that the two findings are linked.
The conclusion drawn from the findings of the research performed for this study is that the disposition of petitions for protection in adult abuse cases in St. Louis County is deteriorating. As a consequence, petitioners likely are being exposed to unnecessary risk, and likely are becoming reluctant to pursue their legal right to protection from abusers.
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