The report found 122 victims in 2023, with an average of 115 domestic violence homicides per year from 2019 to 2023 — up from 90 in the five years prior. Women made up 82% of the victims. Oklahoma also ranks among the top 10 states for women murdered by men in single-victim, single-offender incidents.
The board reported that, on average, 59 children witness the violent death of a family member due to domestic violence each year.
Attorney General Gentner Drummond called for stronger statewide efforts to hold abusers accountable and better support victims, saying Oklahoma must "turn the page on this epidemic."
The Fatality Review Board also provided several policy recommendations aimed at improving the state’s response to domestic violence. These include:
- Establishing a dedicated fund for trauma-informed services for children, adolescents, and caregivers impacted by family violence-related homicide and near-fatal intimate partner violence.
- Enacting a domestic violence-specific hearsay exception to strengthen evidence-based prosecution.
- Enhancing victim protection order laws to provide more effective safeguards for survivors.
- Amending state statutes to address discrepancies in how domestic violence crimes are classified and prosecuted.
- The board has also called on the state legislature to allocate $850,000 to fund trauma-informed programs for children exposed to family violence-related homicide and near-fatal intimate partner violence.
Brandon Pasley is chairman of the Oklahoma Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board. He’s worked as an advocate and practitioner for domestic violence prevention and sexual assault victim service programs for more than a decade.
He sat down with KOSU’s Luisa Clausen to talk about the board’s work, the rise in domestic violence homicides, systemic challenges and the steps needed to protect victims.
Luisa Clausen, KOSU: What are some of the factors that have contributed to this increase in 2023?
Brandon Pasley, Chairman of the Oklahoma Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board: “Well, it's hard to say. One of the roles of the board is to identify patterns and trends, and as we look at the reports over the years, that is our mission, to determine why so many Oklahomans slip through the cracks. ‘Why has Oklahoma been in the top 10 for women murdered by men for 15 out of the last 25 years?’ ‘ Why have we been third in the nation twice, two years in a row?’ The best we've ever done in that ranking, by the way, is 20th since 1998 so there are so many causes, it's really difficult to to identify one singular cause, but that is the role of the board, right? We review all of these cases of homicide with the respective representatives that have the expertise of their fields, and so the recommendations are a reflection of what the board finds in those reviews, right? We ask questions like ‘What about our system needs to change in this year's review?’ ‘What did we identify looking at these cases of homicide?’ ‘What about our systems could change that could have prevented that homicide?’ ‘What about our responses?’ That's what we see in the recommendations based on the challenges, based on what was missing, based on the gaps that we saw. We're asking questions like, ‘Did the person who was murdered ever seek services from a domestic violence program certified by the Attorney General?’ or ‘Did they ever seek services from a domestic violence program of a sovereign nation of a tribe?’
There are about 32 programs in Oklahoma certified by the Attorney General to provide those services, but there are also a number of great tribal programs all over the state as well. You know, there's a broad array of questions that we ask while we're trying to determine what those system failures are.”
Clausen: Why is it crucial to raise awareness and share information about domestic violence?
Pasley: There are so many answers to that question. I think the first answer is just to look at the prevalence of domestic violence, not just in Oklahoma but in the nation. I think it's a fair statement to say that domestic violence is not an epidemic, but a pandemic as well, and that domestic violence, or intimate partner violence, affects one in every three women at some point in their lifetime. When we look at how Oklahoma ranks against the other states in the nation with domestic violence, Oklahoma still ranked No. 2 for women murdered by men in single-victims, single-offender homicides. That ranking comes from the Violence Policy Center, which issues a number of reports annually, but one of them is that specific report that looks at the numbers of women murdered by men in single-victim, single-offender homicide. So these are not your mass murders or when one person kills you know a lot of people. We're talking about when one man kills one woman, and in that, Oklahoma has been in the top 10 for 15 out of the last 25 years.
Whether we're talking about the experience of domestic violence that results in large increases in the risk for anxiety, depression, PTSD, not to mention extreme bodily injury and death, but we're also talking about how it isn't just the homicide piece, it's also the reality that so many people in Oklahoma are living with abusive partners We've been on this progression for a really long time, trying to understand domestic violence in order to unknit it, right, in order to help people unlearn it. And it's been a long road. Looking at our board's report right now, we see 122 victims of domestic violence homicide or domestic violence-related homicide, which is the highest number we've ever had. So despite our best efforts, the numbers still rise.
Clausen: Domestic violence is a complex issue, and many survivors struggle to seek help due to fear and other barriers. How can this challenge be addressed?
Pasley: We have the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 to thank for the confidentiality that protects people who seek services from providers for domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. An abuser can't just walk up to a domestic violence shelter and say, ‘I want to talk to my partner.’ We can't reveal, we can't confirm or deny any information to anyone without a court order. Those protections are provided by federal and state law, and some people don't know that, right? They don't know that if I call this program, they can't tell anybody else that I've been there or that I ask questions. Or maybe they don't realize the extent of what we do, right? Or maybe they just think domestic violence shelters are like homeless shelters, and they don't think that's a service that they would want or an environment that they would want to bring their kids.
Sometimes, they have no idea the lengths that shelter programs go to provide safety, room, board, connections, good, solid referrals. We have a responsibility to educate the community around those dynamics, around what services look like where help is available. We can only go where we're allowed, where we're invited, but many of our programs, on shoestring budgets, do provide that sort of education in the community as often as they can, with the bandwidth that they have. But again, we have 77 counties in this state, and we've got about 32 domestic violence programs. Doing that math, we don't even have a brick-and-mortar program or shelter in every county, and it's really sparse out in the northwest part of the state. We've got one domestic violence program covering 10 counties with five locations.
Clausen: Does your report identify any patterns in where domestic violence homicides occur? Are there specific counties or areas where the numbers are consistently higher?
Pasley: Absolutely. One of the images that you'll see in the report every year is a heat map of where they occur, what counties the concentrations are, and we actually see fluctuations. One could assume that just for the purposes of population density, that most of the time, most of those would occur in the metropolitan areas. But that's not the case. We have other counties that have even surpassed Metro County. It is not an urban or a rule specific problem. It's everywhere. That is one of the things that the board absolutely looks at is the geography, the physical location and the frequency within which those things happen.
Clausen: The board is recommending that the legislature allocate $850,000 for trauma-informed services for children and adolescents. How would this program function in practice? And how crucial is this funding for supporting affected children?
Pasley: That's one of the things the board will typically shape the recommendation to the governor and the legislature, and they take it from there. It will be up to the legislature or the governor or whomever to decide what that looks like. So the pieces are intentionally general so that we can fill in the holes, and the pieces that are specific in that recommendation are specific. The program itself has not been fully fleshed out yet but, but they're working on it. There are a number of professionals involved with the Fatality Review Board. As the report makes its way through the legislature and everyone that the governor disseminates it to, our groups will be ready to provide technical assistance and their expertise as well regarding their experience on the board. We, of course, have to be really careful with what we share. Everything that the board reviews is confidential.
Clausen: Does the same go for the domestic violence-specific hearsay exception to help with the evidence-based prosecution?
Pasley: That is a recommendation that came after, quite frankly, years of seeing attempts to utilize evidence-based prosecution just not going where they wanted it to go. Overcoming the fear of retaliation of a perpetrator is a huge hurdle for survivors, especially when our systems can't protect them after they participate. We can't give anybody any guarantee that the system can protect them from the offender once they participate in their prosecution. A lot of survivors will recant because they're afraid of what will happen when law enforcement isn't there anymore to protect them. And so it's a huge barrier. This will minimize the participation of the victim in many cases, to more effectively prosecute the offender based on the evidence rather than the participation of a victim. That's been a challenge for many years. Same thing with recommendation No.3 around strengthening those victim protective order systems and redefining what a conviction for a VPO (victim protective order) means to help law enforcement follow up on those like what a conviction is. That way they can take action when that civil order crosses over into a criminal order when it's violated. That comes from years of seeing multiple challenges with the enforcement of protective orders.
Clausen: What are some of your expectations for the future in reducing domestic violence in Oklahoma? What steps can communities across different counties take to support this mission and create lasting change?
Pasley: I'm really thrilled that over the past few years, the program manager, the research assistants and the staff of the board have really done a phenomenal job of providing comprehensive services in terms of what we do. I really appreciate how they have paid so much attention to the recommendations that the board has made more than once.... We have legislators who have already filed bills along with these deadly weapons, not having to be firearms, domestic violence crimes included as 85% sentencing crimes and then making a subsequent offense of domestic violence as well as assaulting a pregnant woman with domestic violence, with domestic assault being a violent crime as well. I think in the next few years, I'm curious to know, as the board moves forward with reviewing and looking at those recommendations that have been made in the past, ‘Are there any others that need to get some air again?’ But of course, the main brunt of our recommendations come from the review of the cases, and so we'll continue to review those cases and present those findings to the governor and the legislature. When it comes to what people can do locally, supporting local programs is really important.
There was a meta analysis conducted on the Fatality Review Board many years ago, before I was directly involved. One of the things that they looked at was how many victims in that 10-year period had sought services from a program certified by the Attorney General's office. I don't have the stat on it right now, but what I can recall was the Board found that only 2% of those victims who were murdered had sought services from a program like YWCA in Oklahoma City or any of the other 32 programs divisive Tulsa or any of the Family Justice centers. So it's important for us to spread awareness on those programs. If you don't know who your provider is in your community, it's easy to find out. Oklahoma has a domestic violence and sexual assault hotline, the Oklahoma State Safe Line, (800) 522-7233, and you can find out what services are available in any community by calling Oklahoma Safe Line and asking what's available. All of our programs utilize volunteers, if you're interested, reach out. The Victim Advocacy and Services Unit has a number of programs and people can find out more information there.”
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