Intimate dangers
A security-camera video that showed football star Ray Rice punching his fiancée (now his wife) Janay in the face and knocking her unconscious unleashed a torrent of public commentary last month on the causes and prevention of domestic violence. The video prompted the National Football League to suspend Rice from the league and to launch its own campaign against domestic abuse.
The release of the Ray Rice video had another impact: it prompted a spike in calls to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Calls increased by as much as 84 percent in the first few days. “Callers were saying they saw the video and didn’t want that to happen to them,” said Katie Ray-Jones, an executive with the NDVH. “Women said ‘I’m worried [my partner] will kill me next time. I need help.’”
However, half of these calls for help went unanswered. “We didn’t have the financial resources to bring in extra people or to offer overtime,” explained Ray-Jones.
