Examining the Domestic Violence-to-Prison Pipeline
By Lindiwe Vilakazi
Intimate partner violence against women is a prevalent safety and health issue in the United States. While domestic violence is most often associated with the horrors of physical abuse, in many cases survivors are often left grappling with the decision to withstand abuse or somehow fight back, facing the risk of jail or prison time in the wake of their trauma.
Dionne Bennett, a native Washingtonian, has spent the better of her seasoned years healing the damage that sexual, mental, and physical abuse marked on her life.
“Abuse comes with a lot. It led up to where I [became] rebellious, and ended up incarcerated,” Bennett, 64, told The Informer. “When you are incarcerated, you’re still dealing with your mental [health], but you’re in a setting where there’s so much violence. It’s like you’re in a cage with wild animals while [still] trying to survive and figure out your next steps, if you are ever even going to go home.”
Despite a reported decrease of domestic violence cases both nationwide and across the District, intimate partner violence remains a pervasive issue, putting many people, particularly women, at dire risk of their safety and freedom.
In August, the District of Columbia Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board’s 2024 Annual Report, stated that “an estimated 47.4% of women in D.C. have been physically or sexually assaulted or stalked by an intimate partner in their lifetime.”
Bennett was only 17 when she married her ex-husband after learning she was pregnant with her first child. Roughly seven years into the marriage, is when Bennett said her relationship took a violent turn for the worst.
“He was destroying me mentally, [but] my first encounter really realizing he was a violent man was when I found out he was also a heroin user,” Bennett said.
Casually opening the door to her bathroom, Bennett unexpectedly found her husband sitting with a needle in his arm. Already struck with disbelief, it was only seconds until he knocked her unconscious. She recounts later waking up post a tracheostomy procedure due to the brutal damage he had caused.
g up post a tracheostomy procedure due to the brutal damage he had caused.
Over the years, the abuse intensified from stalking and attacking her as she made her morning commutes to work, to confining her to rooms of their home, barbarically training dogs to restrict her movements around the house.
Struggling to secure safe housing and financial security under the constant threat of her abuser, Bennett began selling illicit drugs as a means to gain money to better provide for her needs and escape his wrath. However, her dealings led to a five-year incarceration, having to spend time away from her children and family, the very people she had hoped to protect.
Statistics show that roughly 75% of incarcerated women have experienced domestic violence, with 70%-80% of incarcerated women specifically experiencing intimate partner violence as adults. Like Bennett, violence perpetrated against women often leaves them at risk for incarceration, as their survival strategies are criminalized— whether by way of coercion into criminal activity by their abusers, finding ways to leave their abusers, or fighting back to protect themselves and their children’s lives.
“When it comes to intimate partner violence, it’s all about power and control,” said Jaz Jackson, assistant director of victim services with Community Family Life Services. “There’s usually always some underlying form of emotional abuse going on, chipping away at that person, taking away their self-worth [and] their identity, to get them to a place where you can manipulate them and impact these other forms of control, like financial abuse, stalking, [or other things].”
During her incarceration, with a lack of family support and awareness, Bennett suffered through an isolating period. While losing her freedom, she simultaneously suffered from the mental health implications of her abuse.
“My family didn’t really understand what I was telling them and what I was going through, because he portrayed a different picture around them,” said Bennett. “I was [thinking], how do I come out of this? Because I’m tired of fighting. Who is going to help me? Who is going to believe me?”
Picking Up the Pieces Post-Incarceration
Upon returning home, Bennett was once again subjected to the horrors of abuse at the hands of her ex-husband. Amid long deliberations, Bennett contemplated how she could forcibly remove her husband out of her house to save her life and family. Soon into her planning, her husband was suddenly arrested and jailed by causes unrelated to domestic violence.
It was the last time she would ever see him again.
Bennett’s abuser later died in jail of a drug overdose. But while she found herself finally free from imminent danger, her freedom did not overshadow the mental scars left after decades of abuse.
Falling homeless, struggling to sustain work and housing to keep herself afloat, she became determined to make a shift in her life and decidedly reached out for much-needed help.
Community Family Life Services, a local organization and safe space for children, families, and adults, offers a host of wrap-around services to provide short-term crisis and emergency assistance to families, homeless adults, and “women who are returning home following a period of incarceration.”
Jackson of Community Family Life Services has kept Bennett close, providing resources and support after having faced intimate partner violence and incarceration.
She said that Bennett’s challenges are not unique, emphasizing the tumultuous time formerly incarcerated women face when attempting to rebuild their lives.
“Women who have been previously incarcerated and are returning home already have a lot that they have to adjust to. When you’re out, you don’t have anything,” Jackson explained. “Survivors are putting their mental health needs or trauma that they experience at the end of [everything], because they have these important things that they have to take care of first, like obtaining a job, obtaining child care, getting food transportation, especially inside the city. There are all these other added layers on top of it.”
Access to domestic violence resources and support are critical for formerly incarcerated women, helping to rebuild a safe space for survivors without having to go through the process alone.
“Honestly, a lot of them are just figuring it out on their own, and if they do have family support, it’s not a stable family support, or it may not be a safe environment, which is why they went with their partner in the first place,” Jackson said. “That person [may] provide financial security. And so it is common that sometimes when people leave incarceration, it may have been because of the domestic violence relationship, but they go right back into that relationship because that’s where their needs can be met.”
Like many women, for Bennett, the end of life with her abuser was just the beginning of addressing the profound impact that decades of abuse had on the quality of her life.
Abuse often correlates with both poor physical and mental health outcomes. Often, intimate partner violence victims can suffer chronic health issues related to the nervous and reproductive system, gut and heart health immune response, and damage to their muscles and bones.
Mentally, they are at greater risk of suicidal ideation, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, addiction, and even coercion into precarious sexual behaviors or unwanted pregnancy.
Over the past few years with the Community Family Life Services team, Bennet has made what she deems significant improvements in her stability, now living in her own home, and finding a better sense of self.
Today, Bennett attributes a tremendous level of growth, independence, and self-actualization to the support of Jackson and the organization. She now focuses on reconnecting with her children, repairing her emotional and mental health, and building her most valued relationship: the one with herself.
“I’ve never lived in an apartment by myself, ever, but for the last couple of years, I’ve been by myself, which gave me time to really focus on myself, and to really see who is Dionne,” Bennett told The Informer. “This program really helped me to find out who I was, in spite of everything that I endured in my life.”
