Cops should talk to counselors, and agencies should work together; the message of a symposium this week on domestic violence in Iowa.Former Iowa Attorney General Bonnie Campbell says agencies must work together in Iowa to ensure the safety of battered women. She spoke at the Iowa Bar Association’s symposium on domestic abuse, and said for battered women, it’s not just a criminal-justice problem.Campbell says women need economic security, they have children who are traumatized, and must deal with their own emotional and medical needs. Campbell says domestic abuse awareness should be the responsibility not only of cops and lawyers, but doctors, teachers and even employers.Battered women may never go to police, but, Campbell says, they do go to doctors, shelters and to work. The Iowa Domestic Abuse Projects serve more than 14-thousand adult victims and 35-hundred children a year. Campbell was head of the National Violence Against Women office in the Clinton Administration’s Department of Justice. She’s now working in a law firm in D-C.
