Experts say potentially outing victims and stigma could deter victims from calling 911. Photograph: Melissa Bornbach/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenExperts say potentially outing victims and stigma could deter victims from calling 911. Photograph: Melissa Bornbach/Getty ImagesUS states propose domestic violence registries – but could they harm women?Tennessee leads way but experts say offender registry could provide a false sense of security – and identify victims
When Amanda Martin started dating Christopher Cendroski, whose family has described him as “big-hearted”, she had no idea he had been arrested for domestic assault. Had she known, she said she never would become involved with him.
A few months into their relationship, which began in 2011, Cendroski started beating Martin, and in May 2012, he nearly choked her to death, she said. Police arrested Cendroski and helped both Martin and her children get to a shelter.
For years afterwards, Martin suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and could not be at home alone at night “without worrying that somebody was going to come in and hurt me”, she said.
Martin, who lives in the small town of Lamar, Missouri, now thinks she can help women avoid the same fate by advocating for the state to implement a domestic violence offender registry, like the ones for sex offenders.
In January of this year, Tennessee became the first state to establish such a database, which contains the names of people who were convicted of or pleaded guilty to at least two domestic violence offenses.
Lawmakers in at least 12 states have since proposed legislation to implement such registries.
But while a database that allows people to see if someone has been a domestic abuser might seem like a good idea, many groups dedicated to stopping domestic violence oppose such registries, arguing that they could actually harm women.
“While an offender registry may sound like a great idea at first blush, when you think more deeply about it and the nuances that come with creating something like a registry, it’s pretty clear that there can be some unintended negative consequences for survivors,” said Meg Savage, chief legal officer for ZeroV, a nonprofit dedicated to stopping intimate partner violence and helping survivors in Kentucky, a state where lawmakers are considering approving a registry.
In the United States, more than one in three women and one in six men have experienced sexual violence, physical violence or stalking, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Domestic abusers also often repeat behaviors. A 2008 study in the journal Federation Probation found that among a sample of 273 male domestic abusers sentenced to probation, 41% were again arrested for a violent offense within two years.
In Tennessee, the law is named for Savanna Puckett, a sheriff’s deputy who was shot to death in January 2022 by her ex-boyfriend. He had a history of domestic violence and stalking, but Puckett’s family only learned about his criminal record after she was killed.
“I was just horrified when I finally saw all those records because I know Savanna well enough that she would have never dated him,” her mother, Kim Dodson, who lobbied for the bill, told WSMV, a Nashville TV station.
After the bill’s passage, its sponsor, state representative Sabi Kumar, stated in a news release that the registry is a “a tool that will help protect individuals and families across Tennessee by giving them the information they need to stay safe from repeat offenders”.
But domestic violence survivors’ advocacy groups say such a registry could actually provide a false sense of security – primarily because many domestic abusers are not arrested, let alone convicted.
Even if a victim calls 911, and a police officer conducts a basic domestic violence investigation, an FBI report notes that prosecutors do not file criminal charges roughly 70% of the time. And unless they are convicted more than once for domestic violence, those individuals would not appear in the Tennessee database.
“It’s really a very small percentage of cases that even make it into the court system,” Savage said. “So if you create the registry thinking people will go and look at it and say, ‘Oh, the person is not on it, so they are not a domestic violence offender,’ that is going to be completely false.”
Advocates also worry that publicly listing an abuser’s name could reveal the identity of the victim.
“If my husband gets put on a registry for a domestically-related crime, people can pretty much figure out the victim’s identity is me,” said Laure Ruth, public policy director for the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence, which is in a state with proposed domestic violence registry legislation. “That invades victims’ privacy.”
Potentially outing victims and stigma could deter victims from calling 911, particularly in smaller, rural communities, Savage said.
“People may not want everybody to know what has been happening in that family. What they really want is safety, and they want the violence to stop, and so I think we are just adding an additional layer of considerations for survivors who are already having to consider so much as they really try to navigate these very tricky waters,” she said.
Proponents of domestic abuser registries have compared them to sex offender registries. But those too create unintended consequences. There is significant research that rather than prevent people from again committing a sex crime, such registries actually increase recidivism. Having your name listed on such a database makes it harder to find employment, stable housing and social connection, studies show.
“The negative consequences seem to outweigh the benefits, and we think that that would be true in domestic violence offender registries as well,” Ruth said.
Laura Ahearn, executive director of the Crime Victims Center, a nonprofit dedicated to the prevention and treatment of child sexual abuse and rape, disagrees.
“When a parent prevents their particular young child from developing a relationship with a next door neighbor who is a convicted pedophile, then one might say that could have prevented a crime, but you can’t prove the effectiveness of something when you can’t prove a negative,” said Ahearn, who supports New York legislation to establish a domestic violence registry.
That kind of legislation also needs a provision – which the New York bill has – that gives survivors the option to decline having their abuser’s name and address included in the registry, Ahearn said.
“As long as the registry is not in any way exposing a domestic violence victim to people in the community knowing it was them, then we are going to be supportive of it,” Ahearn said.
Martin, the domestic violence survivor in Missouri, also disagrees with concerns from groups like the National Network to End Domestic Violence. She recently shared a post on Facebook about a man who allegedly had a history of domestic violence and was again arrested after strangling his ex-girlfriend.
After the post, the victim, who was not named, received “the most amazing support ever”.
“I know from a lot of other people who have experienced domestic violence personally that when they had a support system around them, they had a better chance of getting out of it,” Martin said, whose partner is now a “very understanding” retired law enforcement officer.
Martin feels that the registry “puts accountability on the abuser because they are not going to want to be on that list”. Her abuser, Cendroski, was shot and killed in 2024 while invading a home.
Kentucky state representative Kim Holloway recently proposed legislation to establish a domestic violence offender registry even though she said she is “fully aware that domestic violence advocates do not support the idea of a registry, and they do have some very valid reasons”.
Holloway said she proposed the legislation because she works “for the people in my district, [and] that is what they are asking me to do”.
The bill provides an “opportunity to get survivors and advocates to the table” and “hash out their opinions on this”, she said.
“Ultimately, the survivors just want an opportunity to have a voice,” Holloway continued. “As one explained to me a couple of weeks ago, ‘If we were to have this registry in Kentucky, it would mean that I don’t have to forewarn women any more.’”
