Court Watch Montgomery’s 70 volunteers are the proud winners of the Montgomery Serves Community Service Award for 2017! The award honors some of the County’s most devoted and effective volunteers. Court Watch volunteers spent more than 8,000 hours reducing domestic violence by improving how courts handle domestic violence cases. Volunteers collected detailed information on over 1,000 civil and criminal domestic violence cases in county courts. They reported their findings and recommendations to the court, policymakers and the press.
Court Watch volunteers also successfully pushed for the first county-funded center to protect domestic violence victims and their children during court-ordered visits between children and abusive parents.
In 2016 a new corps of Court Watch “Investigators” was formed to provide research beyond the courtroom on issues critical to domestic violence victim safety. Investigators read court files and use online databases to add insights to our courtroom data. For instance, how often are abusers whose criminal assault cases are not prosecuted charged with new domestic violence assaults in the following year?