The Domestic Abuse Response Team (DART) program is a law enforcement-based crisis response team that pairs civilian advocates with police officers to respond to reported incidents of domestic violence and sexual assault. These programs provide services, such as:
- Crisis intervention
- Emergency assistance
- Court accompaniment to domestic violence victims and their family members
- Police officer training and support
Crisis response for early intervention is intended to meet several objectives, including providing victim support, promoting victim safety, facilitating prosecution of DV as a crime, and ultimately reducing the likelihood of future DV incidents, injury, or escalation in the severity of abuse.
Currently, there are eleven DART programs operating within the following LAPD divisions: 77th, Newton, Northeast, Hollywood, Rampart, Wilshire, Olympic, Southwest, Hollenbeck, Pacific and Van Nuys.
The four city-funded DART agencies are:
Children’s Institute (Rampart, Hollywood, Wilshire, and Olympic Divisions)
Domestic Abuse Center (Van Nuys Division)
Peace Over Violence (Hollenbeck and Northeast Divisions)
Project Peacemakers, Inc. (Newton, Southwest, and 77th Divisions)
The DART programs collaborate on a regular basis through their involvement in the City of Los Angeles Domestic Violence Task Force, which coordinates domestic violence policy and program development among city departments and agencies and other public and private partners. The DART programs have actively engaged in community partnerships with organizations such as Verizon Wireless Hopeline, to meet the myriad of needs that DV victims have.
Click the document to see the evaluation report of the DART program.
