Williamson County Divorce Law Blog

The focus of a partisan dispute in Congress is on an 18-year-old domestic violence law, the Violence Against Women Act. The Act funds dozens of programs in Tennessee, including one running a crisis hotline for domestic violence victims and providing transitional housing by subsidizing rent.

In 2009, the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center and the University of Tennessee Martin each received nearly $300,000 to increase awareness on campus about dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. In fact, both schools utilized the grant money to ensure students and staff members receive special training as soon as they arrive on campus. UT Martin has also dedicated an office to deal specifically with these issues.

Young newlyweds in Tennessee or elsewhere are rarely likely to give much thought to what will happen to their assets in the event of a divorce. This is one reason why a divorce can be such an emotionally challenging and frightening experience; suddenly each spouse is trying to lay claim to everything from the car, the house, the iPad, right down to the dusty old VHS movie collection. Property division can become especially fraught, however, when the young spouses both happen to be multi-millionaire celebrities.

Russell Brand, award-winning British comedian and actor, and Katy Perry, award-winning pop singer and actress, wed in October of 2010 India. They purchased a number of lavish homes together, including a seven-bedroom Hollywood Hills home valued at $6.5 million and a two-bedroom penthouse in New York City for $2.68 million. With no prenuptial agreement, however, speculation ran wild about how the couple would divide their assets after Brand filed for divorce after just 14 months of marriage.

This legislative session, the public safety bill discussing the mandatory minimum jail time it introduces for batterers has been a hot topic in Tennessee. However, domestic violence experts are not certain it will be enough to deter assault.

Domestic violence experts advocate the introduction of a mandatory treatment program in the form of a batterers program. Several other jurisdictions in the United States have implemented such programs for a first offense, but only 32 counties out of 95 in Tennessee have state-certified batterer intervention programs. An intervention program would deal with issues of anger, control and power, similar to those implemented under DUI laws.

Williamson County readers may be surprised to hear that Tennessee has one of the highest rates of violent crimes: it ranks fourth in the country. And an unfortunate fact is that more than half of reported crimes against residents of Tennessee are domestic violence crimes.

Thankfully, lawmakers are cognizant of the escalating crime situation in the state. Combining input from more than 300 public safety professionals, legislation has been proposed in order to deal with drug trafficking, violent crime and repeat offenders.