The number of arrests and misdemeanor convictions for domestic abuse in Hawaii have dropped substantially in recent years, but some victims’ advocates say the trend actually reflects a safety net that is failing abused women.

Declines of more than a third have been reported statewide for arrests and misdemeanor convictions under Hawaii’s main abuse statute, according to statistics from 2000 through 2009 compiled and recently released by the state Attorney General’s Office.

Yet calls to domestic violence shelters and requests for court protective orders have jumped dramatically over the same 10-year period, the data show. Use of shelter beds also is up.

The contrasting picture suggested by the numbers underscores what victims and their advocates say are two diverging trends: battered women are continuing to lose faith in Hawaii’s criminal justice system, often not reporting beatings, even as the abuse problem statewide worsens and the need for services grows.

Underlying both trends is a shortage of funding, contributing to pressures on the system to hold abusers accountable and handicapping agencies already struggling to help thousands of victims who suffer annually, often in silence. Many agencies have been forced to cut staff or services or both.

Women Helping Women on Maui, for instance, has laid off case managers, a deputy director and other staff and eliminated a children’s program that each year served roughly 200 kids exposed to domestic violence. At the same time, the nonprofit organization’s shelter — the only one on Maui — last year recorded its highest bed use ever.

At a statewide legal services program, 95 requests for assistance went unmet in a single day because of staffing shortages.

A woman who called a local shelter seeking refuge was told she had to get to the shelter on her own because the worker who took the call was the only staff member there and couldn’t leave the facility unattended.

If the funding situation doesn’t improve, gaps in the safety net will become more severe, worsening the existing crisis, advocates warn.

"It’s a recipe for disaster," said Avis Kalama, executive director of the Windward Spouse Abuse Shelter, who says the economic environment is the worst she’s seen in her 20 years in the field.

"Right now, I’m struggling to even find staff to cover a shift tomorrow," Denby Toci, manager of a Hilo shelter, said in an interview last week.

The demand for services has increased even as domestic abuse calls to police fell 37 percent, arrests dropped 39 percent and misdemeanor convictions under the abuse statute declined 38 percent over the past decade, according to the state data.

Victims and advocates told the Star-Advertiser that many abused women are reluctant to involve the police and the courts, partly for cultural reasons and partly because those who did so often found that their situations didn’t improve and frequently became worse. Many said the abusers are not held sufficiently accountable.

Kehau, a 28-year-old single mother of two, said she experienced that very outcome in dealing with an abusive boyfriend in California. She called police four of the five times he beat her, but other than a week in jail, he suffered no consequences and the violence intensified, even after they broke up, Kehau said. She asked that her last name not be used for fear he might retaliate.

After the fifth beating in July, Kehau immediately fled to Hawaii, where she’s from, and with her two daughters moved in with her parents. But when her ex-boyfriend started calling her there, threatening to track her down and warning, "If I can’t have you, no one will," she moved into an Oahu shelter, where she was interviewed last week.

Kehau explained her abrupt departure from California this way: "I didn’t want to end up dead. I fled for my life."

As in most other places, domestic violence in Hawaii is considered a vastly underreported problem — and one that is difficult to resolve because of the complicated dynamics typically involving each case. Abuse victims often are reluctant to contact authorities and sometimes don’t even confide in family or friends out of shame, fear of retaliation, concern for losing their means of financial support or other factors. If they do report the abuse to authorities, they sometimes will recant, complicating the prosecution of such cases.

Because of the underreporting, determining just how widespread domestic abuse is in Hawaii is difficult. But those who deal with the problem on a regular basis say it is pervasive and affects people from all walks of life, regardless of income, ethnicity, age or geographic area. Even though women predominantly are the victims, men can suffer abuse at the hands of their spouses or partners as well.

The reluctance of many victims to turn to authorities has emerged as a common theme in an ongoing project by the Domestic Violence Action Center, which is examining how abuse is affecting Filipino and Native Hawaiian women and girls on the Leeward Coast. A grant is funding the work.

The abused typically turn to friends, family, neighbors or their churches before they even consider calling the police, according to Cindy Spencer, vice president of survivor and community programs for the center.

Those who have turned to authorities consistently told the center they often were made to feel stupid, were accused of making things up or felt judged for not leaving the abuser. The women mentioned having to endure a lengthy court process — often having to take off time from work — for an outcome that usually made the abusive situation no better and frequently made it worse, Spencer said.

Charlene Baker, a University of Hawaii associate professor of psychology, said her research has identified multiple gaps in Hawaii’s criminal justice system based on more than 300 interviews of people who deal with domestic violence victims and their families.

Gaps in legal services, a lack of alternatives to a western justice system, police apathy, court system barriers, the need for harsher consequences for perpetrators and police training and understaffing were the most commonly mentioned issues, according to Baker.

The research results tend to support the notion that victims are reluctant to report their abuse to authorities, she added. "What this shows me is that women are looking for other ways to try to get out of the abuse."

Keith Kaneshiro, who took office as the city’s top prosecutor last year, said he has made domestic violence cases a priority and has instituted changes that he hopes will help provide long-term solutions and eventually make victims more comfortable working with the criminal justice system.

"What we’ve been doing, even though we provide services, was really not working," Kaneshiro said of practices in previous years.

Kaneshiro said he has expanded the office’s domestic violence unit, assigned deputies to work in the unit exclusively and instituted more training, recognizing that unique factors, such as a tendency for victims to recant their allegations, make prosecuting the cases more difficult.

Even when victims recant what they told police, prosecutors will pursue cases to send the message that abusers must be held accountable for their actions, Kaneshiro said.

He also said his office is pushing for the development of a so-called Family Justice Center, where domestic violence services are under one roof, and that also has long-term housing for abuse victims. The idea behind the housing component is to allow for long-term stays so the victim is able to immediately leave the abusive environment and work toward gaining financial independence and enhanced self-esteem. Stays at short-term shelters generally are limited to one to two months.

With the support of City Council Chairman Ernest Martin and others, a two-story city building on the edge of downtown has been identified as a potential site and would house service agencies on the first floor and 16 apartments on the second, Kaneshiro said. But the project is not a done deal and, among other things, needs money for planning and renovation.

Maj. Richard Robinson, commander of Honolulu police’s Criminal Investigation Division, said his agency was encouraged by the decrease in domestic violence incidents over the past decade.

"We continue to work toward eliminating it completely," Robinson wrote in a statement. "There are likely multiple factors contributing to the decrease in DV cases and arrests, including ongoing education and community awareness efforts; vigorous enforcement, investigation and prosecution; and court-imposed penalties."

While Kaneshiro and others said the decline in misdemeanor abuse convictions seems to accurately reflect what is happening, Judiciary spokeswoman Marsha Kitagawa noted that the numbers compiled by the AG’s office do not include felony abuse convictions.

She provided the newspaper with data that showed no significant drop in convictions for the three-year period that ended in August. In the first year, 111 cases ended in convictions, followed by 126 the next year and 118 the next.

Kitagawa also noted that more than a third of the cases terminated in the three years took less than three months to resolve and roughly two-thirds wrapped up within six months — even as the Judiciary was dealing with court closures due to employee furloughs.

To highlight the efforts of the Judiciary to address domestic violence issues, Kitagawa said three courtrooms on Oahu are dedicated to domestic abuse cases — the only crime to have its own courtrooms. Among other things, she also said the Judiciary has sponsored four training programs this year focusing exclusively on domestic violence, and one was a mandatory two-day program for all state judges.

Despite such efforts, advocates for domestic violence victims worry that the existing budget crisis will continue to worsen, resulting in further cuts in services. They said abused women increasingly will become isolated, contributing to the continued cycle of violence.

"It’s just been devastating," said Stacey Moniz, executive director of Women Helping Women, which is facing a roughly 50 percent cut this year in the main funding for its shelter. "In the 17 years I’ve been with the agency, this is truly the biggest crisis we’ve faced."

Added Veronika Geronimo, interim executive director of the Hawaii State Coalition Against Domestic Violence: "There’s not much of a safety net left for survivors."