https://forward.com/news/470033/for-orthodox-brooklyns-private-police-a-code-of-silence-hides-domestic/
New York’s Community District 12, which covers the Borough Park
neighborhood of Brooklyn, has by far the city’s lowest reported rate of
domestic violence: 459 incidents per 100,000 residents in the most
recent year the police department has published data.
But that doesn’t mean the largely Haredi community does not have a
domestic violence problem. In fact, an analysis of crime data and court
records, coupled with interviews of abuse victims, social workers,
police officers and experts, show that the low rate instead reflects a
code of silence in the insular religious enclave — and, until recently,
a longstanding — if unwritten — agreement between the authorities and
Orthodox leaders to let the community handle the problem internally.
“In Borough Park they like things taken care of in-house,” said Yael
Machtinger, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who
studies domestic violence in religious communities. “It’s definitely
part of the culture that they don’t really want to be airing out their
dirty laundry.”
