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Local police dealing with increase of fighting

Domestic violence on the rise among BYU-I students

Adam Clark CLA01010@BYUI.EDU Scroll Staff

Reports of domestic violence involving married BYU-Idaho students are increasing.

Capt. Randy Lewis of the Rexburg Police Department reported an increase in the last few years of calls for domestic violence in marriages, particularly among students enrolled at BYU-I.

“We’ve had some real serious ones where children and babies get hurt because of the violence,” he said.

Lewis said most of the problems stem from people not being ready for marriage or from a lack of communication.

“We’ve found a lot of times these thing can be prevented,” he said. “They haven’t learned how to live with someone yet. … Husbands and wives need to listen to each other.”

Lewis also reported there are as many cases of wife-against-husband violence as there is violence from husband to wife.

“Women are just as likely to commit battery. The traditional thinking is that men are these big, rough, macho guys, but just as often it’s the woman who attacks the husband,” Lewis said. Lewis also said that the women usually don’t do as much damage as the men do when they hit back, but it shows that both sides are part of the problem.

Lewis said the frequency of incidences increases during tax time and Christmas, when the stress is high and spouses tend to take it out on each other.

“If there’s battery involved,” Lewis said, “it just ruins their lives with probation and fines.”

The Rexburg Police Department reported that rates of violence between single roommates is fairly steady.

“It happens,” Lewis said. “We might get called to deal with it once or twice a month — usually less.”

On campus, the number of incidents is even less. The BYU-I division of the Rexburg Police Department reported 17 incidents of assault/violence in the last three years.

“They tend to happen more towards the end of the semester when roommates are just worn out and sick of each other,” said Cpl. Billy Plank, an officer with the university.

Dave Duerden, faculty in the Department of Home and Family, said violence between roommates and in marriages comes from poor relationship skills, such as competition and possessiveness, which we learn from our siblings and then bring with us to college.

“I’m not too discouraged,” Duerden said. “But if we had better skills in communication and conflict resolution, and if we were really living the gospel, we would have less of this problem.”

While violence in marriages is increasing among students, Lewis said it isn’t a crisis. It is likely that the increase in incidents is directly related to the overall increase in married students since BYU-I became a four-year university.

“Compared to Provo and other colleges, when we look at the number of crimes committed by the students, BYU-I is at the bottom of the list,” Lewis said. “We’re lucky to have this quality of students.”

Lewis said BYU-I students create fewer problems than would normally be expected in a college town. He attributed this to the guidance of the students’ spiritual leaders and the Honor Code.