NFL's new domestic violence rules too lax, advocates say

• 'Domestic violence is much more than just the hitting,' notes head of the Pace Women's Justice Center

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell gets high marks for instituting new penalties for domestic violence abuses by league employees, women's rights advocates in the Lower Hudson Valley said Friday.

But they said the new rules, announced in a letter to team owners this week, don't go far enough.

"The offense has to, from what I read, has to involve physical force," said Jane Aoyama-Martin, executive director of the Pace Women's Justice Center at Pace University in White Plains. "In some ways it's a misunderstanding of domestic violence because that's too narrow. Domestic violence is much more than just the hitting.

"The public perception of it is that you have to hit your significant other in order for it to be domestic violence," she said. "But we see cases all the time where there's no physical force. We look at it from a point of coercive control."

Goodell's announcement came in the wake of his controversial two-game suspension of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, a former standout at New Rochelle High School. Rice was indicted on third-degree assault charges, accused of knocking Janay Palmer, then his fiancee, unconscious at an Atlantic City casino on Feb. 15. A video of Rice dragging Palmer — now his wife — out of an elevator went viral, drawing international attention to the incident.

But Goodell's response, a two-game punishment, drew outrage from advocates who deemed it too lenient. In his Thursday letter to NFL owners, Goodell agreed, saying, "I didn't get it right. Simply put, we have to do better."

Women's rights advocates agree that the league, which has stiffer penalties for substance abuse, has to do better. For instance, Cleveland Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon was just suspended for one year after testing positive for marijuana. Earlier in the year Arizona Cardinals linebacker Daryl Washington was also suspended one year for marijuana.

"They have to recognize that emotional abuse is also part of power and control that leads to physical abuse," said Michael Mandel, executive director of the Rockland Family Shelter. "And it's really about having a cultural change. Not just focusing on punishment, but to focus on changing the culture."

Becca deSimone, manager of sexual assault services at Victims Assistance Services at the Westchester Community Opportunity Program, said she was pleased that the fallout from Rice's suspension "has made an impact."

"That's a very positive step in regard to acknowledging the severity of these crimes," deSimone said. "We think that preventing violence before it happens is always ideal. I think maybe five out of the six policies are very preventative, which is pretty promising in terms of really reducing the risk."

That's not to say that Goodell and the league shouldn't get credit for tacking the issue, said CarlLa Horton, executive director of Hope's Door Inc. It is, she added, a good start.

"Nothing goes far enough when it comes to victims of domestic violence," she said. "Nothing will work so long as we're reacting to what is happening. What really needs to happen is prevention of this in the first place, and the NFL can certainly play a very prominent role in being a forthcoming, forthright, up-front leader on the prevention of this."

Twitter: @jfitzgibbon