Killings prompt effort to reduce teen dating violence

NEW YORK - She was 17 when she met her boyfriend, and 20 when she died at his hands. In between, Heather Norris tried several times to leave the relationship, which was fraught with control and abuse, before she was killed - stabbed, dismembered and discarded in trash bags.

Her death in 2007 in Indianapolis is one of several stemming from abuse in teenage dating relationships that have spurred states and communities to search for new ways to impress on adolescents - and their parents and teachers - the warning signs of dangerous dating behavior and what actions are not acceptable or healthy.

Texas recently adopted a law that requires school districts to define dating violence in school safety codes, after the 2003 stabbing death of Ortralla Mosley, 15, in a hallway of her Austin high school and the shooting death of Jennifer Ann Crecente, 18, two years ago.

In 2007, Rhode Island adopted the Lindsay Ann Burke Act - prompted by the killing of a young woman by a former boyfriend - requiring school districts to teach students in grades 7 through 12 about dating abuse.

New York recently expanded its domestic violence law to allow victims, including teenagers in dating relationships, to obtain a restraining order against an abuser in family court rather than having to seek help from the criminal justice system. Legislators were moved to act after a survey by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene showed that dating violence had risen by more than 40 percent since 1999, when the department began asking students about the problem.

Although there are no definitive national studies on the prevalence of abuse in adolescent relationships, public health research indicates that the rate of such abusive relationships has hovered around 10 percent. Specialists say the abuse appears to be increasing as more harassment, name-calling, and ridicule takes place among teenagers on the Internet and by cellphone.

"We are identifying teen dating abuse and violence more than ever," said Dr. Elizabeth Miller, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine at the University of California, Davis, who began doing research on abuse in teenage dating relationships nearly a decade ago.

Miller cited a survey last year of children ages 11 to 14 by Liz Claiborne Inc., a clothing retailer that finances teenage dating research, in which a quarter of the 1,000 respondents said they had been called names, harassed, or ridiculed by their romantic partner by phone call or text message, often between midnight and 5 a.m., when their parents are sleeping.

Such behavior often falls under the radar of parents, teachers, and counselors because adolescents are too embarrassed to admit they are being mistreated.

They can seek help from the National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline, where calls and hits to its website, loveisrespect.org, doubled in November over the previous month. Awareness of the help line has grown since it was started in early 2007.

Most of the calls come from girls, often in response to relentless texting or efforts by boys to dictate what they do or wear.

While texting that runs to 200 or 300 messages a day can be a prelude to abusive behavior, William S. Pollack, a Harvard University psychologist, said his research had found that "usually when adolescent boys get involved with girls, they fall into the societal model which we call 'macho,' where they need to show they are the ones in control."

Reacting to the killings of Heather Norris and other girls by their romantic partners, Indianapolis recently started a program to train police officers in public schools to recognize the early signs of abuse in relationships.

Last month, a group of Indianapolis organizations won a $1 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to help schools tackle the issue, part of $18 million in grants to 10 communities to help break patterns where children exposed to violence at home repeat it in their adult relationships.

Dating abuse victims, the center found, are more likely to engage in binge drinking, suicide attempts, physical fights, and sexual activity. And the rates of drug, alcohol, and tobacco use are more than twice as high in abused girls as in other girls the same age.

"Few adolescents understand what a healthy relationship looks like," Miller said.

Adolescents often mistake the excessive attention of boys as an expression of love, she said.