BeanE thank you for more information on under ground shelters.
I do have some concerns regarding shelters that operate in this way.
One is if a woman can enter them with no name, no information, dont have to give any details or even a real name and as you stated in a previous post they will set them and their children up with a new identitys, find them accommodation, find them a job, help them set up a total new life without informing anyone, my questions is, how do they know these women arent criminals, someone who has killed their spouse, harmed their child, stolen millions from their employer/ family, someone who wants to run away from debt and start a new life etc? How do they know the woman is a psychotic woman who has stolen someones baby, or trying to hide her kids from her ex just because she doesnt want him in their live?
Are these shelters legal in what they do? Are these shelters easily found? If we are looking at the scenario that this is what Gail has done, how would Gail have found such a shelter? Would this kind of shelter be the sort the LE give out numbers to?
I fully understand the need for shelters to protect and help woman who are abused and vulnerable but isnt this taking it to a dangerous level of the service being abused by women who know the system and will use it to hide from almost anything other than abuse.
Although my personal experience is Australian based I have asked questions of a dear friend who lives in Indiana who works in a womens shelter and councils abused women. I wont post her answers to my questions here as I realise she is not verified or a member but it does bring me to question the chances of Gail ending up in such a shelter.
I think nobody would argue some women in desperate situations need desperate measures to keep them safe but if it is as easy as you describe to walk in and have your whole life previous life wiped out and replaced with a new identity, then it does seem to me a system that could be to easily abused by the wrong people.
These are just thoughts that come to mind on your information and I am not questioning your expertise in this field because it is seems you have or do work in the field and I am sure you are used to people being a little alarmed that the system could help the wrong sort of women disappeared.
Let me clarify, because I think you may have misunderstood. The only reference I made to underground shelters is in the second sentence of my post. All other references were to the regular shelters - not the underground shelters.
In regard to the underground shelters, I have some really serious concerns about some of them too. It's a big issue, and we could probably fill a whole sub-forum on here discussing them.
Personally, I just don't think - for a number of reasons - that Gail went to an underground shelter. If others want to explore that as a possibility, it's certainly fine with me, but I just don't see it as enough of a possibility for me, personally, to put effort into.
I do think there's a strong possibility that Gail went to a regular shelter, and is well worth exploring.
In the regular shelters, women can enter without giving a name, or with giving a false name. A woman doesn't need to give or to have information, papers, money, clothes, job, ID, etc.
Not identifying herself or giving a false name and still getting help is a right granted by law to abused women for their safety, so that they can save their life.
Not having anything with her or available to her and still getting help is a right granted to abused women by law so that they can save their life.
It's critically important to me that women know this, so that if they're abused, and happen to read this, they won't hesitate for a second to contact a shelter for help. Women and children are murdered in just a moment of hesitation. Let's make sure abused women don't hesitate to make that call and save their life.
Yes, the system can be abused by someone who doesn't qualify for services, but that's the price we pay to save the lives of those who do need help, and it's well worth it. You just can't put a price tag on a life.
The shelter organizations do have screening processes in place to minimize abuses of the system, so believe me, there are not droves of women going to shelters to take vacations.
I have to say - again for the sake of any abused woman who may be reading - that the screening process is not difficult - you're just asked some questions - and no abused woman, or woman with abused children, should be scared of it or worried about it. The shelter workers are trained to understand that it's hard to talk about abuse, and that it's common for abused women to have been subjected to the instillation of doubt by their abuser, and the workers are trained not to exacerbate that.
Shelters exist to help abused women and children. It's the whole reason for their existence. They're not there to keep safe women from getting help. They're there to ensure that abused women and children do get help. It's important to keep that goal and mindset of shelters in mind.
Shelter workers are trained to err on the side of caution so that they don't turn away women only for that woman to leave and be murdered by her abuser.
The entire reason for the existence of shelters is to save the lives of abused women and children. They have little money, and what little they have, they definitely want to put into women and children who really need their help. They don't lose sight though - unless they're perhaps burned out or poorly trained - that their reason for existence is to save lives.
It is possible, precisely because of the goal and mindset of shelters, as well as the training the workers undergo about the nature of abuse and how to deal with the women who seek services, for a woman who is not abused to get shelter services, change her identity, and start a new life.
Nobody familiar with shelters likes it - we all want every penny to go to helping the desperate women and children who really need help. But the few who exploit the system is, when it comes down to it, a small price to pay for the lives that shelters save, and I think we'd all be more than willing to pay a lot more if we could just save more lives of women and children.
There's a fear among shelter workers - and I share that fear - of women exploiting the system and taking money and services away from women and children who really need them, especially because the shelters have so little money to begin with. For myself, most of the time, I don't even talk about that one little loophole, because of my own fear.
It's appropriate to talk about though in this case IMO because I feel that that loophole - the woman's legal right not to self-identify at shelters - is key to a very viable theory of what happened to Gail after she left her home that day. It's not common knowledge, but Gail is a very smart woman - holds a doctorate - seems to have been exploring leaving - uses the internet - had friends and acquaintances who could have told her about it - and I think she would have easily come across it and easily recognized what she could do with that information.
One more thing - regarding criminals etc - Any woman thinking about using a shelter as a means to circumvent the law - for example a fugitive or someone with a warrant out for their arrest - should know that the laws above do not apply in that sort of circumstance. Shelters are there, and the laws are there, to save the lives of abused women and children - not to help criminals circumvent the law. No free passes on that one.
