Domestic violence is crime

Why is it called a crime when it happens outside the home, and domestic violence when it happens inside the home?

Why is it called domestic violence? Violence is violence.

Makes no difference if you're a man, woman or child. Murder is murder. Beating someone is beating someone. One human, beating another. It's a crime and only a crime.

If I were to go outside and someone would beat on me, he or she would be prosecuted. And vice versa. It would be considered a crime.

I have been a victim of these crimes, both as an adult and as a child. And to me there is no difference. It is a crime.

It seems that calling it domestic violence gives these crimes a different viewpoint. Why, I don't know.

Coming into the home and beating on me makes no difference if he is the father, or mother or some stranger. I was beaten. It was a crime. I am a victim, and to me it makes no difference whether it happened in the home or outside the home. Makes no difference if it was a stranger or a family member.

No one has the right to beat on another human being, no matter who you are, what you are or where you come from. A crime is a crime, and I don't think there should be any less of a punishment by calling it something else.

Calling it domestic seems to make it more acceptable in the eyes of the law. The system is not equal. To me, it is a way of protecting the perpetrator, not the victim.

These laws were made to protect the men. And they still do. I say men, and I know women also abuse. I say man, only because the majority of abuse is by man, not the woman or child.

Come on, world, wake up. This has got to stop. The laws have got to change.

The laws have got to start protecting all of us, not just some.

S. LaSota

Pasadena

Danger Zone

Who are these Pollyannas who propose an investment in green space along the Gwynns Falls?

I invite them to hang out in the city's existing inventory of parks that are not clean or safe.

The planned walkway would cross one of Maryland's most impoverished, crime-ridden, zip codes, 21217.

Thugs have mugged me at gunpoint twice from the pocket park in front of my home.

The police and private security in the neighborhood are unable to catch crooks, much less keep vagrants from sleeping and defecating in the park. State office workers are not much better with their lunch-time trash.

Wake up. Baltimore City is not able to take care of what it already has.

Jenifer Stick

Baltimore

Only in America

Drugs and crime are out of control. Kids are getting a lower standard of education in schools that are overcrowded.

Social security is going down the drain. Medical and prescription costs are outrageous.

The list goes on. And then there's the president and his wife asking thousands of Americans to contribute up to $500 for their defense legal fund.

Yes, only in America.

Jeri Kochler

Baltimore

Nurse practitioners

As president of the Nurse Practitioner Association of Maryland, I was saddened and disappointed by several misconceptions in Dr. Christine A. Marino's letter (June 23) in response to the article "Expanded role sought for nurse practitioners" (June 14).

I think that Dr. Marino and I differently perceive the concept of supervision and independence in our respective fields. The decision to consult with a physician about diagnosis and treatment regimens is well within the scope of nurse practitioner practice.

It was not my intention to denigrate the role of family doctors. I focused on dispelling the common misconception that doctors supervise nurses and stressed the true collaborative nature of the M.D./N.P. relationship.

I stressed research finding that validates the credibility of the N.P. role. I was referring to the widely cited 1986 Office of Technology Assessment report that found the quality of N.P. care to be "as good or better than care provided by physicians" (within the N.P. scope of practice) and found that N.P.s had "better communications, counseling and interviewing skills than physicians have."

This was not my personal opinion nor was it an inaccurate generalization. The defensive nature of Dr. Marino's response supports my contention that physician groups are currently threatened by expansion of the nursing role.

Dr. Marino states that "nurse practitioners should not work independently of physicians . . ." Does she mean independent of clinical collaboration with a physician when the patient's health care needs are beyond the N.P.'s scope of practice? If so, I totally agree.

Does she mean every nurse practitioner's diagnosis and treatment plan needs the review and approval of an M.D. prior to implementation? If so, I disagree, as this would place an unnecessary burden on physician time and create a constipating effect on the delivery of health care.

Nurse practitioners are in their own right primary care providers who practice on their own license, and in many settings are ultimately responsible for meeting the primary care needs of their own caseload.

The Council on Graduate Medical Education estimates that it would take until the year 2040 to produce an adequate supply of primary care physicians. The responsibility for primary care must be shared.

Nurse practitioners are ready, willing and able to accept this major challenge and are eager to see barriers to practice removed.

Both professions must work together as colleagues to utilize the skills and strengths of each to meet the health care needs of our citizens.

$Janet S. Selway, C.R.N.P.

Baltimore

Exploiting children

Women panhandling with small children (Evening Sun, June 17) on the streets of Baltimore is nothing short of child abuse.

How can we tolerate these people using innocent children as pawns for their own financial gain, no matter how desperate their circumstances?

Who will speak for the tired, sick, bored, hungry, crying babies and toddlers who are dragged for hours from street corner to street corner, car to car, often past midnight?

Giving money only perpetuates this abuse. Baltimore should quickly pass an ordinance prohibiting panhandlers from bringing children with them.

Let's help these children by giving our money to homeless shelters, churches, daycare centers and soup kitchens, but not to cold-hearted panhandlers who shamelessly use them to play on our sympathies to make an extra buck.

Veronica M. Clarke

Columbia