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This Former Chicago Cop Wants To Change How Hotels Handle Domestic Violence

By Linze Rice | September 8, 2016 8:21am
 Cynthia Schumann is a former Chicago Police officer and professor at National Louis University and said she is trying to change corporate culture when it comes to family violence and workplace violence.
Cynthia Schumann is a former Chicago Police officer and professor at National Louis University and said she is trying to change corporate culture when it comes to family violence and workplace violence.
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DNAinfo/Linze Rice

EDGEWATER — After 29 years on the job as a Chicago Police officer, Edgewater resident Cynthia Schumann is directing her passion for criminal justice toward a subject she said others too often turn a blind eye to: domestic and family violence. 

Schumann, who is also a part-time professor at National Louis University, recently launched a professional training model specifically designed for hotels and other lodging places to educate employers and workers on issues related to relationship violence. Those issues include violence in the workplace or in public, how to help guests who are victims of violence and the liabilities employers face according to Illinois labor laws.

"Just because you're traveling doesn't mean domestic violence issues get left at home. They travel with the victim, they travel with the abuser," Schumann said. "And we have seen that places of business where personal violence has occurred, lack of domestic violence training has been cited time and again."

About every one in four women and one in seven men will be victims of some form of relationship violence, a statistic true for both straight and gay couples, Schumann said. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence sharpens that number to one in three women and one in four men in 2014 when it came to Illinois.

In 2014, 65,800 calls for service regarding intimate partner violence were received by police in Illinois (with more unreported), the coalition says. 

Also in 2014, the U.S. economy suffered a more than $8 billion blow, mostly in productivity loss, health care costs, missed work days and more directly due to domestic violence, the Corporate Alliance To End Partner Violence reported.

A cursory look around the internet will yield complaints from travelers of "domestic violence not taken seriously" when reviewing hotels and haunting Reddit "tales from the front desk."  

With such a high prevalence, Schumann said it's "impossible" for most workplaces and employers not to be affected in some way by domestic violence. 

Her efforts working with hotels is in part an extension of the work she did as a CAPS sergeant in the Near North Side Police District before she retired in May.

Eventually she and the police's Domestic Violence Coordinator teamed up with officers in the district, asking the pair to respond to calls for service and provide domestic violence trainings at hotels. 

Seeing few such trainings existed, Schumann decided to make her own.

"We started to do some trainings around Illinois law for domestic violence and employment, and we found that most places, regardless if it's lodging, were completely unaware of the mandates required by the state of Illinois," she said.

Schumann's course can be taken online or in-person and educates hotel staffs on how to recognize signs of employees being abused and potential threats to the work environment, goes over important state and federal laws regarding violence and protection and helps give hotels the tools they need to properly assist guests in need of help.

Among two of her biggest barriers so has been the longstanding cultural idea that domestic violence is a "personal" disturbance "within the family" that outsiders think is none of their business, Schumann said, as well as a corporate atmosphere that would rather not draw attention to the fact the hotel industry is a complicated crossroads between public and personal violence.

Though relationship violence often happens between people who know each other, it often spills over into the workplace.

Among some of the top places for violent acts in recent public have been hotels, restaurants, malls, theaters and schools, Schumann said.

Schumann counters that not only is it in fact a good PR strategy for hotel brands to embrace domestic violence training to show the public they're committed to safety, it's also their legal duty to protect employees.

"Illinois is one of the most progressive states in its domestic violence laws, and also one of the most comprehensive states in terms of employment law," Schumann said. 

Employees are protected under provisions including laws like the Victim Economic Safety and Security Act, Workplace Violence Prevention Act, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Health Care Workplace Violence Prevention Act and Illinois Domestic Violence Act of 1986.

Under Illinois law, employers are able to file an order of protection against abusers, with most confrontations occurring between two guests, two staff members, a staff member and outside person they have a relationship with and members of the public who are otherwise strangers, Schumann said.

Unique workplaces like hotels also double as public spaces, and knowing the red flags of guests or employees who could be victims of violence can help prevent the public at-large, she said. 

When it comes to looking for signs among staff members, Schumann said abuse can happen in many forms — financial, physical, mental, emotional and more — and are manifested in behaviors like absenteeism, low productivity, getting harassing phone calls or visits at the workplace, stalking and more. 

It's an "uncomfortable" topic for many, employers and victims included, but one that Schumann said must get more attention.

In the past, some groups have advocated for hotel workers trained in domestic violence to wear purple ribbons or signifiers to victims can easily identify them as a resource, while other organizations have raised money to pay for hotel rooms for victims fleeing violence.

"A person doesn't just snap overnight, there's a process that brings that person to that place," Schumann said. "When we're looking at reducing or mitigating potential acts of violence in public places, so too are those warning signs ... you can never predict an act of violence, but if you knowing what some of the warning signs are would certainly help to reduce violence if you know what to look for and are willing to ask questions."

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