the crime of domestic violence destroys families it devastates children it results in victimization physical and emotional injur injury and all too often death today too many families in Florida are affected daily by domestic violence and related crimes in way too many situations the home is no longer a safe place it's an environment of abuse and fear this operation Operation Safe families set out to Target two classes of fugitives first those who had outstanding warrants for domestic violence related crimes and second those who had what are called rits of bodily attachment for non-payment of Child Support or commonly referred to as deadbeat dads across the state 33 Sheriff's offices join the effort the monthlong initiative which ran from October 13th through November 9th resulted in over 5,500 arrests we know that domestic violence impacts the lives of counselors families and innocent children and besides the immediate pain and emotional trauma often caused by domestic violence I'm greatly concerned because it's a cycle of behavior that's passed from generation to generation the domestic violence we report today will impact the growth and development of our next Generation our children we can break that cycle by working together the operation was twofold one is to get people off the street who had exist warrants for domestic violence related crimes but also to keep this issue at the Forefront this is an issue and I you know SED you some statistics going back into the 90s and look how bad they were then this is a problem it's a societal problem that well there's a lot of effort being made and we're making progress It's still a very very serious problem for the community and it will be until uh something happens to to try and uh change this behavior and never going to solve it it's never going to go away but we need to keep it at the Forefront so everybody's aware of it