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Katy Peterson says the first 36 hours after an abuser is arrested are often the scariest for a domestic violence victim.

"They start doubting themselves and fear the repercussions of what they've done," said Peterson, executive director of the Dove Center, a domestic violence shelter in St. George.

And if there is any delay in getting a protective order in place — which is likely if an arrest happens at night or on a weekend, when courts are closed — those are the hours when an abuser often tries to manipulate a victim through repeated telephone harassment, even from behind bars.

The gap is closed once an alleged abuser bails out of jail and is given a no-contact order, designed to give a victim enough time to get a temporary protective order.

"Until that no-contact order or no-release order is in place, there is nothing we [can] do about it," said Shauna Jones, patrol division chief for the Washington County Sheriff's Office.

That bill will change in May when a Bill Gov. Gary Herbert signed Monday closes the gap. HB374, passed this session by the Utah Legislature, will make it a class B misdemeanor for an alleged abuser to contact a victim after being arrested and while detained in jail.

Individuals have free access to phones in most booking areas and can place collect calls or use pre-paid cards to make calls from general-use phones on jail floors unless the number is blocked.

Jones said deputies often complain that alleged abusers contact a victim to make more threats, ask for help bailing out of jail or pressure them to drop charges.

"The victims were often too afraid to say no," Jones said.

Sometimes, an alleged abuser would call relatives or a bail bond company and get them to contact a victim directly.

Jones approached Rep. Brad Last, R-Hurricane, about the problem just before the start of the 2011 session and he quickly crafted the bill, which easily moved through the Legislature.

"It will solve a lot of issues we were having from the jail standpoint in stopping that domestic violence even after an arrest," Jones said.

Under the new law, an alleged abuser will be handed a no-contact order when booked into jail and before being given access to a telephone.

"This gives time to get the protective order in place and to get a perpetrator to court," Peterson said.

But making it stick will require prosecutors to be aggressive in going after violators. Among those who have taken a strong stance in charging alleged abusers who violated protective orders: West Valley City.

The city went after one man who made 15 threatening calls, charging him with tampering with a witness, and another who called his victim 45 times. The record was set by a man who made 80 calls to his victim while awaiting trial.

"It's very common that they make these calls from jail even when a protective order is in place," said Ryan Robinson, West Valley City's chief prosecutor. "With our difficult cases, where people are repeat offenders and we notice reluctance on the part of the victim to participate in the process, we often look to jail tapes [of telephone calls] to see if the suspect is threatening or otherwise tampering with the victim."

"What we find more often than not is that they are," Robinson said.

Last year, one abuser called his girlfriend and his mother, a witness in the case, 15 times over 15 days to beg them to not participate in the case, according to court documents.

The girlfriend had finally found the courage to report the abuse after landing in the hospital, her body covered with bruises and bite marks and a rib possibly broken. It took law officers months to locate and arrest her boyfriend, and despite the protective order in place, he began harassing his victim.

"If you don't come, I get out this week," he told her in one call. "If your girl don't show up, they drop the charges. Make sure you just stay home or go to work or whatever. Don't even go to court and mess everything up. Don't go. You don't need to testify."

He put it even more simply to his mother, who was a witness.

"No witness. No case," he said.