The New York State Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence is a New York state government agency within the Executive Department[1] created in 1992 tasked to help New York state residents deal with domestic violence in their lives and those of their friends, family, neighbors, and acquaintances in the state.[2] Its current executive director is Kelli Owens.[3]
The office played an important role in the passage of the state's strangulation law in 2010 which classifies the intent to kill with that method of harm as a felony: If an offender releases their grip within a certain period of time, there is usually no evidence what transpired. Then-executive director Amy Barash expressed in 2013, when asked about progress up to then: "The number of homicides has gone down over the past twenty-five years.... A lot of the legal progress is due to the federal Violence Against Women Act.