SALEM - New District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett thinks domestic violence is on the rise. State Senator Fred Berry calls it a “particularly heinous” crime.

To help combat it, the two, with Help for Abused Women and Children (HAWC) Director Candace Waldron, announced last week the hope to increase the penalty for conviction dramatically.

They all support a bill Berry filed in December that would allow prosecutors to seek up to five years in state prison for persons convicted of battering a family or household member.

It would effectively double the maximum sentence of 2 ½ years in jail that offenders face. It would also make domestic assault and battery a felony, since felonies are defined in Massachusetts as crimes punishable by a state prison sentence.

“We must be able to send a clear and convincing message to domestic batterers that the price of their violent acts will be swift and severe,” Blodgett said.

“Prosecutors should be given the option of putting repeat offenders or an especially brutal abuser in state prison away from family members,” Berry added.

In 2002, Waldron said, there were 21 domestic violence-related homicides in Massachusetts - 13 women, 5 men and 3 children. More than 19 children were left without their mothers as a result, she said. Perpetrators, all of whom were male, often went on to kill themselves.

“We hope the legislature will pass this bill, that the governor will sign it, and that judges will use it,” she said.

HAWC believes the legislation, if passed, will help make more “domestic terror” victims more willing to prosecute because they will see the courts have “more force behind them,” she added.

D.A.’s office spokesman Steve O’Connell said the Essex County opened 3496 new domestic violence cases in 2000, 3696 in 2001, and 3945 last year. Some of those arrested are “serial abusers” - perpetrators who have committed the same crime against more than one victim.

HAWC’s website (www.helpabusedwomen.org) lists ways a person can know if she is, or could become, the victim of domestic violence. “Does your partner criticize you? Call you names? Get jealous easily? Disregard your thoughts and feelings? Prevent you from going to work or school? Control your finances? Prevent you from seeing your family and friends? Pressure you for sex? Hit, kick, push or choke you? Threaten to hurt or kill you or your loved ones? Scare you in any way?” it asks.

If so, women (the agency’s focus) are advised to call the agency’s hotline for help.

HAWC also has two full-time staff members who work full-time trying to prevent the violence before it happens, Waldron said.

“We are in the schools on a regular basis, educating young people who are just beginning to date about what a healthy relationship is,” she said.

She added that she hopes if the bill becomes a law, it “will be equitably applied for perpetrators of means as well as those without.”

Many people think domestic violence only affects those in lower income communities, she explained, but women from Topsfield, Boxford, Hamilton, Wenham, and other upper income communities are in HAWC’s service area.

A spokeswoman in Berry’s office said the bill, Senate 154, is in the legislature’s Criminal Justice committee, awaiting hearing date. It could be any time in the next two years, since the current legislative session just began.

If the bill is reported out favorably by the committee, it would likely go before the full legislature for a vote, though it could be sent to another committee first.

Others present to support the newly filed legislation, at the press conference announcing it, included Middleton Police Chief Paul Armitage, who is also president of the Essex County Police Chief’s Association; Salem Chief Robert St. Pierre; and Salem Mayor Stanley J. Usovicz. Peabody Chief Robert Champagne said that while he has not yet seen the bill, if it becomes a law it would help clarify a “gray area” in law enforcement. It would give police “more latitude and ability to make an arrest based on probable cause” (reasonable belief that an accused party committed a crime, as opposed to the police actually witnessing the crime), he said, and courts more latitude in sentencing

Kathe Tuttman, an assistant district attorney and director of the Family Crimes and Sexual Assault unit in Blodgett’s office, said police currently have the option to arrest on the spot for domestic assault and battery, without witnessing the incident, if the victim is assaulted by her domestic partner in her home, reports the incident, and if both parties are present.

The importance of the proposed law, she said, is the “enhanced sentencing option” it would allow prosecutors of more serious domestic violence offenders.