But beating women is not:
Last night, in between approving city expenditures and other routine agenda items, the Topeka, Kansas City Council debated one rather controversial one: decriminalizing domestic violence.
Here’s what happened: Last month, the Shawnee County District Attorney’s office, facing a 10% budget cut, announced that the county would no longer be prosecuting misdemeanors, including domestic violence cases, at the county level. Finding those cases suddenly dumped on the city and lacking resources of their own, the Topeka City Council is now considering repealing the part of the city code that bans domestic battery. […]
Since the county stopped prosecuting the crimes on September 8th, it has turned back 30 domestic violence cases. Sixteen people have been arrested for misdemeanor domestic battery and then released from the county jail after charges weren’t filed. “Letting abusive partners out of jail with no consequences puts victims in incredibly dangerous positions,” said Becky Dickinson of the YWCA. “The abuser will often become more violent in an attempt to regain control.”
Welcome to the conservative vision for America.
How much do you want to bet they are still fully funding criminal prosecutions for possession and other minor drug crimes?
singfoom
Jesus, does my home state do a good job of being a national laughingstock.
I can hear the trolls now: “If those women didn’t want to get beat, they would have respected their husbands more.”
Isn’t there something they can do to challenge the fact that charges aren’t filed? Seems like an attorney could make a big deal out of this, that his clients suffered continued abuse because the county declined to file charges for what is a crime.
Rabble Arouser
Way to prioritize, people!
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Feature, not bug, etc.
Face it, no matter who wins what in 2012, this shit is just going to expand because, for the GOP, it fucking works. They already own the country fucking wholesale state level, all that’s left is to see how long they unravel everything because they fucking can and people fucking love them for it as long as they, specifically, don’t get fucked over by them more than once…maybe twice.
JGabriel
Shorter Topeka KS City Council:
This is appalling.
.
Gus diZerega
Contemporary conservatism need to be identified for what it is: a disgusting amalgamation of sociopathic narcissism with nihilism.
Zifnab25
That’s no bug. That’s a feature.
Ash Can
It’s sad to see this once-great nation in a race to the bottom.
James Gary
What do you expect from a movement that uses beyond-creepy metaphors like “drown government in the bathtub?”
PeakVT
I need to start buying outrage meters in bulk.
schrodinger's cat
If the Republicans are so bad, and I am not arguing that they are not, why do they keep getting elected again and again.
Kinda off topic but off late I have noticed a meme among the slightly less obnoxious conservative writers (Bobo, Sully and their ilk) arguing about the end of innovation (or at least at the end of American innovation) pimping the ideas of crazy person with lots of money Peter Thiel.
Comrade Mary
Jesus.
So can a woman still ask for generic assault and battery charges to be laid? What additional protections are lost with this change? Does this mean that cops can no longer bring charges on their own if the victim is too scared or resistant to do it herself?
kindness
Or going after abortion physicians.
Cris (without an H)
Because they won’t take your guns away.
Brian S
I posted a piece on this on The Rumpus on Saturday and a slightly irate commenter popped up to point out that felony domestic abuse cases are still being prosecuted. It’s only the misdemeanor cases that are being affected. As if that somehow mitigates the fucked-upped-ness of the whole situation.
Martin
Hmm. Someone advise on comma usage here:
It’s correct, but given that Kansas City is equally a place, it took about 3 reads before I could figure it out. “City Council for Topeka, Kansas” perhaps?
eemom
Cole, you really ought to throw that asshole out for #13.
Cris (without an H)
Actually, I’ll take that bet. They say they’re not prosecuting misdemeanors, period. Let’s see what the data says. Of course, I can’t be bothered to seek out the data. Doesn’t burnsbbqesq do that for us?
Elie
@jwest:
Well, one good thing about the republicans — there are plenty of guns.
I nominate YOU as the first target practice. What is it, first aim at the chest, then the head — or is it the other way around?
JGabriel
@jwest:
And I could go along with guillotining conservative males.
I’d rather start with Ailes and C. Koch, but if you’re volunteering…
.
SiubhanDuinne
@eemom:
Seconded. That’s in no way amusing or the least bit appropriate.
chopper
you gotta remember, 30% of this country carries around The Handmaid’s Tale as if it were the Little Red Book.
piratedan
agree with eemom, just what does that “commenter” really bring to the table? I’m sure that there are some flies somewhere they can be pulling the wings off of.
trollhattan
This should serve as a warning to the women of Kansas to stop hurting their husbands’ fists with their faces.
lacp
We really are swirling down through the porcelain bowl, aren’t we? It seems to be passing the point where we can stop before becoming Afghanistan or Somalia.
TuiMel
@jwest:
Gee, tough guy, I guess this tells us all we need to know about you (as if we did not know it before). Puff out your chest and feel proud about that one, coward.
Napoleon
OK this is really creepy. The ad at the top is for checking to see if your criminal record is on line and they are using a picture of a guy convited here in Cleveland a few months ago of luring women into his house then beating them up, killing them and hiding their bodies all over the house and yard.
Southern Beale
I read about this the other day and my first thought was: THIS is proof that all liberal concerns are connected. THIS is why when people say Occupy Wall Street “needs focus” I think no. IT IS ALL CONNECTED, people. Feminist issues, GLBT issues, racism, environmental justice, workplace justice .. it’s all, at its root, connected.
Napoleon
PS, the guys name is Anthony Sowell.
cleek
@piratedan:
lots and lots of pie
lawguy
So why not simple assualt? Anyone who is guilty of domesitc violence is also guilty of assualt. Do they no longer prosecute any assualt cases? Of have they singled out women and children (again) to deny services to?
I’ve been practicing law for decades and I remember when the push was on for a separate domestic law in Ohio. It wasn’t so much that there were more severe penalities in a DV case, but that it put the cops on notice that the state thought that this was a real crime and they needed to enforce the laws no matter who the victims were.
billo
Folks like jwest who talk about it would never do it. As soon as they see a woman they run away.
Ash Can
@eemom: Thirded. This is over the line.
bkny
IRANIRANIRANIRANIRAN….
hopey looking for a way to do israel’s bidding to attack iran…
Warren Terra
Dear Mr. Cole,
There is no such thing as a “minor” drug crime. I learned this at the District Attorneys’ Drug-Abuse Convention.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen
ET
Wow. Just wow. Guess violence against women will only count when they are dead….
But hey, I am sure they wills till go after pot smokers.
Ben Cisco
Who set out the damned troll chow?
schrodinger's cat
@eemom: I agree. To see just how obnoxious the original statement is replace woman with any
minority.
JGabriel
@lawguy:
The latter. The article makes it clear that some people (*cough*Republicans*cough*) think it is too expensive to prosecute DV cases.
So, if a man batters his wife or kids, Topeka gives him a pass. If he batters a rich Republican, no expense will be spared to put him behind bars — unless, of course, the rich Republican is his wife.
.
Ash Can
@lawguy: I’m not too confident that a city council that would even take the idea of decriminalizing domestic abuse seriously would feel any need to reclassify it as assault.
billo
Jwest would never actually hit a woman, it’d be too busy running away.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Family Values courtesy of the Randian TalEvan. Women who want protection from assholes should just shell out the cash for personal body guards or StFu. (And don’t you dare go to the E/R for treatment unless you’ve got insurance.)
Jesus. So what the fuck are the cops telling the victims, “Sorry. Call us when he breaks a couple of bones”?
anna missed
For all those who think the poor right votes against their own best interests, this kind of legislation should dispel that notion. This is a pristine example of nativist/white/male authoritarian power being reasserted as government mediation is displaced by regressive culture. To these folks, the newly re-won license to beat (or threaten to beat)loved ones back into submission to authority is a huge win.
Citizen Alan
@jwest:
Well personally, I’m always glad to see you post here, jwest, because I’d rather see you trolling liberal blogs than out molesting the neighborhood children, which is what I imagine your other hobby probably is.
JGabriel
@schrodinger’s cat:
That’s really not necessary. The ugliness of JWest’s statement is evident to the meanest intelligence on first reading in its unadulterated form.
.
Cris (without an H)
They do that anyway.
schrodinger's cat
@JGabriel: You are probably right.
burnspbesq
@chopper:
You beat me to it. When did that book become an instruction manual?
trollhattan
@JGabriel:
Given that BOB’s initial banhammering resulted from his opining slavery was more ennobling than welfare, I can see this bile doing the trick.
I’ll miss jwest this much [holds up micrometer set to 1/1000 inch].
burnspbesq
jwest is sitting in his Fortress of Misanthropy, covered in Cheeto dust and spilled Mountain Dew Code Red, laughing at y’all because you took the bait.
The best way to beat the little fuck is to ignore him.
Yes, I know that I have been as guilty as anyone else. But I have seen the light and repented.
Never again.
rikryah
I read yesterday of a place in Georgia that wants to use CONVICTS to staff THE FIRE DEPARTMENT.
CONVICTS.
SO, if you’re a woman and get your ass beat here – you’re shyt outta luck.
and, if your house catches on fire in that place in Georgia – well, hope you have insurance.
THIS IS THE CONSERVATIVE VERSION OF AMERICA.
Napoleon
@Ash Can:
What he is saying is that it is already an assult. That is the reason many oppose laws like the DV law (a postion I personally am friendly to). Its a law in response to a problem already dealt with with other laws. At most what they should be doing is using the DV angle as a factor in the sentencing stage.
lacp
@rikryah: I think there are a fair number of places that allow convicts to help fight forest fires, but I’m pretty sure that’s voluntary. Hadn’t heard about this – could you dig up a link? Thanks.
Cris (without an H)
I’m kind of intrigued by that. Beats making license plates, and it sounds like a good way to instill experience performing a true community service (as long as they aren’t rifling through your jewelry box while the kitchen burns).
ETA: Of course, I (like you) recoil at this suggestion because it’s presented as a “cost saving” measure, one more indication that Republicans are objectively pro-slavery.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Warren Terra:
See also: Reefer Madness
Amir Khalid
@Martin:
Does that work for you?
Meg
So is beating people up still a crime in Topeka?
If so, why does it stop being a crime when it becomes domestic?
FoxinSocks
I’m posting in this thread because I’m afraid it’ll be missed in the older thread. Called both my Dem senators to make sure they were voting for the Jobs Bill, then called Senator Manchin up. Got a busy signal, then sent to his mailbox, which was full, then another busy signal.
Finally reached a very nice young man. I said, “Senator Manchin’s supporting the jobs bill, yes?” Was told he was undecided and that he wasn’t sure stimulus worked the first time. I quickly pointed out that I have a job thanks to the stimulus, so it worked and I was expecting the senator to support the bill, since the economy was still terrible.
I’m not hopeful, but keep calling! Put pressure on these guys.
eemom
OT: Protesters arrested at the Senate.
Occupy folks mixing it up with anti-war protesters. That is not a good thing, imo.
Cris (without an H)
@lacp: Ga. county looks to inmates to fight fires
schrodinger's cat
@Meg: Because God says it is OK for husbands to beat their wives or something like that.
I am kidding of course, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some so called religious people really buy that argument.
Amir Khalid
I agree that comment #13 is unspeakably vile, part of a persistent pattern by the commenter, who should be banned.
Redshift
The really sad thing (well, another really sad thing) is how pervasive the attitude of “we can’t do that because there’s no money” has become in this country. I live in one of the wealthiest counties in the country, represented locally mostly be Democrats, but they’re still so terrified of even hinting at raising taxes that in the face of federal and state funding cuts, all we hear is “we can’t do that because there’s no money.”
We’re somewhat screwed because by state law, we only have property taxes locally, but even so, when the housing bubble went up, they cut the property tax rate to keep people’s taxes pretty much the same, and when housing crashed, they raised the rate but not enough to balance the drop.
What is it going to take for Democrats to forcefully take on “we’re broke” and “there’s no money”? They gave the money in tax cuts to rich people. There was money for that. Our response should always be “do you think it’s better for money to go to the rich than to keep bridges from falling down? Than keeping people from being homeless? Than enforcing the law?”
The Right wins the fight about taxes when they make it only about taxes. The answer to that is to talk about what we need and what we get, and demand to know if they think we shouldn’t have those things, or we should just pretend we don’t have to pay for them.
PeakVT
@rikryah: FSM, that’s crazy. I’m all for training as many inmates as possible for a real-world job, but putting them in a position of trust that normally pays well?
Why did bin Laden attack America with jets? He should have just set up a conservative think tank.
Linda Featheringill
Shit. Fuck. Damn.
Sigh.
Napoleon
@eemom:
I read somewhere that a group of the code pink wackos were involved in the one at the Smithoneon. I bet its the same think here. They see OWS getting press so now they are pulling their same old tiresome shananegens but now claiming they are part of OWS.
Meg
Would they also close their eyes if a wife chop off her husband’s weewee?
kay
@Napoleon:
It really isn’t, Napoleon, because it plays a huge role in juvenile abuse, neglect and dependency actions, and never-married parentage actions in juvenile court.
There’s really and truly a difference between violence within a “household” and simple assault. The two things are handled completely differently. The whole point of the laws was that kids and the adult victim didn’t report, or the adult victim didn’t report the risk to kids. A kid in Ohio can be removed from a household where there is DV, whether or not the kid is the direct victim. The DV gives the state cause to go in.
EconWatcher
Slightly OT, but speaking of misplaced priorities in law enforcement—I recently ran into an old college buddy that I had not seen in several decades, who is now a judge. (I had to suppress a laugh when I found out, because if you knew about this guy’s antics in college, his becoming a judge is funny on the order of John Blutarsky later becoming a U.S. Senator…)
Anyway, this guy is a pretty conservative Republican, but I was gratified to hear him express outrage about the number of petty marijuana cases the police bring him, almost all against black defendants. He said the police will literally scrape floormats after a vehicle stop, looking for any trace to support charges. My friend says he always imposes the lowest fine allowed and sends the defendants on their way.
Cris (without an H)
Holy crap, I never saw it before. Pajamas Media is a sleeper cell.
Redshift
@burnspbesq:
I agree it should be done, but it’s not the best way. Trolls who have demonstrated repeatedly that their sole purpose is to piss people off and derail reasoned discussion should be banned.
To quote my favorite post on the subject from Making Light, “If you judge that a post is offensive, upsetting, or just plain unpleasant, it’s important to get rid of it, or at least make it hard to read. Do it as quickly as possible. There’s no more useless advice than to tell people to just ignore such things. We can’t. We automatically read what falls under our eyes.”
A solution that depends on nearly everyone successfully suppressing their instinct for responding passionately (that are a good think in other parts of the discussion) is not a good solution, let alone the best. It is just the only one that is entirely in the hands of commenters.
JGabriel
PeakVT:
How do you know he didn’t? Can you come up with a better explanation for the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute?
.
kay
And, then, a misdemeanor DV can become a felony when it’s a second misdemeanor (and up), in Ohio, anyway.
So what happens in Kansas if they never get the 1st misdemeanor? They can just have misdemeanor after misdemeanor and as long as it never reaches felony status, that’s A-OK?
They’re going to have some abusers studying that code, I would think, and coloring carefully between the lines.
Julie
@ET: Close. Their current number one priority? Teen drinking. I wish I was kidding. I have family in/near Topeka and they are just beside themselves about this shit.
Barry
@Comrade Mary: “So can a woman still ask for generic assault and battery charges to be laid? What additional protections are lost with this change? Does this mean that cops can no longer bring charges on their own if the victim is too scared or resistant to do it herself?”
IANAL, but I imagine that she could, but that the prosecutor would ‘classify’ the case under the decriminalized parts of the law, refuse to file charges, and claim that his (it’s gotta be a he) hands were tied.
AA+ Bonds
Clearly, somewhere between 0% and 100% of those victims were Asking For It, so why waste the taxpayers’ money?
People should be held responsible for their own beatings.
Redheadwglasses
To #10:
I’ll answer your rhetorical question (“If the Republicans are so bad, and I am not arguing that they are not, why do they keep getting elected again and again.”) with John Cole’s own words:
The greatest hoax of the last couple of decades has been the ability of the right wing to co-opt members of the struggling lower middle class and lower class and pretend they speak for them while enacting policies that enable the super-rich. They’ve used wedge issues like gay marriage and abortion and the baby Jeebus to alienate folks from their own economic interests, feeding them a steady diet of hatred of minorites, the educated, science, and, well, reality to create a voting block of people so guided by hatred of the “other” that they would crawl over broken glass to cut their nose off to spite their face.
AA+ Bonds
@EconWatcher:
A little birdie told me that it’s this exact behavior by police (seed/stem/dust combing of vehicles at traffic stops), and the resulting minimum-possible sentences by frustrated judges, that led to mandatory suspended sentences for first-time marijuana arrests below 0.5 oz in North Carolina.
@anna missed:
I fail to see how poor white people are more abusive than rich white people, you have numbers on that? Singling out poor whites for this behavior seems like a repetition of tired stereotypes.
AA+ Bonds
@Napoleon:
No, it’s not at all ‘covered’ by simple assault or other laws. Violence within a household causes constant threat to economic as well as physical well-being, especially for dependents.
That’s why those laws exist, because failing to recognize this led to indirect state responsibility for many deaths.
MikeJ
@AA+ Bonds:
Page 16 of this study: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/ipvus.pdf
El Cid
They’re just doing something for their constituents: violently abusive white males.
I’m sure the colored ones will be booked for some other reason.
nitpicker
Please note: This is not really about savings, but about figuring out a way to keep guns in the hands of violent flatbillies.
wrb
Well, at least jwest’s parents will be able to spank it without fear.
ton
So here we have it.
Guess who else is allowed to beat their wives legally?
Wait for it…
Sharia Law.
We now have Sharia Law in KS, just like the X-tians always wanted.
AA+ Bonds
@MikeJ:
Link ain’t working for me – notice this is a content directory, is there a top page I can use to navigate?
MikeJake
Let me play Devil’s advocate.
This is a misdemeanor offense we’re talking about (as Kansas law defines it). I have no doubt that more violent domestic incidents would be covered by more serious criminal offenses. This is only an outrage if we believe that most of these misdemeanor incidents involve brutish men beating on hapless women. What if these are mainly typical, childish domestic squabbles that become a little physical? Do we really need heavy state involvement in this type of domestic confrontation, the result of which is to tar those who lose their temper and bestow the mantle of “victim” upon those who were just as involved in precipitating the squabble?
Calouste
@burnspbesq:
After they completed the instructions in Nineteen Eighty-Four?
MikeJ
@AA+ Bonds: No, that’s a link to a pdf, not a content dir.
You could just google:
Bureau of Justice Statistics Intimate Partner Violence in the U.S.
J. Michael Neal
I agree with the majority opinion in this thread. The only issue I would take with it is that domestic violence is not just a matter of abused women. Men are also frequent targets of domestic violence. I’ve seen studies finding that a majority of victims are men, but they are even more scared of filing charges (or calling the cops in the first place) because it includes an element of seeming unmanly.
Look up the case of Chuck Finley, former pitcher for the Anaheim Angels, for one.
daveNYC
@Calouste:
Why can’t they just use Brave New World instead?
kay
@MikeJake:
The general accepted theory of DV is that it escalates. The point of intervening early was to prevent the felony.
I agree with you that it could be a situation like what you described, but both people involved in a domestic can (and are, often) arrested if both people use force. I’m not sure what “precipitate” means, but if you’re talking about one side using physical force and the other side “precipitating” that by saying something, that won’t work as a defense in ordinary assault, so why would it work with DV?
“He said X, so I hit him” (push, slapped, touched, really) isn’t a good defense for adults. It won’t ever work. I don’t know why it would apply when people know each other, if it doesn’t apply to strangers.
Brian
@kay: it’s not a legal defense for assault, but US law does have the notion of “fighting words” — speech which will incite someone to immediate physical violence. This is not protected by constitutional guarantees, and can be grounds for a separate charge against the speaker.
Ruckus
@PeakVT:
California has used inmates for what are know as hand crews for years. I understand that people try like hell to get on the crews. Other that self satisfaction I don’t know what they get out of being on a crew.
PeakVT
@Ruckus: They get to be outdoors, away from prison? A lot of people would take that over sitting on their duff in a cell even if it is risky and dirty.
Ruckus
@PeakVT:
Never sounded that good to me but then I’ve never been locked up. Have hiked a lot of the mountains in CA and it has to be a pretty tough gig to hand fight fires. Have trained to fight electrical/oil fires in controlled spaces and it’s not something I’d look forward to.
AA+ Bonds
@MikeJ:
The link didn’t work, I’m sorry, I don’t see how I could have made that any more clear?
Thanks for getting back to me, though.
AA+ Bonds
@MikeJ:
That whole site appears to be down, Google Cache ain’t helping either.
Guess I’ll have to wait, but I’m hoping not to be disappointed by a report that equates arrest statistics with behavior.
Greyjoy
So now, in addition to doctors being allowed to tell women that their fetuses don’t have birth defects when they do, in case the woman might have an abortion as a result, now they want to make it not a crime anymore to beat a woman up? What the fuck is it with Kansas and their apparent hatred of women? Dear women of Kansas: move.
Also, poverty and violence tend to go hand in hand because when people are stressed about money, it comes out in a lot of ways. Poor people are also a lot more likely to get divorced for the same reason.
sherparick
The Topeka City Council has past the Ordnance. http://cjonline.com/news/2011-10-11/city-repeals-ordinance-banning-domestic-battery
Ironically, it was the same day that one James Craig Kahler was sentence to death in an Osage County Courtroom for the 2009 Thanksgiving murders of his estranged wife, his two teenage daughters, and his wife’s grandmother at the grandmother’s house. http://cjonline.com/news/2011-10-11/during-hearing-kahler-snipes-laws
God obviously has a sense of humor, although rather peverse.
sherparick
By the way, there is a new book out, Steven Pinker’s “The Better Angels of Our Nature” that discusses nature of human violence and the fact that, despite the impression one gets on the 6:00 pm local news, it has declined over time. Pinker, who has sometimes been thought of as evolutionary psychologist and hence that “nature” dominates human behavior, has aruged that due to changes in cultural norms and reason, violence has declined among humans, particularly over the last 100 years. As late as the 1950s and 60s “wife beating,” although considered “ungentlemanly,” was socially tolerated. It was still a legal defense to homicide if you killed your spoouse if discovered in the arms of a lover.
Of course the Bachmans, Eriksons, and Limbaughs yearn for the good old days.
sherparick
This story in Topeka is really fascinating when you start reading the comments, how the people divide and intake information (or misinformation) based on the tribal group they identify with, the talking past each other on the comments blogs, etc. http://cjonline.com/news/2011-10-11/da-taylor-issues-letter-about-misdemeanors