Seriously, what the hell? Via Feministing, this is one of the more disturbing stories I’ve come across. Topeka County said is couldn’t afford to prosecute domestic battery cases, so they stopped and dumped it on the city of Topeka. The city’s response is to consider “repealing the part of the code that bans domestic battery,” in order to force the county to start prosecuting them again.
I can’t decide what’s more messed up about this story–that the county stopped prosecuting these cases, that the city is considering repealing part of the code, or that domestic violence cases are misdemeanors (which is the reason the county gave for stopping the prosecutions).
At the heart of the controversy is budget cuts brought on by the unwillingness of state officials to raise taxes to fund important services, like, you know, law enforcement. I suspect that if a member of the Topeka political establishment found themselves on the bad side of a beatdown, their attacker would feel the full extent of a prosecutor’s wrath, but if you’re just an average, unconnected person whose significant other likes to go a couple of rounds on your body, you may just be out of luck.
One response
Let’s correct some factual errors. There is no “Topeka” county. It is Shawnee County. The heart of this isn’t state officials “unwilling to fund important services.”. This is a county commission vote for the prosecutor’s office to take a budget cut among other county agencies. The DA’s response was to dump misdemeanor prosecutions onto the city court. It has no prosecutors with any experience in domestic abuse cases or support services for victims. That’s all in the county system.
These are both misdemeanor and felony codes for domestic violence. The felony cases remain with the DA. At issue are only the misdemeanors. City council members are looking at opting out of city rules to force the cases back to the DA.
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