American City Repeals Law Against Domestic Violence

It seems that the city of Topeka, Kansas is low on funds and is trying to get the county it sits in to cover the costs of prosecuting misdemeanor criminal cases, including cases of domestic violence, by removing the laws that make them illegal in the city. The county isn't keen on footing the bill and at the moment all the police can do in cases of violence is arrest people... and then let them go.

Read about it here or here or here.

I am personally horrified by this. I hope I'm not the only one who thinks this is beyond stupid.

Is it even legal for that to be legal?

I cant even believe this like seriously. Domestic violence is a serious thing and people are seriously hurt or even killed from it. Im horrified. This is beyond stupid. I know the city lacks funds but there must be other ways to save money.

To be fair, domestic violence can still be prosecuted as assault and battery. Domestic violence laws aren't the only laws that make it illegal to beat someone up. What they usually do is require mandatory arrests, and other procedural differences. They also often make DV have more serious punishments than other assault and battery convictions.

I still think the best way to cut costs in the criminal justice system is to decriminalize laws against the personal use of drugs by consenting adults, and to release nonviolent drug offenders from custody.

tl;dr
It's not legal to beat your spouse in Topeka, KS. All this means is that these cases will be treated as normal assault and batteries.

You're treating this as now that domestic violence is legal, everyone's gonna commit it. Of course not. There's a moral issue there, too, and I think what the county is expecting is for domestic violence rates to only slightly rise instead of skyrocket. And I'm convinced that this new legislation is only temporary until the city gets its checkbook balanced. There's no way the county thought prohibiting domestic violence was a waste of money and enforcement, or else they would have scrapped the law a long time ago. It'll be back. Until then, a few women may be hurt, but no more than if the law was still enforced.

Penatrait said:

You're treating this as now that domestic violence is legal, everyone's gonna commit it. Of course not. There's a moral issue there, too, and I think what the county is expecting is for domestic violence rates to only slightly rise instead of skyrocket. And I'm convinced that this new legislation is only temporary until the city gets its checkbook balanced. There's no way the county thought prohibiting domestic violence was a waste of money and enforcement, or else they would have scrapped the law a long time ago. It'll be back. Until then, a few women may be hurt, but no more than if the law was still enforced.

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Domestic violence isn't legal. It just doesn't get a special status. Violators can still be prosecuted. A lot of local governments are doing controversial things that are necessary to balance their budgets.

I think this is no time to criticize letting states govern themselves. It is foolish to believe federal government is any better than state government except for enforcing one's stances across an entire nation.

I have a feeling this is more a measure to arouse public sentiment to ensure a certain department does not face severe budget cuts more than anything else. As we see here, it can be very successful. I doubt the council did not realize what timing it had in facing such a measure either.

FreakyLocz14 said:

Domestic violence isn't legal. It just doesn't get a special status. Violators can still be prosecuted. A lot of local governments are doing controversial things that are necessary to balance their budgets.

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Sorry, decriminalized. My point still stands.

No, I don't think that you'll suddenly see a million cases of DV either, but I do think that it's telling that these are the cases they decided not to prosecute. It's as if the people didn't quite think things through, like they thought domestic violence wasn't such a big issue that it couldn't wait for a few weeks while they sorted out their funding.

It also begs the question of why there isn't enough funding in the first place.