Topeka City Council Considering Decriminalizing Domestic Violence; DA Stops Prosecuting Misdemeanor DV Cases in Topeka Due to Budget Cuts

During Domestic Violence Awareness Month, when programs helping victims are calling on their communities to send the message that domestic violence will not be tolerated, Topeka, Kansas City Council is considering decriminalizing domestic battery in order to save money.

The Topeka City Council is butting heads with Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor, who announced Sept. 8 that due to budget cuts, his office would no longer prosecute misdemeanor cases, including domestic violence cases, in Topeka. This change left it to the City of Topeka to enforce its ordinance against domestic battery.

If the City Council repeals the ordinance, battering cases will no longer be prosecuted in Topeka unless the district attorney reconsiders.

In the meantime, victims of violence are in grave danger. Already, since Sept. 8, the district attorney has rejected at least 30 domestic violence cases. Eighteen people arrested in Topeka for domestic battery have all been released from county jail when no charges were filed.

Suiting up, showing up

The Rural Woman Zone is responding to President Obama’s call to service by turning our web site into a blog where rural women are invited to participate directly to discuss the problems we confront as individuals and in our rural communities, what we are engaged in doing about it, how that is working, and how it intersects with national issues.

The diverse and talented group of rural women that has gathered behind the scenes at the Rural Woman Zone over the years is already involved in community organizing and service in their real time communities. They are confronting racism and sexism, working with victims of gender-based violence, learning to grow healthy food, sharing new ways of living more simply, advocating for reproductive and other health care, and writing, teaching, and training on these issues.

Now we make a move to bring the discussion about this work out from the safe places we created on line into the public discourse by changing our format from a web site to a blog and opening it up for discussion.  We are also challenging ourselves to use social media to reach more rural women and invite them to participate.