SAVE has recently developed language to remove funding for mandatory arrest policies. Since mandatory arrest is associated with 600 lives taken each year, we are calling our bill the Domestic Violence Victim Protection Act: http://www.saveservices.org/policymakers/domestic-violence-victim-protection-act-of-2011/

The language in this model bill can be adopted for use at the state level.

Sincerely,

The SAVE Team

SAVE has just posted a Special Report, The Use and Abuse of Domestic Restraining Orders (.pdf file): http://www.saveservices.org/downloads/VAWA-Restraining-Orders

This is the report’s most important conclusion: 60% of DV restraining orders are unnecessary or false. Begin to make plans now for June – False Allegation Awareness Month.

Sincerely,

The SAVE Team

Article here. Excerpt:

'That’s the bait; here comes the switch. Women may want equality at the conference table and treadmill. But when it comes to sex and dating, they aren’t so sure. The might hook up as freely as a Duke athlete. Or, they might want men to play Greatest Generation gentleman. Yes, they want men to pay for dinner, call for dates—a writer at the popular dating website The Frisky titled a recent piece “Call me and ask me out for a damn date!”—and open doors for them. A lot of men wonder: “WTF??!” Why should they do the asking? Why should they pay for dinner? After all, they are equals and in any case, the woman a guy is asking out probably has more cash in her pocket than he does; recent female graduates are making more than males in most large cities.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Decisions like this seem to signal, rather unfairly, we think, that a man can be held legally and financially responsible for any unilateral actions his partner takes to conceive a child, no matter how absurd or unforeseeable those actions are.

And Dr. Phillips seems to have been treated particularly unfairly. He didn’t even have intercourse which, is the one and only act that, outside of fertility clinics, can foster a reasonable expectation of conceiving a child. In fact, without intercourse (and outside of fertility clinics) creating a life is, simply, impossible. There was no way, short of checking what his partner did with his semen after oral sex (do you know anyone who does that?) that he could have known that he could possibly father a child.

But the courts don’t care about how the egg was actually fertilized: because at the end of the day, there’s a child now involved. And the concern, from a legal perspective, is whether or not the child will be adequately cared for, regardless of its conception.

People who have been through this know about it. It just happened to me, and I will have to write about it to add to my story. If you haven't been through this you need to learn about it before it happens to you one day. Excerpt:

'Let's discuss the bad, no, let's make that the absolute worst, court order in family law cases where kids are involved: The temporary order of protection, more affectionately known as the TOP.

First, a disclaimer: Some TOPs have validity, and some actually work. There are people who seriously need to be protected from abusive or threatening individuals, and are at imminent risk of harm. The resulting TOP will work if the respondent has a lingering remnant of respect for the law, or fear of repercussion -- like arrest or imprisonment -- if s/he violates the order. (Many doubt that a simple piece of paper will dissuade a truly violent person from his/her intended harm.) And the TOP is better yet if the police are quick to enforce it. These are the meritorious orders. Who in their right mind can quarrel with them?

Story here. Excerpt:

'Calmly, 43-year-old Bundgaard told us he never hit or hurt Aubry Ballard, his girlfriend of seven months.

Bundgaard said Ballard started throwing his clothes out of the car and when he stopped to retrieve the items, she tried to get into the driver's seat.

That's when Bundgaard admits he pulled his on-again-off-again 34-year-old girlfriend out of the car.

"I asked her to get out the driver's seat and when she wouldn't then I physically removed her from the driver's seat," Bundgaard said.

Bundgaard said he never hit her, but tonight said he's the one with the black eye and fat lip.

"I've never hit a woman, don't abuse women, wasn't raised like that," he said.

Police arrested Ballard for one count of assault, but under the Arizona state constitution, Bundgaard couldn't be arrested for a misdemeanor while the legislature is in session.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A mother-of-three was jailed for falsely claiming she had been abducted and raped because she was worried her husband would find out that she had a one-night stand.

Nicola Osborne, 32, told police she had been bundled in a car by a stranger and taken to a public toilets where she was forcibly raped.

Today the mother, from Portsmouth, Hampshire, was jailed for 18 months after her lie unraveled.'

Via email:

Disturbing 2006 Swedish television documentary called "Gender War" (Könskriget) on YouTube. Subtitles in English, make sure "cc" button is activated if cannot see English subtitles. The whole thing is only a couple hours, but parts are difficult to navigate as they are not laid out on YouTube in order, so I put them in order below. I asked the user to re-upload in less parts to make it more accessible.

Link to article here. Excerpt:

'Australians are among bogus officials who are going door-to-door in quake-struck Christchurch scouting out appliances to steal from stressed and vulnerable locals.

When 300 Australian police touch down in the city on Friday their main task will be to bring rising rates of theft and domestic violence under control.
...
There had also been a spike in domestic violence similar to one seen after the first quake that hit on September 4.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should be extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations, a judge has ruled.

At Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in south London, District Judge Howard Riddle said the extradition would not breach Mr Assange's human rights.

Mr Assange said the ruling, which he will challenge, was due to a "European Arrest Warrant system run amok".'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Fathers and Families has agreed to be a signatory to an amicus brief in an appeal of a half-million-dollar child support order to the Indiana Court of Appeals.

Ned Holstein, MD, MS, Founder and Chair of the Board of Fathers and Families, reviewed the brief at the request of the Indianapolis law firm of Bose, McKinney & Evans, LLP, who incorporated some of his suggestions.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A couple of days ago, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who could fairly be described as a feminist. Not a conservative feminist — a feminist in the traditional sense of the word.

I remarked to her that over the last few decades, women’s ideals, in everything from dating, to careers, to their life in general, have changed quite a bit while men’s ideals, hopes and dreams have been much more static over that same time period. She agreed and said feminism hasn’t done a good job of “helping men” reach their potential. My response to that was that when it finally arrives, she probably won’t like the men’s revolution any more than most men enjoyed the feminist version.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- American International Group Inc. has resolved a lawsuit filed by Duke University over expenses tied to the school’s dispute with lacrosse team members falsely accused of sexually assaulting a stripper.

The university and the unit of New York-based AIG that sold insurance coverage to Duke “agree to the dismissal” of the claims, according to a joint filing yesterday in U.S. District Court in Durham, North Carolina. The court document didn’t disclose terms of the settlement.

The school was seeking reimbursement of costs from confidential settlements with three members of the team who were exonerated after they were accused of rape by a woman invited to a 2006 party. AIG, the bailed-out life and property-casualty insurer, had offered $5 million to Duke, Joseph O’Neil, a lawyer for the insurer, said in December 2008.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'One of the more recent episodes of this digital deceit is emanating from the office of Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder. The AG, to put it succinctly, is lying to the American people. What’s more, he quite obviously knows he’s lying and has no intention whatsoever of stopping. Either that or the man is too incompetent to clean the office of the Attorney General, much less occupy it.

The case demonstrating this is simple and irrefutable, beginning with words from Holder himself.

“The facts are clear," he says, "Intimate partner homicide is the leading cause of death for African-American women ages 15 to 45."

To begin with, we must assume that a man in Holder’s position would not make such a claim out of ignorance. Common sense, along with the certitude of his unambiguous claim would indicate that he has, at his beck and call, a wealth of cutting edge research and all the manpower needed to analyze it.'

Story here.

'On Sunday morning, more than 100 members of the Delaware running community participated in the Save Our Sport Run to protest university officials' decision to remove the men's track and field and cross country teams from varsity status. ­Event organizer Kevin Kelly, a former assistant cross country coach at the university, said the run was also a celebration of cross country and track and field alumni.

"Were it not for our alumni, we would not have great spirit, we would not have reached this pinnacle," Kelly said in a speech before the four-mile run began.'