Violence Against Women Act Meets Reality

Article here. Excerpt:

'Section 102, “Grants to Encourage Arrest Policies and Enforce Protection Orders” calls for the development of “multidisciplinary high risk teams” focused on reducing sexual violence and homicides by developing “evidence-based indicators to assess the risk of homicide.” Oher than the ambiguous “evidence-based indicators,” there is no mention in the bill that a complaint by an alleged victim must be made before such assessments can take place. Absent a complaint, how does one justify government surveillance in order to gather “evidence”?

Another troubling clause concerns eligibility for grants in which the grantee, “with the exception of the courts,” must demonstrate that their ”laws, policies, or practices and their training programs discourage dual arrests of offender and victim” (italic mine). Offender and victim as defined by whom? Absent physical evidence, domestic violence cases are often he said-she said affairs. Dual arrests are often necessary in order to ferret out the truth, and this item would appear to inhibit that.
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Section 108, “Criminal Provision Related to Stalking, Including Cyberstalking” is yet another area where ambiguity allows for the possibility of abuse, especially with respect to cyberstalking. Part of what constitutes cyberstalking is that which “causes or attempts to cause or would reasonably expect to cause emotional distress to any person.” In a country where hypersensitivity has reached absurd levels, “emotional distress” is a troublingly elastic concept. One that can be exploited in the aforementioned civil litigation.'