Think we might need some more Federal aid to states and counties and cities?
But perhaps the most shocking idea to save money is being debated right now by the City Council of Topeka, Kansas. The city could repeal an ordinance banning domestic violence because some say the cost of prosecuting those cases is just too high...
Think Progress
Evidently Shawnee County, which includes part of Topeka, stopped prosecuting misdemeanors of all sorts as a cost savings measure. This resulted in domestic violence cases being "dumped" on the city of Topeka, which had not budgeted to handle those cases.
Here’s what happened: Last month, the Shawnee County District Attorney’s office, facing a 10% budget cut, announced that the county would no longer be prosecuting misdemeanors, including domestic violence cases, at the county level. Finding those cases suddenly dumped on the city and lacking resources of their own, the Topeka City Council is now considering repealing the part of the city code that bans domestic battery.
Since the county stopped prosecuting these cases on September 8th, it has turned back 30 cases. Sixteen people have been arrested, taken to jail, and then released without being prosecuted.
As you might imagine, women's groups and people who provide shelter to battering victims are not pleased. The worst-case in some situations is to make the call, have the batterer arrested (and thereby lose face), and then release them.
And of course this is penny wise and pound foolish.
And while not prosecuting domestic violence cases may seem to save money in the short term, it actually has staggering financial consequences. The health-related costs of domestic violence exceeds $5.8 billion each year. Nearly $4.1 billion of that is for direct medical and mental health care services, and nearly $1.8 billion are for the indirect costs of lost productivity or wages. Victims lost almost 8 million days of paid work because of the violence.
So, to save tax dollars that would be spent dealing with a serious problem, we instead transfer the problem to victims and their families and friends and employers, who pay a vast financial cost, not to mention the emotional traumas, not to mention dead women and children.
But that's better than taxes, right? Because once again the question is not saving society money when viewed as a whole, but ensuring that these people (1%) don't pay while those people (99%) do. And that, gentle reader, is precisely the point of austerity, every single time.
10:02 AM PT: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Ironically, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month (h/t Zoltan)