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The Soapbox: Rants and Commentary:
Knee Jerking You To JailComposed by David Anderson(oommp@webspan.net)Well, it has happened again. I've seen something that has sufficiently raised my dander to the point where I have to address all of you in one of these little diatribes of mine. I promise to keep it under ten thousand words or so, but this one really has me rip-roaring mad. Here in the sovereign nation of New Jersey, we have a set of laws called The Domestic Violence Prevention Act. It is a noble enough idea; enact laws that will help protect women from abusive husbands. However, as with most things like this, our state government has been able to bungle this up to the point where it no longer serves its intended purpose. The only way a person can be arrested in the Sovereign Nation of New Jersey without any due process whatsoever is via this law. A woman can come into the courthouse and make completely unsubstantiated allegations of abuse of the most minute nature and obtain one of these 'Restraining Orders.' Upon the violation of a Restraining Order, (which can again be alleged ex-parte by the supposed victim, and again can as minor as a phone call or flowers being sent to the home), the police are obligated, no discretion, mandatory, MUST arrest the violator. This on the unsubstantiated word of one person and out of your presence. I, as a police officer, don't have that kind of authority, nor should I. I have to establish probable cause when I arrest someone. These women obtaining these Restraining Orders need do nothing more than stand in court and make something up. I've seen it happen thousands of times since the law was enacted. Here's an example. I'm sitting in on some support hearings and a woman was saying she and her husband were effectively separated but he wouldn't leave the home. She said, "I'll have to get him out with a Restraining Order or by filing for divorce. I can't afford the divorce." I asked, "Are afraid of him? Does he abuse you?" "No, I'm not afraid of him, but this way the police will take him out of the house." Is this what the so-called law makers had in mind? I certainly hope not. It is one of the most abused laws I've ever seen. Even more abused than the concept of 'shared liability' in civil cases. (That's the little nugget of judicial wisdom wherein if someone sneaks into your yard, uninvited, and even climbs your fence, and gets hurt, you owe them money because their injury occurred on your property. In most states, like Wisconsin, you're allowed to shoot any uninvited trespassers in your yard and take them to a butcher.) So, what the law makers and judges in New Jersey have done is they've created a monster from the singularly proper idea of protecting battered women. The system in New Jersey just doesn't work. Men who are truly abusive won't stop from this order, because they don't care about jail. Men who have disgruntled wives who use this 'law' are made victims themselves, but not of spousal abuse. They are victims of abuse by those who have forgotten this country is supposed to guarantee your basic inalienable rights, not desecrate them. Now, to what really caused this mad soliloquy of mine. I saw in the Domestic Violence office of the Ocean County Courthouse a flyer which has been made available to the public. I'm not going to list the entire document, but I'll put the header and title and some of the more interesting points of the flyer. The sections I do have I'm typing verbatim, exactly as they appear on the flyer.
This is about half of the things on the list, the more ridiculous things. The rest of it was either genuine or obvious, like "Raped you." I do want to say some things about the items on this list, though. Lighten up, for crying out loud. "Told anti-woman jokes"? Get real. That's not abuse, that's just being around an asshole, if he means it, or a wise-ass if he doesn't. Neither one of those people deserve to be jailed. I've said it in the past and I'll say it again here; if I locked up every asshole I met, there'd be no one around me, including myself. So how come it is the court systems and the law makers see assholes as a threat in 'domestic violence' cases, but when I come across an asshole as a police officer I'm obligated to turn the other cheek? If withholding sex was an offense people could go to jail for, half the women in the US would be behind bars! This sort of thing happens a lot in our country. We've seen it with women's rights, affirmative action, and a slew of other things our 'law makers' did to compensate for evils of our past. In our country we ignored the problem of domestic violence for too long. No one should be abused. However, we have to temper our good intentions with reasonable thought. We can't knee jerk otherwise innocent people to jail to apologize for decades of neglect. What is the solution? I have no idea, but I know this doesn't work. Again, these are my thoughts, feel free to disagree. Response by Cormac O'Sullivan (cormac@optonline.net) Many of the things on the list are in direct contrast of each other. Like when it asks if he has insisted on unwanted touching, the next line asks if he has withheld sex. Theres a horrible double standard that is getting worse despite complaints.
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