Thursday 6 October 2011

Contempt Party and femicide

This is DJ's ongoing reflection regarding the Contempt Party government & its *Hard-On Crime* Omnibus Bill.

I believe that it will encourage police forces and the court system to shift resources away from investigating and prosecuting crimes against women and children. Since the Cons' Crime Bill will significantly reward cops for the number of arrests leading to convictions, they will only pursue criminals that are "easy" to catch.

Did you see *Justice* minister Nicholson's weasel performance a couple of weeks ago?


He evaded questions regarding costs and priorities but kept using buzz words to create the impression that the Cons care about preventing violence against women.

The inevitable result of this re-engineering of the legal system will be a vicious circle of fewer and fewer women reporting criminal assaults that are inflicted upon them, and less investigations and prosecutions of their assailants. These violent men will get the message they can and they will continue to sexually terrorize and harm women and children.

Consider what is happening in the US. With diminished funding and resources, the states and the municipalities are trying to dump the responsibility for charging spouses with *domestic abuse* on the other jurisdiction, which means violent criminals walk, unchallenged.
[...]domestic violence advocates in Topeka say it’s already putting vulnerable people at increased risk. Since the county stopped prosecuting the crimes on September 8th, it has turned back 30 domestic violence cases. Sixteen people have been arrested for misdemeanor domestic battery and then released from the county jail after charges weren’t filed. “Letting abusive partners out of jail with no consequences puts victims in incredibly dangerous positions,” said Becky Dickinson of the YWCA. “The abuser will often become more violent in an attempt to regain control.” The YMCA also said that some survivors associated with their Center for Safety and Empowerment were afraid for their safety if the dispute wasn’t resolved soon.
PMSHithead and his party of Cons have taken the craft of lying to new depths. Under their watch, expect the usual deliberate obfuscation and political theatre that focuses on so-called "honour" killings and disregards systemic violence against women and children.

Update: Kevin Page, Parliament's independent budget officer has some choice words about the cost of the Cons' *Hard-On Crime* bill.
The Conservatives say their massive new crime bill, which includes nine separate pieces of legislation, will cost $78.5 million over five years, part of bigger justice agenda the government says will cost $2.7 billion.

But Page, who has been asked by the Opposition parties to cost out the bill by mid-November, told The Canadian Press the government estimate includes no methodology, no supporting information and no provincial costs. Nor can Page find the $2.7 billion expenditure listed in any federal budget of the past two years.

4 comments:

Dr.Dawg said...

Well said. I did a post some time ago about the "honour killing" nonsense": http://tinyurl.com/6y58elw . Facts mean nothing to these crude ideologues.

Anonymous said...

To be respected, the media needs to start focusing on the actions of government instead of their words. If this government cared about victims of crime, or violence against women, it would take clear and concrete actions to deal with these issues. Instead it slashes funding for victim services and organizations like Sisters in Spirit. By its actions, it obviously doesn't care. It just wants more Canadians in prison and a higher crime rate.

Niles said...

Harper is counting on an "Occupy Parliament Hill" movement being stymied by a Canadian winter.

~ValianEfforts~ said...

Caring about crime would mean putting pot growers and smokers on the back burner and actually focusing on real crime like rape, assault, murder, you know all those crimes that actually matter. But he doesn't really care about crime just putting pot smokers away and making victims even more of victims.

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