by the Puppet Mistress | Let's start with this fact: Alaska is clearly years behind the lower 48 or Barack Obama's state in controlling or preventing violence against women.
For years, Alaska has had the worst record of any state in rape and in murder of women by men. The rape rate in Alaska is 2.5 times the national average. (CNN)
Alaskan women are two and a half times more likely to be raped. Think of that. So it wasn't very nice for the police chief under "reform" mayor Sarah Palin's tenure to charge women who had been raped $1000 for rape kits, was it?
In fact, the charge might well have discouraged some women from pursuing criminal prosecution, wouldn't you say? In fact, he fought to keep the practice in place. In the end, it took a Democrat to sort the problem out.
Former state Rep. Eric Croft, a Democrat, sponsored a state law requiring cities to provide the examinations free of charge to victims. He said the only ongoing resistance he met was from Wasilla, where Palin was mayor from 1996 to 2002.
"It was one of those things everyone could agree on except Wasilla," Croft told CNN. "We couldn't convince the chief of police to stop charging them."
Alaska's Legislature in 2000 banned the practice of charging women for rape exam kits -- which experts said could cost up to $1,000. (CNN)
Wasilla wasn't the only town that charged rape victims for rape kits. And no one is sure that Palin knew about it.
"I find it hard to believe that for six months a small town, a police chief, would lead the fight against a statewide piece of legislation receiving unanimous support and the mayor not know about it," Croft said. (CNN).
So do I find it hard to believe. According to the report, Wasilla stood out.
Tara Henry, a forensic nurse who has been treating rape victims across Alaska for the last 12 years, told CNN that opposition to Croft's bill from Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon was memorable.
"Several municipal law enforcement agencies in the state did have trouble budgeting and paying for the evidence collection for sexual assault victims," Henry said. "What I recall is that the chief of police in the Wasilla police department seemed to be the most vocal about how it was going to affect their budget."
Croft has a similar memory. He said victims' advocates suggested he introduce legislation as a way to shame cities into changing their practice, and Wasilla resisted.
"I remember they had continued opposition," Croft said. "It was eight years ago now, but they were sort of unrepentant that they thought the taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for that."(CNN).
Well, you can see how they might think that. It's just sexual assault, after all. Why bother to gather evidence that would allow the injured woman to prosecute? Patrick's deputy mayor and good friend says that it was all the state's fault.
"The bigger picture of what was going on at the time was that the state was trying to cut their own budget, and one of the things that they were doing was passing on costs to cities, and that was one of the many things that they were passing on, the cost to the city," said Patrick, who recalls enormous pressure to keep the city's budget down.
But the state was never responsible for paying the costs of local investigations. Patrick was also a member of Wasilla City Council, and she doesn't recall the issue coming before council members, nor does she remember discussing the issue with Palin.
She does recall Palin going through the budget in detail. She said Palin would review each department's budget line by line and send it back to department heads with her changes.".
"Sarah is a fiscal conservative, and so she had seen that the city was heading in a direction of bigger projects, costing taxpayers more money, and she was determined to change that," Patrick said. (CNN; emphasis added)
Fiscal conservative, eh?
Mind you, she didn't mind spending the town's budget lobbying to get more of the federal money. "According to NPR, when Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she spent more than $100,000 of the tiny town's budget on lobbying services -- in order to secure about $27 million in federal earmarks."(BN-Politics) That's a Republican definition of "fiscal conservative," all right.
And she was quite happy to take the money from taxpayers in the other states for her own personal projects. "[I]n February 2008, alone, Gov. Palin sent a 70-page memo to U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, outlining about $200 million in federal earmark requests. Yes, that's the same Ted Stevens (aka, the Earmark King) who is now under indictment."(BN-Politics)
I'm sure the townspeople were dancing in the streets...at first. Via BN-Politics:
As mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, for example, Sarah Palin reportedly botched one of her biggest projects: an indoor sports complex. The Wall Street Journal reports:
"The biggest project that Sarah Palin undertook as mayor of this small town was an indoor sports complex, where locals played hockey, soccer, and basketball, especially during the long, dark Alaskan winters.
"The only catch was that the city began building roads and installing utilities for the project before it had unchallenged title to the land. The misstep led to years of litigation and at least $1.3 million in extra costs for a small municipality with a small budget. What was to be Ms. Palin's legacy has turned into a financial mess that continues to plague Wasilla." (WSJ)
You can see why she didn't have time to worry about a few rape victims.
Before Palin came to City Hall, the Wasilla Police Department paid for rape kits out of a fund for miscellaneous costs, according to the police chief who preceded Fannon and was fired by Palin. That budget line was cut by more than half during Palin's tenure, but it did not specifically mention rape exams....
"It's incomprehensible to me that this could be a rogue police chief and not a policy decision. It lasted too long and it was too high-profile," Croft said.
The rape kit charges have become an issue among Palin critics who say as governor she has not done enough to combat Alaska's epidemic problem of violence against women. They point to a small funding increase for domestic violence shelters at a time when Alaska has a multibillion-dollar budget surplus. Victims' advocates say that services are lacking and that Palin cut funding for a number of programs that treat female victims of violence.(CNN)
The McCain campaign choose to treat doubts about her support for victims of sexual violence as a vicious slur.
In a statement, Jill Hazelbaker, communications director for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, said that "to imply that Gov. Palin is or has ever been an advocate of charging victims for evidence gathering kits is an utter distortion of reality."
"As her record shows, Gov. Palin is committed to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice," Hazelbaker said. "She does not, nor has she ever believed that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence gathering test."(CNN).
Hey, I am not implying that she was an advocate of charging victims. I don't know that. But I am arguing right out that she didn't care enough to address the problem or to prevent it. And in my book, that's the problem.
AmericaBlog writes:
Yeah, uh huh, Sarah Palin didn't even read her own local paper, and no one told her that the state was getting ready to pass legislation forcing her to stop charging rape victims for their own exams. Uh huh. So was Sarah Palin a hands-on leader or wasn't she? Not to mention, somehow the budget for these rape kits got cut when Palin came to office - the city paid for the rape exams before....
Meanwhile, right winger Confederate Yankee puts on his tinfoil journalism hat and concludes:
We have fresh information regarding poorly-researched claims made in the media (including CNN, US News & World Report, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, the Associated Press, and literally dozens of other "professional media") that Sarah Palin presided over a Wasilla, AK city government that charged rape victims for the forensic medical examinations designed to collected physical evidence of sexual assaults. With very little variation from one media source to the next, media accounts attempted to portray Palin as a callous monster out to re-abuse victims.
The best evidence available indicates these are entirely false claims.
As I reported earlier today, the City of Wasilla can find no evidence that anyone was ever billed for the cost of these examinations, a point reiterated in a second statement by Wasilla Police Chief Angela Long this afternoon...
The Wasilla PD can find no evidence that victims were billed for rape kits. The only other city government entity (the Finance Department) that would possibly have such information only keeps billing records for six years, and is therefore of little use, as it no longer keeps records that would have been created under Palin's administration.
I'm glad he admits that such a policy would make Palin a "callous monster." It's reassuring to know that even wingnut reportage down here in this part of the world recognizes the hideous nature of a policy that penalizes women and young girls for wishing to have a violent crime investigated.
Otherwise, Confederate Yankee doesn't get it. I don't care whether anyone was ever in fact CHARGED for a kit because---as Jesse Taylor points out---the policy would tend to prevent people reporting rapes in the first place. All I want to know is whether, as CNN reports, the police chief of Wasilla had that policy in place with Sarah Palin's knowledge or even silent indifference or tacit assent.
Meanwhile, Clif at Sadly, No!, channeling the mystic powers of his pal the Great Gazoogle, came up with this quote from May, 23, 2000 way before the spinning started:
While the Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies have covered the cost of exams, which cost between $300 to $1,200 apiece, the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests.
Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.
In the past weve charged the cost of exams to the victims insurance company when possible. I just dont want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer, Fannon said.
According to Fannon, the new law will cost the Wasilla Police Department approximately $5,000 to $14,000 a year to collect evidence for sexual assault cases. (Frontiersman)
Hey, that's really, you know, expensive. So Fannon felt that rather than burden the taxpayer, the women should pay to get the evidence of rape and then----if the rapist were caught and ultimately convicted----he could be made to pay restitution.
Right. If we apply it across the board, taxpayers could save lots of money! Next, let's bill families of murder victims for the cost of the forensics. If the murderers are caught and convicted, they can pay restitution!
I have to hand it to Palin: when it came to money not garnered from American taxpayers----when it came to the funds of her own constituents---she was a real fiscal conservative. Not even W ever thought of, or assented to something like that. Well, to my knowledge.
As Jesse Taylor says at Pandagon,
[T]he entire point of charging for rape kits is that even when a rape is reported, it discourages the victim from pursuing it any further by putting a financial obstacle in the way. One would think that these giant conservative minds would remember the old maxim that the surest way to get less of something is to tax it. When the government puts a $1,000+ tax on reporting a rape, it’s the surest way to ensure that rapes aren’t prosecuted and evidence isn’t collected....
You can do this with any crime, really. Charge a person $1,000 to investigate a car theft, you’ll see fewer reported thefts and far fewer investigated thefts. It’s not rocket science.
But really, guys, keep pushing this. Show us that the rape lobby is ginning up another fake controversy. The only things they have on their side are objective facts and the historical record. Other than that, you’re golden.
Last word to Clif at Sadly, No!
Up next, [Confederate Yankee] examines Alaska state government employment records and determines that Sarah Palin didn’t fire Public Safety Chief Walt Monegan but instead showered him with bonuses and gave his daughter a Shetland pony.
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