Wasilla, under Palin, charged rape victims for forensic exams?
Wasilla, under Palin, charged rape victims for forensic exams.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/52266.html
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_09/014669.php
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-10-rape-exams_N.htm
If it were not true, I expect Palin would have a good answer. Silence, while technically not assent, is still an answer of sorts.
It appears to be true, corroborated by several sources in the articles I've seen. This does not mean much, because all I see is what's on the Internet.
USA Today has evidently asked for information about when the law went into effect and what Wasilla did during that time frame.
A Palin spokesperson, contacted by USA Today, said the governor "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test."
That's good, but there's still the record to deal with. The town of Wasilla had rape victims to pay for their own medical exams during Palin's mayoral tenure, and Palin's hand-picked police chief publicly opposed the state law when it was passed in 2000.
Asked when Palin learned of the policy, and what Palin did to try to change the policy, her spokesperson chose not to respond.
Worse, the numbers quoted by the chief of police are shocking. A poster at Washington Monthly:
In 2000, assuming the police chief's numbers are to be believed, Wasilla's rape statistics were somewhere from 2.5 to 28 (!) times the national average. Faced with that, the police chief's goal was to cut costs? What's up with that?
Based on national average: 5,495 * 0.003 = 1.65 rapes per year (horrific enough)
Wasilla minimum: $5,000/$1,200 = 4.17 rapes per year
Wasilla maximum: $12,000/$300 = 46.67 rapes per year
2000 Wasilla population: 5,496 (source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/deadlineusa/2008/aug/30/justhowsmalliswasillaalak)
0.3 per 1,000: US rapes per capita (source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita)
THAT is also bad. Under Palin, it was, it seems.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-10-rape-exams_N.htm
"In 2000, there were 497 rapes reported in Alaska, FBI statistics show. That's a rate of 79.3 per 100,000 residents, the highest in the nation."
Why? Not enough women? Rape is not about sex; rape is about power.
And a last quote from Washington Monthly's comment section on the story:
If Mayor Palin's hand-picked chief of police was complaining about this legislation, you know the Mayor had been informed of the town's policy during the state legislative hearings prior to the state law being voted on and signed. It was brought to her attention, and she didn't care enough to change it. Mayor Palin supported violating a rape victim for the second time (third time if she was lucky enough to conceive!).
After scoring $27 million in earmarks for a town of 9,000 people that vile bitch couldn't be bothered to budget a few thousand dollars for rape kits for her own constituents, her fellow women. Are we surprised? No.
I quite agree. And, of course, this wasn't enough; other places besides Alaska engaged in this nefarious practice, and a bill cosponsored by Obama, Biden, and 55 other Senators was passed to stop it. McCain was absent from the sponsorship list.
[later edit: the VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) is up for reauthorization in 2010)]
[further edit: more links on this matter.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2008/09/09/palin-on-rape-exams-not-the-taxpayers-problem/
http://www.feministing.com/archives/010930.html
http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2000/05/23/news.txt ]
It would be going too far to suggest that McCain and Palin approve of rapists, but it's clear that they neither one chose to support rape victims, and that justice is not served by the conservative agenda.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/52266.html
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_09/014669.php
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-10-rape-exams_N.htm
If it were not true, I expect Palin would have a good answer. Silence, while technically not assent, is still an answer of sorts.
It appears to be true, corroborated by several sources in the articles I've seen. This does not mean much, because all I see is what's on the Internet.
USA Today has evidently asked for information about when the law went into effect and what Wasilla did during that time frame.
A Palin spokesperson, contacted by USA Today, said the governor "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test."
That's good, but there's still the record to deal with. The town of Wasilla had rape victims to pay for their own medical exams during Palin's mayoral tenure, and Palin's hand-picked police chief publicly opposed the state law when it was passed in 2000.
Asked when Palin learned of the policy, and what Palin did to try to change the policy, her spokesperson chose not to respond.
Worse, the numbers quoted by the chief of police are shocking. A poster at Washington Monthly:
In 2000, assuming the police chief's numbers are to be believed, Wasilla's rape statistics were somewhere from 2.5 to 28 (!) times the national average. Faced with that, the police chief's goal was to cut costs? What's up with that?
Based on national average: 5,495 * 0.003 = 1.65 rapes per year (horrific enough)
Wasilla minimum: $5,000/$1,200 = 4.17 rapes per year
Wasilla maximum: $12,000/$300 = 46.67 rapes per year
2000 Wasilla population: 5,496 (source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/deadlineusa/2008/aug/30/justhowsmalliswasillaalak)
0.3 per 1,000: US rapes per capita (source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita)
THAT is also bad. Under Palin, it was, it seems.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-10-rape-exams_N.htm
"In 2000, there were 497 rapes reported in Alaska, FBI statistics show. That's a rate of 79.3 per 100,000 residents, the highest in the nation."
Why? Not enough women? Rape is not about sex; rape is about power.
And a last quote from Washington Monthly's comment section on the story:
If Mayor Palin's hand-picked chief of police was complaining about this legislation, you know the Mayor had been informed of the town's policy during the state legislative hearings prior to the state law being voted on and signed. It was brought to her attention, and she didn't care enough to change it. Mayor Palin supported violating a rape victim for the second time (third time if she was lucky enough to conceive!).
After scoring $27 million in earmarks for a town of 9,000 people that vile bitch couldn't be bothered to budget a few thousand dollars for rape kits for her own constituents, her fellow women. Are we surprised? No.
I quite agree. And, of course, this wasn't enough; other places besides Alaska engaged in this nefarious practice, and a bill cosponsored by Obama, Biden, and 55 other Senators was passed to stop it. McCain was absent from the sponsorship list.
[later edit: the VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) is up for reauthorization in 2010)]
[further edit: more links on this matter.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2008/09/09/palin-on-rape-exams-not-the-taxpayers-problem/
http://www.feministing.com/archives/010930.html
http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2000/05/23/news.txt ]
It would be going too far to suggest that McCain and Palin approve of rapists, but it's clear that they neither one chose to support rape victims, and that justice is not served by the conservative agenda.