The following is an article from AlterNet (No Jail for Beating Up Women? Topeka Let Up to 30 Alleged Batterers Walk Free, After Briefly Decriminalizing Domestic Violence to Save Money | | AlterNet)
The news that Topeka, Kansas, actually overturned its local domestic violence ban during a budgetary tussle--an effort to force the county DA's hand in prosecuting cases--has made national waves. Emails flooded into officials' inboxes and outrage spread on social media.
After the firestorm hit, the DA said he would again reinstate prosecution of domestic violence cases on a case-by-case basis, but this conclusion was reached only after an undue amount of pressure and attention. The city didn't want to pay to prosecute domestic violence misdemeanors. The county didn't want to pay, either. So women and other victims of domestic violence were paying instead, pawns in a power play between officials.
Who knows how many more times this sort of thing will happen around the country if victims' rights are treated as something that can be trimmed from the budget and shunted on to the next guy?