Ciscokid said:
I'm not sure which level of Government you're referring to. I don't think the Federal Government has much responsibility in the domestic abuse area. Local politicians however have some responsibility to keep their people safe.
Having said that, I still am not sure that Politicians are to blame for people who abuse other people. That is the job of the local authorities, the community, perhaps the schools etc.
I don't think we need to look to the government to resolve every issue we have...we need to try to handle what we can on our [as a community or society] own. There is quite a bit we can do w/o the politicians or the government getting involved.
Not to resolve every issue, certainly, but the gov't surely has a large role to play when it comes to keeping abusers out of society, and things are not working very well in that regard.
I've thought for a long time that our system of jurisprudence needs a good overhaul when it comes to issues surrounding people with mental health problems. We have the option of tossing people in with purely criminal populations, or letting them off free. Isn't there some way we can have a verdict of "Guilty but insane" and keep someone off the streets in a facility designed for people who are dangerously nuts?
These are some of the areas where gov't at federal and state levels have a role to play. They make the laws. They choose the judges sometimes. They fund prisons and other facilities of that sort. They also fund education programmes in schools and elsewhere, counseling and treatment programmes for victims, and that sort of thing.
You can have all the local cops you want to enforce the laws, but if there is no law to contain someone who's about to harm someone, the cops can do nothing. Ask anyone who's had to get a restraining order how "safe" they feel after the fact.
Heck, my business partner tried all the legal angles, and eventually had to call her Sicilian friends to keep herself safe from one of her ex-boyfriends. Her other alternative was to wait for him to come get her, and then kill him in self-defense. As it was, she managed to minimize the damage. He got off with broken arms for having talked back to Guido. The boy just weren't too smart, eh?
Most people don't have those kind of connections, though. They just get to be sitting ducks.