“Case dismissed,” the Sunday ADN’s lead article a week ago, astoundingly revealed our collapsed justice system — the fact that domestic violence cases, where the majority of victims are women, have been dropped from prosecution.
Cases where vulnerable women face attempted homicide, are beaten, burned, raped, bones broken, and physically and emotionally scarred, remind one of our ex-president Donald Trump’s remarks that it is OK to grab women’s private parts.
As Alaskans, I thought we were above such demeaning behaviors. ADN described a female attorney with her gun, not only illustrating that restraining orders are useless, but that, as in Wild West days, women must arm themselves for self-protection — our community no longer protects the vulnerable. Lack of prosecutors also means cases like arson, child abuse, larceny and animal cruelty are also dropped.
Clearly, our legal system is broken and our jails are overburdened with mentally ill/addicted individuals whose jailing costs $75,000 per person per year, without rehabilitation. Currently, our 4,000 homeless residents, of whom a majority face addiction/ mental health issues, need opportunities for residential rehabilitation treatment programs to help them heal and return to work, to become upright tax paying citizens.
Our community must embrace healing strategies and invest in interventions for our safety so there is space for criminals in jail. Warehousing and camp abatement is not working, causes death and suffering, and brings anger and fear to our community.
The largest-growing segment of homeless are our vulnerable youth age 16-24, often victims stealing for survival.
If I as a woman arm and shoot the intruder on my property, I may be in “the right,” legally, but how would I live with myself knowing I had killed a mother’s son or daughter?
— Marty Margeson
Anchorage
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