Thumbs up/thumbs down

 Thumbs up to a national effort with leadership from Minnesota to increase safety for American Indian women. Indian women experience the highest rates of sexual and domestic violence, yet complex jurisdictional issues contribute to an extremely low level of prosecutions against their abusers. Senator Al Franken is leading an effort in the U.S. House of Representatives to clarify jurisdictional authority between tribes and the federal government in both criminal and civil matters. Specifically, he has joined Indian activists and Justice Department personnel in working to propose changes to the federal criminal code, which currently has lower sanctions for domestic abuse than most state codes. Additionally, the bill should lead to greater enforcement of civil protection orders. Minnesota Indian women activists Sarah Deer and Sherry Sanchez-Tibbets presented compelling testimony before Congress in support of this effort.

 Thumbs down to the City of Topeka and Shawnee County, Kansas, for recently turning their backs on the lives and safety of battered women during recent budget skirmishes. The city repealed its ordinance against domestic violence, claiming to do it to protest the county’s decision to no longer prosecute misdemeanor crimes that occur in the city. While these government agencies bickered over funds, cases of violence against more than 30 women went unprosecuted. Any one of these crimes could have escalated, and every batterer was being sent the message that they could abuse women with impunity in Topeka.

 Thumbs up to the attorneys who represented the family of Minnesotan Teri Lee in their successful suit against the ADT security company. In an out of court settlement, the company agreed to provide a significant (but undisclosed) sum of money to provide for Teri’s four children. The children are being raised by an aunt and uncle after their mother was murdered by an ex-boyfriend in 2006. Lee had installed an ADT security system, but her killer was able to get all the way through her home and into her bedroom, where he murdered her and her companion, without the alarm system responding.