[Cyber Liberty]

If I had a dollar for every domestic violence victim who refused to press charges and wound up dead

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That is a truism all over the country. It’s going to be one sad place to live if we starting incarcerating victims of crimes to “protect” them. Why don’t we just jail everybody in the name of “safety?” Why wait for a crime to be committed? We can call it “Crime Prevention Zero Tolerance.” If just one life is saved....

We’ll see a lot more people putting up signs, “Warning: We don’t call 911” or simply refusing to report crimes at all.

[AnAmericanMother]

It may or may not be a truism, but it's true.

The prosecutor is between a rock and a hard place. Try to help someone who is really not in her right mind (the way these silly women moan, "Oh, but I luvvvvv him!" while they are black and blue with broken bones, makes you want to slap them silly until you realize that they really are not sane) and the cop-haters launch on you. Let them refuse to press charges, the violence escalates until they die, and then the law-and-orders launch on you for failing to protect the victim.

It is absolutely possible for a judge to hold a witness in contempt for refusing to testify, whereupon they wind up . . . in jail. This appears to be the same destination for the same reason, but by a statutory route.

If there's a problem with the law, the legislature needs to address it. But I don't think we're getting the whole story here.