Sarah Palin rape kits scandal

Material from this article is almost entirely by Wikipedia and Anarchopedia user Anarchangel, and was removed from Wikipedia.
See Wikipedia:Talk:Sarah Palin/Archive index and Wikipedia:Early political career of Sarah Palin ([1])

While Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, she cut programs for dealing with victims of rapes with consideration, fired the sheriff who had installed those programs, and hired a sheriff who instead charged rape victims for their own evidence-gathering examinations. She has never denied this; on the one opportunity she was given to clear the record, she instead chose to evade the question.

Wasilla City Hall

Location of Wasilla, Alaska

Overview

Before Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Irl Stambaugh was police chief. He enacted procedures for dealing with victims of rapes with consideration; a special victims task force. Palin fired him, and hired police chief Fannon. When the Alaska legislature began considering a bill to stop the practice, Fannon gave an interview in which he defended billing victims for their exams. As mayor, Palin was not only directly responsible for the budget and its allowance for costs such as rape kits, but for the performance of the duties of those under her. She bears a certain amount of responsibility for Fannon's actions as police chief. In 2008, Palin was directly asked whether victims were charged, and what the police department's policy was on charging, and evaded both questions.

HB 270

In 2000, state legislators in Alaska learned that some police agencies were seeking to bill the the insurance companies of rape victims for forensic medical examination necessary to gather evidence, which can cost $500 to $1200. A bill was proposed, to require police departments to cover the cost of the exams. In the Alaska State Legislature's committee meetings for the bill, HB 270, the Wasilla area, known as the Mat-Su Valley, was mentioned as one of the places where local hospitals had charged for rape exams. The population centers of the Mat-Su Valley comprise, in order of population, Wasilla, Palmer, Big Lake, Willow, Houston, and Talkeetna, with Wasilla being equal in population, at the time, to all the others other than Palmer. The Palmer police chief said that he would never charge for the kits, so even going by mere chance, it is a 50/50 chance that Wasilla was the town the legislature was referring to.

The cheapness and distastefulness of billing for rape kits is obvious to all. But the effects of the evidence-gathering process on the victim, let alone billing, may not be so obvious. It is the business of Lauree Hugonin, Director of the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault to know these things, and when she was called before the Alaska Legislature, in addition to explaining the process of evidence-gathering itself, she had this to say (as paraphrased by the legislature session recorder):

MS. HUGONIN mentioned that in the best of circumstances the perpetrator is caught, evidence has been collected and used in the prosecution to a good end, and the perpetrator is jailed. She indicated that as the victim recovers from this heinous crime, at every point where the victim has to relive it, and she does relive it because it is not something that can be forgotten. She emphasized that it is incomprehensible that the victim should have to relive the crime upon receiving a bill for the assault exam from her insurance company. It puts her right back to when it happened.

Lauree Hugonin testified before the committee that 1000 victims of sexual assault were referred to her agency in 1999. Hugonin also testified that due to hospital accounting practices, victims had been charged for their exams in Mat-Su, Anchorage, Kenai, Sitka and 'possibly' in Bethel. Testimony from a Juneau resident that she had been charged was read before the committee.

The investigation in the legislature was brief and to the point, and avoided unnecessary confrontations; no testimony was collected from women in Wasilla, and thus no evidence that the insurer of any woman in Wasilla had been billed for a kit was presented to the legislature. House committee hearings finished in mid-April, and HB 270 became law later the same year.

In 2008, former Democratic Governor Tony Knowles, who signed the bill into law, said "We would never bill the victim of a burglary for fingerprinting and photographing the crime scene, or for the cost of gathering other evidence. Nor should we bill rape victims just because the crime scene happens to be their bodies."

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AP ED

Wasilla and coverup

Irl Stambaugh was reportedly surprised to hear that the police department was charging; he said when he was chief of police, he had included a line item in the budget to pay for the cost of such exams. The budget during his tenure shows a line item called Contractual Services, that, among other things, paid for "evidence collection for sexual assaults"; The Contractual Services line item on p. G-26 of the linked PDF labelled: "PDF"; other links show the cuts to the budget. But that amount was also used to clear the local runway of snow, involving the acquisition and maintenance of heavy machinery and labor. That line item was cut by more than half during Palin's tenure., but since the airplanes could not take off with snow on the ground, cutting it by half meant the rape kits and similar programs were cut completely. Palin knew, or should have known, that the rape kits were being cut.

Palmer police chief Laren Zager said "I'm prepared to pay every dime in an investigation. As long as I am chief, I would never bill a victim". Fannon, however, responded to the new law by expressing concern about the cost of the rape kits. Fannon stated: "In the past we've charged the cost of exams to the victim's insurance company when possible. I just don't want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer....Ultimately it is the criminal who should bear the burden of the added costs.".

The costs, however, are in dispute. On the one hand, the attempts to cover up the issue make it seem as though there were no rapes to pay for. Wasilla's report to the FBI of rapes in 2000 showed only one rape. But rape is a very big issue in Alaska; it is high in relation to other crimes, especially when the rape of indigenous Alaskans (Eskimos) is concerned. Wasilla had it in their interest to be seen as a city with a low rape rate, even before the kit issue emerged.

If it was only one rape to pay for, what was Fannon's objection? But to strengthen his case about the huge amount of money the city was going to have to pay, Fannon estimated HB 270's impact on the Wasilla PD's budget at approximately $5,000 to $14,000 a year.

No estimate for the cost of rape kits, (the high estimate in the Frontiersman is $1200) comes even close to a quarter of his lowest figure. At the lowest estimate for cost, $300, also from the Frontiersman, Fannon's highest estimate of cost, $14,000, could have bought Wasilla 466 rape kits. So which is it? Were there few rapes, which refutes Fannon's assertion of high cost, or were there many, in which case it was a real problem for rape victims, which Fannon and Palin chose to ignore?

And finally, the clinching evidence that tied it all together; the budget allocation for rape kits and other Contractual Services in that same year was $1000. This cannot have covered even the clearing of snow from the local runway that was also a part of the Contractual Services line-item.

Despite Fannon's own, open admission of the practice, the City of Wasilla Office of the Mayor reported searching records extending "back to the beginning of fiscal year 2000", and "found no record of sexual assault victims billed for forensic exams". It became even more obvious that the office of the mayor was still working for the mayor even when she was a candidate for vice-president when Palin herself, in her interview with the Frontiersman, in order to distance herself as much as possible from the issue, responded to the question without querying the existence of the practice. If it had never happened, she would have said so.

Frontiersman interview

The Wasilla newspaper, The Frontiersman, conducted an e-mail interview with Palin, comprising fourteen questions:

(Frontiersman)"6. During your tenure as mayor in 2000, then police chief Charlie Fannon commented in a May 23, 2000 Frontiersman article about legislation Gov. Tony Knowles signed protecting victims of sexual assault from being billed for rape kits collected by police as part of their investigations. Fannon revealed then that Knowles’ decision would cost Wasilla $5,000 to $14,000 a year, insinuating that the department’s policy was to bill victims for this testing. During your tenure as Mayor, what was the police department and city’s standard operating procedure in recovering costs of rape kits? Were any sexual assault victims ever charged for this testing while you were mayor?"

(Palin)"The entire notion of making a victim of a crime pay for anything is crazy. I do not believe, nor have I ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test. As governor, I worked in a variety of ways to tackle the problem of sexual assault and rape, including making domestic violence a priority of my administration."

The questions of the operating procedures and specifically, charging, were not answered in 2008, and have not been answered since.

In 2008, Palin's spokeswoman spoke as though it had been, saying, "Gov. Palin's position could not be more clear. To suggest otherwise is a deliberate misrepresentation of her commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice." USA Today reported that the spokeswoman "would not answer other questions, including when Palin learned of Wasilla's policy or whether she tried to change it."

Assertions to the contrary in conservative reporting

• It is said victims are not billed, insurance companies are billed. This is not only a red herring, it is not even economically speaking, true. Insurance is an asset of the insuree that incurs costs of its own, and items being billed to it may not be paid in full by the insurance company (deductibles) or may incur additional charges to the insurance itself.
• It is said that Sarah Palin has never admitted the practice. However, she has been given ample opportunity, including direct questioning, and has never denied it, either.
• An assertion that Palin "states she had no knowledge of any 'rape kit' policies about billing" is false. When presented with an opportunity to answer that very question, she answered in another way.
• It has been stated that towns other than Wasilla charged. This is true, as the HB 270 Finance Committee minutes show.
• An assertion that the budget was under the control of the city council is false. Municipal Code.
• An assertion that "There were no rape kit line items in any of the budgets" is false. The '94 budget shows rape kits, and that line item disappears when Palin becomes mayor, which is consistent with a policy of charging or otherwise avoiding paying for them.
• The wording in the St. Petersburg Times article, "An investigation by the found no evidence that Palin had explicitly supported or opposed this policy." and "We can’t find that Palin ever commented on the policy, pro or con." are examples of the negative proof fallacy, and as such, also rely on negative proof for their notability. Otherwise they are truisms about the fallability of the SPT.
• The assertion that the wording in the article, "An investigation by the St. Petersburg Times found no evidence that Palin had explicitly supported or opposed this policy." relies for its notability upon a negative proof fallacy has not been addressed, but it is extremely unlikely that it will ever be refuted.
• The wording in the St. Petersburg Times article "Although Wasilla had such a “rape kit” policy while Palin was mayor, there is no evidence that she explicitly endorsed the policy." and "Yet the campaign has not provided any evidence that Palin ever opposed the policy." are quite simply not true. The budget, her interview, Fannon's interview, the lack of any action by Palin after his interview, and much more, all point to either spectacular incompetence or complicity.

On Wikipedia

Although a summary of information in this article had only to compete with statements such as 'During her first year in office, Palin kept a jar with the names of Wasilla residents on her desk. Once a week, she pulled out a name, picked up the phone and asked: "How's the city doing?"', a piece of Palin-fan trivia that exists to this day, it was removed one can only believe permanently, after months of fighting for its inclusion, despite refutations of the vast majority (13) of the opposing arguments. Anarchists are warned against attempting the restoration of the material, as the cabal that existed in 2008 to prevent its inclusion is very much alive.

Note that the subject of the AfD in the tag to the right is not that of this article, as the material here was never part of any article long enough for an AfD
However, it is a related subject that was proposed for deletion, and to which links have, of course, been removed from the main SP article, as soon as it was possible, by the pro-SP cabal

Why?

Everyone probably has their own idea of why this happened ("Because I can" / "Just 'Cause" / Ad Hocus), but only one made it into print. Eric Croft, at the time an Alaskan representative, offers a plausible explanation, albeit one weakened by its framing in reference to right-wing political positions: rape kits contain the Morning After pill

"“It never made sense to me that it was something worth the fight,” Croft said, “unless it was more about the fact that at the very end of the rape-kit procedure, [the victim is offered] a morning-after pill. If you really believe the hardcore pro-life position…it’s a government-funded abortion.” - Eric Croft, at the time an Alaskan representative, in the Washington Independent"

See also

• Wikipedia:Sarah Palin interviews with Katie Couric
• Operation Payback (WP)
• Sarah Palin email hack(WP)
• Gravina Island Bridge (WP)
• SarahPAC (WP)

References

1. CNN • • • 2. Washington Post • • • • 3. Frontiersman • • • • 4. Frontiersman • • • • 5. Seattle Times • • • • • 6. Huffington Post-Jacob Alperin Sheriff • • • 7. USA Today • 8. Frontiersman • • • 9. Blog • • • •

10. AK state legislature • • • 11. AK state legislature • • • • 12. LA Times • • • 13. Touch-n-go AK Supreme Court legal record • • • • • 14. YouTube • • • • • 15. AP release • • • • 16. USA Today • 17. LA Times • • • 18. Yahoo search • • • •

19. Salon • • • • 20. Salon • • • 21. Huffington Post- Jacob Alperin Sheriff • • • • • 22. Edge • • 23. Zimbio • • 24. Frontiersman • • • • 25. Washington Post • • • • 26. Swamp • 27. US News •

28. AK state legislature • • • • 29. AK state legislature • • • • 30. AK state legislature • • • 31. AK state legislature • • • 32. FBI crime stats • 33. AK state • • • • 34. AK state legislature • • • • 35. AK state legislature • • • • 36. Wasilla code • •