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October 2008

November 2008

League will Monitor Courts Again (Annelle Amaral)
Board of Education Election
Monson Award at Elks Club November 13 (Elizabeth Reilly)
Why this Rail Project is Bad (Jackie Parnell)
How Many Votes to Elect a Mayor? (Jackie Parnell)
Historic Rail Tidbit (Pearl Johnson)
Weekly Bus Tours of Planned Rail Route
Primer on ConCon
Report from League's New Primary Election Observer (Kim Langley)
Welcome New Member
Go Rail, Go Broke (Charles Carole)
Membership Directory
Calendar of Events

League will Monitor Courts Again

Homicides between intimate partners are on the rise. The filing of domestic violence cases is on the decline. Convictions of batterers are on the decline. What’s up? Suzanne Meisenzahl, Chair of the Women’s Health & Safety Committee convened a committee meeting and invited community activists from the domestic violence community, the Drug Policy Forum, reproductive health activists and the women’s community.

Rob Perez of the Honolulu Advertiser is writing a series on domestic violence and he was invited to brief the attendees on the information he has discovered. By all indicators, it would seem that the status of domestic violence is more dangerous today than in 1996 when the League issued its report on Victim Safety. It would appear also that court cases and convictions have declined since the League’s 1998 Family Court Monitoring Report.

In response to the dire news, the group agreed to begin a court-monitoring project of the Family and Circuit Courts. In addition, the attendees agreed to convene sub-committees that would focus on reaching out to ethnic groups that have had the highest incidents of domestic violence.

The sub-committees would target the Native Hawaiian, Filipino, and Caucasian communities.

We know that the stress levels in our families are on the rise with the economic downturn, job losses and rising costs. In addition, Hawaii is seeing a rise in substance abuse.

There are no easy solutions, but the League of Women Voters and organizations such as Planned Parenthood of Hawaii, the Drug Policy Forum, and the State Commission on the Status of Women will work to assist the domestic violence agencies to lift the veil of secrecy of family violence and empower families to find alternative ways of dealing with conflict. We hope you will join us.

Annelle Amaral

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