Re the Illinois pole tax

Ron Jackson: Strip club tax covers up the solution March 17, 2012, 11:42 am

Published in The Daily Journal March 10, 2012

In the United States there are an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 animal shelters. There are about 1,600 domestic abuse shelters. If you abuse an animal, you're looking at some big trouble. If you abuse a woman or a child, it is highly possible nothing will be done to you.

Domestic violence is a serious and growing problem. And it's an issue we don't like to talk about. For a little background on the severity of the crime, I went to the website of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and found:

-- 1 in 4 women will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime.

-- An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate person each year.

-- Females, ages 20-24, are at the greatest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence.

-- Most cases of domestic violence are never reported.

What can be done to combat the rise in domestic abuse? Well, in Illinois, the answer seems to be to apply a $5 "skin tax" to patrons who frequent strip clubs. Yep, that is the best effort our state is currently putting forth.

Senate Bill 3348, sponsored by Illinois 40th District Sen. Toi Hutchinson, D-Olympia Fields, and supported by Illinois Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon, is making its way through Springfield. The legislation would require strip club owners who also serve alcohol to collect a $5 per patron fee that would be funneled to the new Sexual Assault Prevention Fund. The state would then allegedly fund grants to local agencies that work to combat sexual assault and to serve victims.

Illinois has roughly 100 strip clubs, some of which serve alcohol. By the way, alcohol is involved in about 50 percent of reported domestic abuse cases. Simon said the clubs contribute to the objectification and sexual exploitation of women. She added that some of the women in the strip club industry report verbal, physical and sexual abuse in the workplace. Those may be facts, but one definition of domestic abuse is: Any abusive, violent, coercive, forceful, or threatening act or word inflicted by one member of a family or household on another.

Strip clubs are an easy target for politicians. No one is going to stick up for that industry, which is not family friendly. But why punish the law abiding people? Why not put a sin tax on abusers, since it's all about generating revenue? Fine abusers heavily every time they put their hands on a woman? Drivers will pay a higher fine for running a stop light than an abuser will pay for slapping a woman. Authorize the courts to impose thousands of dollars in fines and send the majority of that money to domestic violence centers.

By equating domestic violence with strip clubs, Hutchinson and Simon are contributing to the public's ignorance about domestic violence. They are perpetuating the misconception that domestic violence is committed by sexual deviants.

Domestic violence is not limited to obvious physical or sexual violence. It can also mean endangerment, criminal coercion, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, trespassing, harassment and stalking.

If every strip club in the state closed tomorrow, domestic violence would continue because most domestic violence occurs in the home. And since it does, doesn't it makes as much sense as SB3348 to impose a tax on home builders? Or on the 777 golf courses in the state?

To show real support for domestic violence prevention, lawmaking supporters of SB 3348 could direct their proposed legislative pay increases to the domestic violence crisis centers.

SB3348 is comparable to those late night infomercials that promise miracle weight loss by doing something just two minutes per day. The many wonderful Illinois citizens that take domestic violence seriously, are not that stupid.