By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird says a 17-month-long review has found “serious problems” in state services for crime victims.
“All too often our criminal justice system doesn’t serve victims the way it should,” Bird said during a news conference early this afternoon.
Bird told reporters she was “shocked” to learn the system to notify victims when a protective order is being served or is about to expire was terminated in 2019 by her predecessor, Democrat Tom Miller. “This hurts victims in real life,” Bird says. “For example I remember when, as a county attorney, I spoke to a victim of past sexual abuse…and she was shocked when she ran into her abuser at the grocery store,” Bird said. “When she checked on the protective order, it had expired, but she didn’t know it.”
Bird has hired a coordinator to revive the notification system. “The notification buys a victim critical time for their safety plan or to avoid retaliation and violence,” Bird said. “It also notified victims when the protection order expires, so that victim can ask a court to extend the protection order.”
Bird’s report indicates a separate system that notifies victims when their abuser will be released from custody has been fixed. Bird says it was causing fear and panic in victims because it incorrectly sent notices about transfers from jail to jail or to a state prison.
Bird announced today she’ll be using money in her agency’s budget to double the pay for Iowa nurses who conduct sexual assault exams from $200 to $400 and she hopes that encourages more nurses to take the training that’s required.
“These compassionate exams help victims, give them options and they last between two and six hours,” Bird said, “sometimes as long as 10 hours.”
For the first time, the Iowa nurses authorized to conduct sexual assault exams will get mileage reimbursed, too.
Bird, who was elected in 2022, stopped state reimbursement for emergency contraception for sex abuse victims soon after she took office in early 2023 and she’s released that hold today.
“The policy going forward is that we will continue to continue to reimburse Plan B contraceptive prescriptions,” Bird said, “and we will also pay the ones that were paused during the interim.”
No tax dollars will be used, but instead the fees and fines criminals pay into the state’s victim compensation fund will cover the costs. It’s the same policy that was in place for Plan B before Bird took office. Bird is ending state reimbursement for abortion.
“The decisions (Bird) made today is still about politics, not victims,” State Representative Lindsay James, a Democrat from Dubuque, said in a written statement. “Iowans overwhelmingly support reproductive freedom and politicians have no place interfering in some else’s medical decisions, especially survivors of sexual assault.”
