The latest allegations in opposition to King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson make one thing painfully clear: Safety orders are extensively used, steadily violated and too usually fail to cease escalation. Because of this, victims of violence and stalking should monitor their abusers in the event that they need to keep secure.
Based mostly on name information from the Seattle Open Data Portal, Seattle police responded to 1,322 calls associated to home violence safety orders in 2025. The orders triggered arrests in 366 of these instances, and Wilson’s was considered one of them. He was ordered to put on a GPS ankle monitor as a part of a no-contact order however thus far doesn’t.
The system that was designed to guard victims hinges on know-how that alerts her if he comes inside 1,000 ft. This isn’t accountability. We’re simply outsourcing security and giving the sufferer homework.
We’ve constructed a system the place survivors — who’re overwhelmingly ladies, at almost 1 in 3 — are anticipated to obtain apps, monitor alerts, alter their routines and stay in a relentless state of vigilance whereas the particular person accused of harming them negotiates the phrases of compliance. We hand ladies an app and say, “Good luck.”
This isn’t only a coverage failure; it displays a system that expects ladies to hold the burden of conserving themselves secure. Anticipate the hazard. Handle the danger. Do the work.
GPS monitoring can be a useful device, however provided that the victims have common entry to a smartphone and it’s enforced. And it nonetheless locations the burden on the sufferer. On this case, the courtroom ordered monitoring in response to allegations of repeated violations of a no-contact order by Wilson. The ankle monitor wasn’t extreme; it was an acknowledgment that earlier interventions had failed.
And but, right here we’re — negotiating with him. At his April 15 hearing, Wilson managed to keep away from compliance by citing medical causes that allegedly prevented him from carrying the ankle monitoring system (which weren’t famous as a problem on the earlier listening to, when he agreed to put on it). So she should, as soon as once more, do extra work.
She must doc any future violations, report them and wait. Too usually, establishments contort themselves to accommodate the accused, leaving survivors to bear the burden of their very own security.
Even now, regardless of a five-year no-contact order and felony expenses, the central query shouldn’t be round sufferer security however how we make the system work round him. All of the whereas, he continues to serve in elected workplace, regardless of widespread calls by the Metropolitan King County Council and the King County Executive for him to step down as a matter of precept.
When a strong public official can resist court-ordered monitoring and stay in workplace, it sends the message that accountability is negotiable, particularly for males in positions of energy.
In accordance with the Stalking Prevention Awareness Resource Center, intimate associate stalkers are the almost definitely to strategy, threaten and hurt their victims. Stalking is an escalating type of gender-based violence. In the meantime, survivors are held to an unattainable customary. Be vigilant. Be responsive. Be ready. It may imply your job, your vibrancy and even your life.
We have to ask ourselves, why are victims liable for monitoring another person’s compliance in any respect? Why aren’t we constructing programs centered on enforcement? Why will we depend on survivors to interpret threat in actual time as a substitute of guaranteeing that violations set off penalties? Particularly for these we entrust to carry elected positions?
Actual accountability appears completely different. It appears like programs that cut back, not redistribute, the burden positioned on survivors.
Till then, we’re not defending victims. We’re deputizing them with a hidden curriculum.
And that’s not justice — it’s simply an extension of abuse.
Members of the Seattle Ladies’s Fee contributed to this op-ed.
