women, rape and the legal system
Posted by shadowlight and co on March 24, 2010
For a legal system to be fair it is vital that the rights of the defendant to a fair trial are upheld, but it is equally important for the complainants to obtain justice. The rights of both defendants and complainants must be balanced. Women should be enabled to obtain justice without jeopardising the rights of the accused. In rape trials though this is rarely the case, the defendant is too advantaged, allowing men guilty of sexual assault to go free.
Over the last few decades, the legal system has taken a rapping with freeing defendant after defendant following wrongful conviction: the Guildford four, the Birmingham six and Judith Ward, to name a few. As shocking as these miscarriages are, miscarriages of justice resulting from wrongful acquittals should not be forgotten. It is an injustice not only when the innocent are convicted but also when the guilty go free, or when a case never gets to court at all.
The plight of the rape victim remains as acute as ever. They are viewed in and out of court with suspicion and hostility, and facilities which are meant to aid them are few and far between (Temkin 1987). In the US too, conviction rates are low. According to the FBI in only 16% of reported rapes end in conviction (Steketee and Austen). Consequently the courts have been described as a “disaster area” for rape victims (Bart and Moran 1993) and many of the reforms enacted have had a very limited effect (Allison and Wrightsman 1993). In Europe too, rape trials are an area of particular controversy (Pitch 1995). For example in Switzerland it has been estimated that only 2% of reported rape cases lead to a conviction (1994).
In the 1970s there were campaigns aimed at dispelling the myths surrounding rape. All sorts of myths were challenged: that rape was an expression of sexual desire; that rape was due to the irresistible urge of male sexuality; that rapists were crazed psychopaths; that rapists were black; that rape was a mere misunderstanding, etc… However, today many of these myths still exist strongly in many peoples minds, along with a few “new” myths.
One such prevalent myth is that men need protection from women who are prone to make false allegations for all sorts of reasons, ranging from spite and revenge through to fantasy and pretence (as a means of hiding their infidelity or sexual adventures) to confusing bed sex with rape. Or it is argued that a woman could have avoided the rape if she had not laid herself open to attack (victim precipitation), or she asked for it and secretly enjoyed it (victim participation). Myths about the nature of rape are contradictory, on the one hand rape is often seen as easy to get over, or as an experience that women should “lay back and enjoy”; and on the other hand, it is seen as a very serious crime. Rape is the ultimate form of objectification, in which the womans consent is overruled and her humanity denied. The offence poses a threat to physical integrity and this is compounded by humiliation and deprivation of privacy and autonomy. Yet rape is trivialised by women as well as men. It is argued that some rapes are not as bad as others. It is obviously true that there are different reactions to rape, as to any other trauma, but to argue that therefore rape should be graded according to its gravity misses the point. Rape is the ultimate denial of female subjectivity in a culture where a whole range of sexual practices operates in male interests.
Societal expectations concerning rape reporting are also contradictory. One view is that if a woman is raped, she should be too upset and ashamed to report it; the other that she will be so upset that she defiantly will report it. Both views exist simultaneously, but it is the latter that is written into law. Any delay in reporting is therefore used against her. There is further contradiction in that the complainant should appear upset as a victim but controlled and calm as a court witness. If in court she appears lucid as a witness she may not be seen s a victim. If she appears too upset, she runs the risk of being seen as hysterical and therefore not believable.
One common theme throughout many of these myths is that they absolve men from responsibility for rape. Such myths are important, as rapists draw on them to justify their violence. In Scully and Marolla (1985), men convicted of rape were interviewed; one argued “she semi-struggled but deep down inside I think she felt it was a fantasy come true”. Rapists do not invent their rationalisations; they draw on social myths reflecting ideas that they have every reason to believe that others will find acceptable (Grubin and Gunn 1990).
Women have been accused of lying about rape from time immemorial, and some women do make false allegations of physical battery. According to police statistics, approximately 8% of rape, as compared to 2% of reports of other crimes, are false or lack supporting evidence.
Even if 8% of women do lie about rape, they are the exception, not the rule. If there is any rule, it is that sexual assault is by far the most underreported crime in the United States (national crime centre 1992).
Myths about women making false allegations override commonsense explanations of why they should run naked into the street, cry compulsively, spend the night in police stations for fear of retribution for taking the case to court, change their name, move home, or even go into hiding. The phase “false allegations” needs up-picking, the malicious woman who concocts a false story to take revenge on a past lover would not get very far in the legal system, where a past sexual relationship usually precludes cases even getting to court. It is possible that on rare occasions women who have perhaps been raped or abused in the past may allege that it has happened again, but it is unlikely that a sensitive investigator would not be able to uncover this. Temkin (1987) points out that there is no evidence that fabricated allegations happen more often in rape cases than for any other type of crime.
Most commonly, however, false allegations refer to the woman’s words pitted against the defendant’s protestation that she consented. In most trials, the fact of sexual intercourse is not disputed; the issue is the meaning of consent. Men’s exaggerated fear of false allegation is perhaps more about men’s fantasies of women. It reflects a society where forced sex is far more common than imagined and where women who are forced into sex often do not name it as rape.
Two Scottish researchers found that reasons given by the police for complainant fabrication included the following: to explain a pregnancy; as an excuse for getting home late; spite; hyperactive imagination; and remorse (Chambers and Millr 1987). Similar arguments are often presented in court by the defence.
Although the FBI estimates that only 10% of rapes are not reported, police data and the results of national surveys of sexual assault centres indicate that 50% are not reported (Hall 1995). In the UK this issue is even more pronounced with 60% of rapes not being reported.
However, many experts feel that these figures grossly underestimate the degree of underreporting. Underreporting is especially prevalent among illegal and recent immigrants, among women from cultural backgrounds that value sexual chastity, and among women who were attacked by someone they knew (Petrak and Hedge 2002)
The limited information available indicates that African-American and Hispanic survivors, as compared to European and American survivors, face more negative social reaction if they disclose attempted or completed rape (Crawford and Unger 2000). Of all groups, Hispanic women have been found to have the highest rates of staying silent and the lowest rates of asking for help from others. Sexual assault is considered such a stigma that many suffer in silence rather than risk social disapproval and rejection (Ullman and Filipas 2001).
The anti-rape movement of the 1970s resulted in greater public awareness of sexual assault and improved recording procedures and legislation, making it easier for women to come forward. However within less than 2 decades, this process started to be, and continues to be, undermined by a backlash that dismisses sexual assault as “rape hype” and feminist propaganda. This movement also alleges that researchers exaggerate statistics (Media Education Foundation 1992) and that date-rape victims “cry rape” as an excuse for “bad sex” (Roiphe 1993)
Women who regained memories of childhood abuse were accused of lying to gain attention, financial compensation or of waging a personal vendetta against a family member. There have even been efforts to eliminate federal funding for rape crisis centres (Gilbert 1993).
These and other forms of backlash have silenced and continue to silence women who have been sexually attacked, causing some women (at times myself included) to wish that they had been mutilated physically as well as raped, so that they would be believed and respected as truth-tellers and not ridiculed and alienated as liars.
Women may regret having sex (the morning after phenomenon), but this does not cause them to “cry rape”. Women may reluctantly agree to have sex, but there is no evidence that they cannot distinguish such occasions from when they do not consent and are raped. In 1991 a study was carried out by Painter which indicated that it is more common for women not not recognise certain situations, including being “coerced into sex”, as rape than to “cry rape” when dissatisfied with sex. Rather than being eager to classify themselves as having been raped, the opposite appeared to be the case. In other words, when they were raped, they were often disinclined to see it as rape. Painter concluded, firmly, that women are unlikely to “cry rape”. It is important to be clear that consenting to sex, however reluctantly, is different from being raped. Additionally not resisting in response to threats or coercion is also distinct from consenting. The focus of trials should not be placed so heavily on whether or not the woman resisted, but on what lead the defendant to the belief that she consented. It is for this reason that it is (or should be) essential for the defendant to give evidence, or at least to justify his failure to do so.
The police treatment of rape cases has radically changed in the last few decades. The catalyst for this was, in part, an episode of the BBC television series police in 1982, in which police officers were seen in a live investigation of a woman reporting a rape. The brought to the public’s attention the harsh interrogation techniques rape complainants were subjected to and provided the impetus for the police to reform the procedures (Scott and Dickens, 1989). As a result of pressure from the Womans National Commission following publication of its report “violence against women” (1985), the Home Office issued a circular calling for improved police training to deal with rape and sexual assault, the appointment of more women police surgeons and the provision of better facilities for medical examination of women who had been attacked. Police handling of rape and sexual assault complainants, if not perfect, has greatly improved. Most police officers now have had some training (although this is often fairly minimal) and a chaperonage system is in place in many stations.
The number of women reporting rape and sexual assault to the police has doubled over the past decade in Britain, but the proportion of reported rapes resulting in a conviction has more than halved there are possible reasons why more women are reporting rape: confidence that the police will believe them has undoubtedly increased and greater acknowledgement of the prevalence of violence against women within the community could well have had an effect; but there could also have been an actual increase in the prevalence of rape.
In 1993 a study was done by Lees and Gregory in which women who had not reported their rape where asked why. The most common reason (57%) was a lack of confidence that the police would believe them, or take them seriously, particularly if they knew their attacker. Other reasons were fear of further attack from the assailant or his friends (18%), fear that the man would return, as he knew where they lived (14%), fear that if the man was of professional status he would the advantage over them (in one case the assailant was a high-ranking police officer). Several women did not report the event as they felt, or were made to feel, that the rape was their fault because they had gone willingly to the man’s home. Finally, 15 women were put off from reporting because they did not want to testify in court. Reasons including belief that a conviction was unlikely; belief that she, the victim, would be “on trial”; fear of reprisals by the man; not wishing to involve relatives; and not wishing other people to find out what happened. The reality of woman’s fear of retaliation were brought home by the case in 1995 of a husband who was acquitted of raping his wife only to return to their home days later where he beat her to death in front of their children.
Have you ever asked a woman who has been raped if she enjoyed it? Have you ever asked her if she was asking for it by wearing short skirts? Have you ever asked her if her shoes are not real leather but a “cheap” fake, implying that she may be too? Have you ever asked her to describe loudly in detail what happened in front of room of people? Have you ever asked her why she did not fight back more strenuously? Have you ever asked her whether she has ever had an abortion? Asked her about past sexual relationships? Ever demanded details of her menstrual cycle? Probably not… but these are all questions that have been asked in court. In fact these questions are encouraged on the grounds that they are the only way to protect men from false allegations. These questions also have the side effect of destroying the womans credibility.
So, if only 6% of rape cases end in conviction does this imply that the other 84% are examples of false accusations? Well I don’t think so… especially after myself reporting a rape a few years ago and never getting to court at all… women often put themselves through all the above only to have the defendant acquitted and walk free.
I will leave you with an example of this, which occurred in 1984 when Alister Winter (not real name) was accused by Julie (not real name) of rape. Julie was living with her parents in Sussex and had a boyfriend. One night she went to a Christmas party and got talking to a man there, when she went to leave he claimed that his car would not start and asked if she could give him a lift, thinking that it was a simple good deed she agreed. When they got to his home he insisted that she come in for a Christmas drink to say thankyou. She agreed to go to his flat and once there, the mans mood changed. He offered her drugs, which she refused, saying she had to go as she had to up early the next day. He physically stopped her from leaving, blocking the door and gripping her wrists. The more scared she got the more he seemed to enjoy what was happening/ he threatened to break her arm if she resisted, she pleaded with him and pretended to have an asthma attack. He pushed he down and raped her. After the rape he kept saying how he was not finished with her.
Julie managed to convince him that she needed her inhaler from her car, he made her leave her bag and shoes in his flat to ensure that he would return. When they got to her car Julie managed to leep in and lock the doors before he stopped her. She then drove off with him following her until she got to the police station; half naked, with no shoes and no bag.
Julie was covered in bruises and cuts, and had gotten a STI. She attempted suicide and ended up in psychiatric treatment. But Alister Winter was acquitted, although the judge unusually made an order for him to pay his legal costs of £15000. A friend of Winter was quoted in the media as saying “he used to have any woman he fancied, and has probably raped many times and gotten away with it”.
In 1993 Winter again appeared in court. It transcended that he had been taking women and raping them showing them the newspaper cutting from the previous trial as a method of making sure they did not tell as he would only be acquitted anyway. On this occasion he was found guilty of rape, buggery and administering controlled substances to have sex with female clients.
http://weareallsurvivors.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/women-rape-and-the-legal-system/
Women who regained memories of childhood abuse were accused of lying to gain attention, financial compensation or of waging a personal vendetta against a family member. There have even been efforts to eliminate federal funding for rape crisis centres (Gilbert 1993).
List of RAPE MYTHS
Sociology of Rape
University of Minnesota Duluth
Rape myths are beliefs about sexual assault that wrought with problems. Some myths are just completely and blatantly untrue. What often happens is that beliefs surrounding circumstances, situations, and characteristics of individuals connected to rape are applied to all cases and situations uncritically. Myths exist for many historic reasons which include inherited structural conditions, gender role expectations, and the fundamental exercise of power in a patriarchal society. The best way to approach rape myths are to confront them honestly and frankly. Don't deny their existence and don't dismiss one ungrounded statement with another.
Confronting rape myths sociologically means looking at the data and reevaluating knowledge in the face of social facts. What follows are a list of rape myths and the facts that bring those rape conceptions into question. They are not always conclusive but provide the ground work for continued research.
Myth: Rape is sex.
Fact: Rape is experienced by the victims as an act of violence. It is a life-threatening experience. One out of every eight adult women has been a victim of forcible rape. (National Victim Center and Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center, 1992) While sexual attraction may be influential, power, control and anger are the primary motives. Most rapists have access to a sexual partner. Gratification comes from gaining power and control and discharging anger. This gratification is only temporary, so the rapist seeks another victim.
Myth: Women incite men to rape.
Fact: Research has found that the vast majority of rapes are planned. Rape is the responsibility of the rapist alone. Women, children and men of every age, physical type and demeanor are raped. Opportunity is the most important factor determining when a given rapist will rape.
Myth: There is a "right way" to respond to a rape situation.
Fact:Since rape is life-threatening and each rapist has his own pattern, the best thing a victim can do is follow her instincts and observe any cues from the rapist. If the victim escapes alive she has done the right thing.
Myth:A victim should be discouraged from dwelling on the rape. She should "forget it".
Fact: This advice generally comes from people who are more concerned with their own feelings than the victim's. All victims should be offered the opportunity to talk about the assault with those personally close to them and knowledgeable professionals. Victims who are not allowed to talk about the rape have a much more difficult time recovering form it.
Myth:Support from family members is essential to the victim's recovery.
Fact: A Victim Services study found that emotional and practical support offered by family and friends does not necessarily speed the recovery of rape victims. However, when the people that a victim relies on behave in un supportive or negative ways, the victim faces a longer, more difficult recovery process. These negative behaviors include worrying more about oneself that the victim, blaming the victim, withdrawing from the victim or behaving in a hostile manner, and attaching a stigma to the rape and demanding secrecy from the victim.
Myth:Rape trauma syndrome is a transient problem. Most healthy people will return to a normal state of functioning within a year.
Fact: Surviving a rape can lead a woman to a better understanding of her own strength, but rape is a life changing experience. Rape has a devastating effect on the mental health of victims, with nearly one-third (31%) of all rape victims developing Rape-related Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (RR-PTSD) some time in their lifetimes. More than one in ten rape victims currently suffer from RR-PTSD. (National Victim Center and Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center)
Myth: Rapists are non-white. Rapists are lower class. Rapists are "Criminal types".
Fact: Rapists that fit the myth are more likely to be prosecuted but a rapist can be anyone: doctor, policeman, clergyman, social worker or corporate president.
Myth: Men can't be raped.
Fact: There were approximately 20,000 sexual assaults of males ages 12 and over in the United States in 1991. (Bureau of Justice statistics, 1992)
Myth: Incest is rare.
Fact: Incest is common and happens in every community. An estimated 77% of reported sexual abusers are parents (57% of the total being natural parents), 16% are other relatives, and 6% are non-related. In addition, males are reported to be the abusers in 60 to 95% of cases. (Thoringer, School Psychology Review, 17 (4):614-636)
Myth: Sexual assaults are rare deviations and affect few people. After all, no one I know has been raped.
Fact: Sexual assaults are very common. Most likely, someone close to you has been profoundly affected by sexual assault. Not only are victims reluctant to discuss their assaults but many succeed in totally blocking the assault from conscious memory. However, the trauma remains and may come to the surface at another crisis or when the opportunity to discuss it with a sympathetic person arises. An estimated 155,000 women were raped each year between 1973 and 1987. (U.S. Department of Justice, 1991)
Myth: Women often make false reports of rape.
Fact: According to FBI crime statistics, during the 1990s around 8 percent. The “unfounded” rate, or percentage of complaints determined through investigation to be false, is higher for forcible rape than for any other Index crime. Eight percent of forcible rape complaints in 1996 were “unfounded,” while the average for all Index crimes was 2 percent.
Myth: You can tell a rapist by the way he looks.
Fact: Rapists are not physically identifiable. They may appear friendly, normal, and non-threatening. Many are young, married and have children. Rapist types and traits however can be categorized.
Myth: Women fantasize about being raped.
Fact: No woman fantasizes about being raped. Fantasies about aggressive sex may be controlled and turned off if they become threatening. In rape, the victim is unable to control the violence and stop it.
Myth: A man can't rape his wife.
Fact: Many states now have laws against rape in marriage. The idea that a man can't rape his wife suggests married women do not have the same right to safety as do unmarried women. Most battered women have experienced some form of sexual abuse within their marriage. It is also known that estranged or ex-spouses sometimes use rape as a form of retaliation.
Myth: Only "bad" women get raped.
Fact: No other crime victim is looked upon with the degree of suspicion and doubt as a victim of rape. Although there are numerous reasons why society has cast blame on the victims of rape, a major reason found in studies is that of a feeling of self protection. If one believes that the victim was responsible because she put herself in an unsafe position, such as being out late at night, drinking alcohol, dressing in a certain way, or "leading on" the rapist, then we are able to feel safer because "we wouldn't do those things." But, the basic fact remains that without consent, no means no, no matter what the situation or circumstances.
Myth: Rape is just unwanted sex and isn't really a violent crime.
Fact: Rape is a lot more than an unwanted sex act, it is a violent crime. Many rapists carry a weapon and threaten the victim with violence or death.
Myth: Rape only occurs outside and at night.
Fact: Rape can and does occur anytime and anyplace. Many rapes occur during the day and in the victims' homes.
Myth: Sexual assault is an impulsive, spontaneous act.
Fact: Most rapes are carefully planned by the rapist. A rapist will rape again and again, usually in the same area of town and in the same way.
Myth: Sexual assault usually occurs between strangers.
Fact: By some estimates, over 70% of rape victims know their attackers. The rapist may be a relative, friend, co-worker, date or other acquaintance.
Myth: Rape only happens to young attractive women.
Fact: Rape can and does strike anyone at anytime. Age, social class, ethnic group and has no bearing on the person a rapist chooses to attack. Research data clearly proves that a way a woman dresses and / or acts does not influence the rapists choice of victims. His decision to rape is based on how easily he perceives his target can be intimidated. Rapists are looking for available and vulnerable targets.
Statistics were obtained from various sources including the study Rape in America, 1992, National Victim Center, The Federal Bureau of Investigations and the National Crime Survey.
Myth: Rape is a crime of passion.
Fact: Rape is an act of VIOLENCE, not passion. it is an attempt to hurt and humiliate, using sex as the weapon.
Myth: Most rapes occur as a "spur of the moment" act in a dark alley by a stranger.
Fact: Rape often occurs in one's home - be it apartment, house or dormitory. Very often the rapist is known by the victim in some way and the rape is carefully planned.
Myth:Most rapists only rape one time.
FACT Most rapists rape again, and again, and again - until caught.
Myth: Only certain kinds of people get raped. It cannot happen to me.
FACTRapists act without considering their victim's physical appearance, dress, age, race, gender, or social status. Assailants seek out victims who they perceive to be vulnerable. The Orange County Rape Crisis Center has worked with victims from infancy to ninety-two years of age and from all racial and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Myth: Only women and gay men get raped.
FACT The vast majority of male rape victims, as well as their rapists, are heterosexual.Male rape victims now represent 8% of the primary victims served by the Orange County Rape Crisis Center. Rapists are motivated by the desire to have power and control over another person, not by sexual attraction. Male rape is not homosexual rape. Many male victims do not report the assault because they fear further humiliation.
Myth: Rape is an impulsive, uncontrollable act of sexual gratification. Most rape are spontaneous acts of passion where the assailant cannot control him/herself.
FACT Rape is a premeditated act of violence, not a spontaneous act of passion. 71% of rapes are planned in advance. 60% of convicted rapists were married or had regular sexual partners at the time of the assault. Men can control their sexual impulses. The vast majority of rapists are motivated by power, anger, and control, not sexual gratification.
Myth: No woman or man can be raped against her or his will. Any person could prevent rape if he or she really wanted to.
FACT In 1991, 14% of the rapes reported to the Orange County Rape Crisis Center involved the use of a weapon. 74% involved physical force and/or threats of force. Women are often physically weaker than men and are not taught to defend themselves or to be physically aggressive. Furthermore, some women are not willing to hurt another person, especially if the offender is someone they know.
Myth: Most rapes occur when people are out alone at night. If people stay at home, then they will be safer.
FACT 44% of rapes reported to the Orange County Rape Crisis Center in 1991 occurred in the victim's home.
Myth: Rapists are strangers. If people avoid strangers, then they will not be raped.
FACT In 60% of the rapes reported to the Orange County Rape Crisis Center in 1991, the rapist was known to the victim. 7% of the assailants were family members of the victim. These statistics reflect only reported rapes. Assaults by assailants the victim knows are often not reported so the statistics do not reflect the actual numbers of acquaintance rapes.
Myth: If the assailant, victim, or both are drunk, the assailant cannot be charged with rape.
FACT Forcing sex on someone who is too drunk to give consent is second degree rape in North Carolina. [It carries a prison sentence of up to 17 years.] Rape is a crime. People who commit crimes while under the influence of alcohol or drugs are not considered free from guilt.
Myth: Most rapes involve black men and white women.
FACT 77% of the rapes reported to the Orange County Rape Crisis Center in 1991 involved persons of the same race.
Myth: Rapists are abnormal perverts; only sick or insane men are rapists.
FACT In a study of 1300 convicted offenders, few were diagnosed as mentally or emotionally ill. Most were well-adjusted but had a greater tendency to express their anger through violence and rage.
Myth: Rape is a minor crime affecting only a few women.
FACT It is estimated that 1 in 8 women will be raped in her lifetime. Because of low reporting rates, it is not known how many adult men are assaulted. It is also estimated that 1 out of every 4 girls, and 1 out of every 8 boys are sexually assaulted in some way before they reach adulthood. Rape is the most frequently committed violent crime in this country.
Myth: Women frequently cry rape; false reporting of rape is common.
FACT The FBI reports that only 2% of rapes reports are given falsely. This is the same report rate for other felonies.
Myth: Most rapes occur on the street, by strangers, or by a few crazy men.
FACT Over 50% of reported rapes occur in the home. 80% of sexual assaults reported by college age women and adult women were perpetrated by close friends or family members. There is no common profile of a rapist. Rapes are committed by people from all economic levels, all races, all occupations. A rapist can be your doctor, your boss, your clergyman, your superintendent, your partner, your lover, your friend or your date.
Myth: You cannot be assaulted against your will.
FACT Assailants overpower their victims with the threat of violence or with actual violence. Especially in cases of acquaintance rape or incest, an assailant often uses the victim's trust in him to isolate her.
Myth: Women secretly enjoy being raped.
FACT No woman/ man/ child enjoys being raped. It is a brutal intrusion on the mind, body and spirit that can have lasting trauma.
Myth: It is impossible for a husband to sexually assault his wife.
FACT Regardless of marital or social relationship, if a woman does not consent to sexual activity, she is being sexually assaulted. In fact, 14% of women are victims of rape committed by their husband.
Myth: If a person doesn't "fight back" she/he wasn't really raped.
FACT Rape is potentially life-threatening. Whatever a person does to survive the assault is the appropriate action.
Myth: A person who has really been assaulted will be hysterical.
FACT: Survivors exhibit a spectrum of emotional responses to assault: calm, hysteria, laughter, anger, apathy, shock. Each survivor copes with the trauma of the assault in a different way.
Myth: Women "ask for it" by their dress or actions.
FACT Rapists look for victims they perceive as vulnerable, not women who dress in a particular way. Assuming that women provoke attacks by where they are or the way they dress is victim-blaming. No person, whatever their behaviour, "deserves" to be raped.
Myth: Women "cry" rape.
FACT Only two percent of reported rape and related sex offences are false (which is approximately the same rate of false reports for other crimes). Although many cases are dropped because of insufficient evidence for conviction, this should not be confused with false reporting.
Myth: Gang rape is rare.
FACT: In 43% of all reported cases, more than one assailant was involved.
Myth: Women who are drunk are willing to engage in any kind of sexual activity.
FACT The fact that a woman has been drinking does not imply consent. Alcohol and drugs can render a woman incapable of consent.
Myth: Only young, pretty women are assaulted.
FACT Survivors range in age from infancy to old age, and their appearance is seldom a consideration. Assailants often choose victims who seem most vulnerable to attack: old persons, children, physically or emotionally disabled persons, substance abusers and street persons. Men are also attacked.
Myth: It is impossible to sexually assault a man.
FACT Men fall victim for the same reasons as women: they are overwhelmed by threats or acts of physical and emotional violence. Also, most sexual assaults that involve a male victim are gang assaults.
Myth: As long as children remember to stay away from strangers, they are in no danger of being assaulted.
FACT Sadly, children are usually assaulted by acquaintances; a family member or other caretaking adult. Children are usually coerced into sexual activity by their assailant, and are manipulated into silence by the assailant's threats and/or promises, as well as their own feelings of guilt.
Myth: Most rapes involve black men raping white women.
FACT The majority of rapes are same race; womewhere around 3 to 4% are not same race.
http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/jhamlin/3925/myths.html
For every recant story of molestation there's a hundred cases of true provable molestation.
Neither does Billy. His only purpose is to troll threads and argue with whatever the topic of the day may be. He has never agreed with anything that has been written on any thread. This is not opinion. This is fact based on his record of posting. Billy looks for recognition and acceptance, but does not know how to go about it. Any recognition, whether it be negative or positive, feeds his need to be accepted in a world which he seems incapable of fitting into.
Oh, I stand corrected. You do agree with most everything that your hero, Hawkeye, writes.
Quote:Oh, I stand corrected. You do agree with most everything that your hero, Hawkeye, writes.
Sorry I had disagree with him even on this thread not that long ago.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Rape victim's threat to jump off courthouse roof may derail case
By Jennifer Sullivan
Seattle Times staff reporter
A 21-year-old child-rape victim who was set to confront her alleged attacker in a Seattle courtroom Thursday afternoon, made her way onto the roof of the King County Courthouse and spent about three hours threatening to jump before she was led to safety.
With hundreds looking on from below, the distraught woman dangled her legs from the courthouse, leaning precariously toward the crowd that shouted for her not to jump. At one point, the woman leapt several feet down to the top of a skybridge that links the courthouse with the King County Jail.
Just before 4:30 p.m., the woman was led to safety by Seattle police negotiators, who had spent hours talking with her. She was taken to Harborview Medical Center for a mental-health evaluation, said Seattle police spokesman Jeff Kappel.
Traffic around the courthouse was disrupted for several hours as police and fire vehicles crammed into area streets.
The woman was reportedly distraught about taking the witness stand against Salvador Aleman Cruz, who is accused of raping her when she was a child in the mid-1990s. Cruz, who is acting as his own attorney, would have had the right to question the alleged victim while she was on the stand, said Dennis L. McGuire, an attorney assigned to help Cruz with his defense.
Cruz, 40, is charged with nine felony counts, including first- and third-degree child rape, first-degree child molestation and communication with a minor for immoral purposes. Opening statements in the trial began last week, McGuire said.
On Thursday morning, jurors heard from the woman's mother, Cruz's former girlfriend, before breaking for lunch.
Kappel said police were first notified that the woman was on the roof of the courthouse around 1 p.m.
The woman text-messaged Senior Deputy Prosecutor Val Richey, who is assigned to the case, from the roof, McGuire said.
Jurors were asked to stay in the jury room while police tried to persuade the woman to come down from the roof, McGuire said.
The judge hearing the case, Douglass North, did not inform jurors about what had happened. But as jurors left the courthouse at the end of the day, police cars, firetrucks and crime-scene tape blocked several streets around the building.
Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the Prosecutor's Office, said that the case will resume on Monday and at that point, North will decide whether the woman's actions should result in a mistrial.
Access to the courthouse roof is restricted, but Seattle police said a maintenance crew had left a door open. However, courthouse officials said they're still trying to determine how the woman was able to get onto the roof.
Cruz is accused of molesting the woman and her older sister between November 1993 and February 1997, according to charging paperwork. The woman was 3 when Cruz entered her mother's life, charges said.
Richey, in pretrial paperwork, said that the woman and other victims were terrified by Cruz, who allegedly threatened to kill them if they told anyone what had happened. The woman told authorities that she once saw Cruz hold a gun to her mother's head.
While Cruz was forbidden by court order from contacting his alleged victims, because he was acting as his own lawyer, he had a right to question the five alleged victims in the case, prosecutors said.
This is the second King County rape case in just over a year in which a defendant, acting as his own attorney, has been allowed to question alleged victims before a jury.
In July 2009, Sankarandi Skanda, who also goes by the name Franklin Antill, cross-examined a woman whom he allegedly raped after sneaking into her Wallingford home in October 2008. Antill committed suicide before the case concluded.
A bill that would have protected the victims of sexual abuse from direct questioning in court by their alleged assailant failed to pass in the state Legislature earlier this year. The bill relied on previous rulings in which courts have found that the state has an interest in protecting the physical and psychological well-being of child-abuse victims in addition to a defendant's right to face his or her accusers in court.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013350378_trial05m.html
It is a shame that the bill that would have prevented that was defeated in the Washington state legislature this year.
It is a shame that the bill that would have prevented that was defeated in the Washington state legislature this year.
re-abusing the victim by putting her in this position was a choice made, it was not necessary. Only because the rape feminists care more about pounding on alleged rapists than they do in the welfare of the victims do we have victims taking such drastic measures due to the pain inflicted upon them.
Hair Test Portends Dramatic Shift in Date-Rape Trials: Toxicologist
By Denise Ryan
November 4, 2010
VANCOUVER — The availability of ultrasensitive hair analysis may dramatically change outcomes for date-rape victims in B.C., says forensic toxicologist Dr. Walter Martz of the Provincial Toxicology Centre.
“We can now screen hair for drugs that may be used in sexual assaults,” said Martz. “Those drugs are GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyric), excess alcohol, ecstasy and Rohypnol (flunitrazipam),” said Martz.
Drug-facilitated sexual assaults, in which a victim might not even remember what happened, are often hard to prove in court.
Urine testing is inadequate in most cases, said Martz, because many so-called date-rape drugs, like GHB, disappear from the blood and urine within 12 hours of ingestion.
But urine and blood tests are no longer the only option for victims who believe they have been drugged and assaulted, but have no memory or obvious physical proof.
Victims are often reluctant to come forward, because of time constraints in urine testing.
“The Vancouver police department have said often times it’s too late to look for bodily fluids,” said Martz, who often testifies as an expert witness in forensic toxicology at trials around the world.
“Hair is like a diary,” explained Martz, who lobbied to have new equipment brought into the Provincial Toxicology Centre to perform hair analysis. “It preserves information over time.”
Hair grows at a fairly consistent rate, said Martz, about a centimetre a month.
Hair growth is fed by the bloodstream, so substances in the bloodstream at the time of growth become part of the hair as it is formed in the root, before being pushed out through the scalp.
Metabolite traces remain in the hair, leaving accurate time markers.
The methodology, explained Martz, is to take a sample of a victim’s hair at the time of an alleged drug-facilitated sexual assault. Three weeks later, another sample is taken close to the root.
If a victim were disabled with GHB or ecstasy, for example, and was not a regular user, the drug’s metabolites will be evident.
“We do segmental analysis,” said Martz. “A one-time event puts tiny amounts of a molecule in a very small section of hair, so normally the methodology is very powerful to distinguish between chronic, frequent or infrequent (ingestion).”
Where nothing else can be taken as evidence, hair analysis has become part of the investigative landscape in Europe and the U.S., said Martz, and is accepted for use in many court cases.
“If it is not in the first strand there can be no claim this person has been in regular use (of the substance); if it is positive at the bottom then there is evidence this has occurred in the period this crime has been committed.”
Martz recently testified at the murder trial of a child in Germany, where hair analysis factored into the prosecution. “We found various drugs in the hair of the child.”
When Martz came to B.C. to run the Provincial Toxicology Centre in 2007, he made it his mandate to get the equipment necessary for the highly sensitive testing.
He and his team are working with the Vancouver Police Department to get the information out there that the technology is available.
“Now they know there is an option, and they are pre-selecting cases they will give us,” said Martz.
He is hoping to work with hospitals and doctors to let them know this testing is now available.
“We are also in the process of establishing the chain of custody, documentation and report format,” said Martz. All are important for evidentiary reasons if a case goes to court.
What hasn’t been decided is who will pay for the testing.
Currently the centre processes urine testing on about 100 suspected drug-facilitated sexual assault cases annually.
Martz said if anyone thinks they may have been drugged and sexually assaulted, it is important to be proactive
“If you wake up and don’t know what happened, first thing before you go to the police is take a jar and use your urine to save your evidence.”
Currently the centre processes urine testing on about 100 suspected drug-facilitated sexual assault cases annually.
Martz said if anyone thinks they may have been drugged and sexually assaulted, it is important to be proactive
“If you wake up and don’t know what happened, first thing before you go to the police is take a jar and use your urine to save your evidence.”
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Hair+test+portends+dramatic+shift+date+rape+trials+toxicologist/3779995/story.html
The availability of ultrasensitive hair analysis may dramatically change outcomes for date-rape victims in B.C., says forensic toxicologist Dr. Walter Martz of the Provincial Toxicology Centre.
“We can now screen hair for drugs that may be used in sexual assaults,” said Martz. “Those drugs are GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyric), excess alcohol, ecstasy and Rohypnol (flunitrazipam),” said Martz.
Drug-facilitated sexual assaults, in which a victim might not even remember what happened, are often hard to prove in court.
Urine testing is inadequate in most cases, said Martz, because many so-called date-rape drugs, like GHB, disappear from the blood and urine within 12 hours of ingestion.
Or is it that you simply do not want to see rape regarded as a crime and rapists criminally prosecuted
