Hey, Can A Woman "Ask To Get Raped"?

Some acquaintance rapes do involve considerable force and even weapons.

Some acquaintance rapes do involve considerable force and even weapons

Some but not very many...if this offense was just as good as rape, if it was rape, it would not need its own name.

Jacques then pleaded no contest to three of the four charges against him, including sexual penetration by a foreign object with force and violence, forcible rape and dissuading a witness by force or threat.

Nursing home sexual violence: 86 Chicago cases since July 2007 — but only 1 arrest
Rape allegations were reported in a quarter of city's 119 nursing homes in those two and a half years, records show
By David Jackson and Gary Marx, Tribune reporters
January 26, 2010

Authorities have investigated at least 86 cases of sexual violence against elderly and disabled residents of Chicago nursing homes since July 2007, but only one of those cases resulted in an arrest, a Tribune investigation has found.

Allegations of criminal sexual assault, or rape, were reported in a quarter of Chicago's 119 nursing homes during those 2 1/2 years, government records show.

State law requires nursing homes to notify police immediately when they receive an allegation of sexual violence or abuse. However, no police reports were filed in connection with at least nine alleged sexual attacks reported by the state Department of Public Health, according to Chicago police records released to the Tribune. In a 10th case, the allegation was reported to police months after the incident.

Police and state investigative reports depict the terror endured by elderly and disabled women in some city nursing facilities where predatory males troll through common areas and unlocked bedrooms with little supervision.

Almost all of the 86 cases the Tribune examined involved residents attacking other residents. Only a handful of the alleged attackers were employees or visitors; the lone successful prosecution was of an orderly.

The frightening atmosphere is another consequence of Illinois' unusual reliance on nursing homes to house younger psychiatric patients with sometimes violent criminal records. Many understaffed facilities are ill-equipped to treat these residents or monitor their behavior.

Government records show that the 30 Chicago facilities where rapes were reported were roughly twice as likely to house convicted felons and mentally ill patients as the 89 city nursing homes without a sexual assault allegation.

At Rainbow Beach Care Center on the South Side, a 61-year-old woman said she was afraid to fight or scream and could only say, "No, no, no, please," as she was allegedly raped by a schizophrenic 47-year-old man with a "history of inappropriate sexual behavior toward females," according to a state health department report. When a police report was filed months later, it said the woman had called the sex "consensual."

A physician had previously ordered that the alleged attacker be given periodic shots of the drug Depo-Provera, a form of chemical castration used on male sex offenders. But state health inspectors found no medical record indicating those shots were given. State investigators also said the facility failed to conduct a "thorough investigation" to determine whether the same man had raped a second woman.

A few miles away at All Faith Pavilion, a female resident was hospitalized in a "catatonic state" with a swollen black eye, broken nose and human bite marks, state records show. She told authorities she was raped by a schizophrenic48-year-old male resident in the facility. The woman remained hospitalized for at least a month, a state report said.

No charges were brought in the Rainbow Beach and All Faith cases.

The owners and administrator of All Faith declined interview requests. Eric Rothner, a co-owner of Rainbow Beach, issued a written statement saying: "Every day, we confront a unique set of challenges and we deal with them realizing that if it were not for our facilities, our residents would be living on the streets. All of us caring for this population are keenly aware of these issues and work to overcome them 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

Most of the 30 city homes with alleged attacks had substandard staffing levels, which experts call a key indicator of patient safety. Of the 23 homes that federal authorities have rated on a ratio of nursing staff to residents, 21 were rated "below" or "well below" average on staffing levels, while two others were deemed average, the Tribune found.

In addition to 48 reports of criminal sexual assault, which is a felony, Chicago police records show 28 allegations of criminal sexual abuse at city nursing facilities since July 2007. Those sexual abuse cases, which include charges of molestation and groping, can be misdemeanors under some circumstances.

One of the nine alleged attacks that did not turn up in police records released to the Tribune came to light in May 2008 during a state inspection of Rothner's Sheridan Shores Care & Rehabilitation Center on the North Side. Three "alert and oriented" women described "the fear they were experiencing at night time" when they awoke to find strange men in their rooms, sometimes standing over their beds, according to the state inspection report.

One woman said: "It scared me to death!" Another recounted staving off "2 attempted rapes during the night when male residents entered her room using the stairwell," the state report said. A facility investigation confirmed one woman's allegation about a male intruder standing over her bed, but Sheridan Shores' administrator denied to state investigators knowledge of any attempted rape.

Although both police and state health inspectors investigate allegations of sexual violence in nursing homes, the Tribune found that the two agencies rarely communicate with each other about the incidents and do not typically share reports on violent incidents or pool their expertise and resources.

The extent of the violence in Chicago nursing homes was unknown to the state ombudsman's office, which fields abuse complaints from nursing home residents and their families. That agency investigated only two sexual abuse allegations in Chicago homes during a recent 12-month period, according to its records, while police listed 27 reports of sexual assault at city nursing homes during that time.

"We believe the reports are less frequent than they should be — we think there is something hidden here," said Karen Roberto, a Virginia Tech professor who studies sexual assaults against the elderly in nursing facilities.

The small number of arrests related to recent rape allegations in Chicago nursing homes — 48 rape reports, one arrest — sharply contrasts with figures on sexual assault allegations citywide, official figures show.

Last year, Chicago police investigated 1,446 criminal sexual assault reports and made 450 arrests. Though some rapes can involve multiple defendants and some arrests can be linked to reports from the previous year, that amounts to roughly one arrest for every three reports.

Similarly, the FBI estimates that nationally there were 89,000 rape reports to law enforcement agencies in 2008 and 22,584 arrests.

Experts say a variety of factors can interfere with investigating or prosecuting sexual assault reports in nursing homes. Often the victims suffer from dementia or appear delusional and can't describe the attacks in enough detail to assist investigators.

In December 2008, for example, a health care worker found evidence of sexual trauma on an elderly female resident of Warren Park Health & Living Center on the Northwest Side. The woman, who was hospitalized after the alleged attack, said a man came into her room and sexually assaulted her, but she "was unable to provide any further (information)," according to a Chicago police report.

Some facility residents are afraid to speak out because they live alongside their alleged attackers, others are anxious about alienating their caregivers or being moved from the only homes they have, and many simply feel too weak to face the ordeal of police questioning and forensic examinations.

"When they're at the end of their life, a lot of times people give up. It takes a lot of strength to go to police," said Karla Vierthaler, outreach coordinator at the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape.

Some cases become compromised because residents delay reporting the alleged attacks until they are visited by a relative or trusted caretaker. By then, any DNA or forensic evidence can be lost.

A Tribune review of police and state health reports found that although many facility operators responded immediately to rape allegations, some unwittingly cleaned up crime scenes rather than properly preserving evidence.

Others downplayed the incidents as consensual sex. They "act in their own self-interest rather than the interests of the residents," said Holly Ramsey-Klawsnik, a Massachusetts-based sociologist and mental health clinician.

For their part, police sometimes drop their investigations too quickly when faced with the host of obstacles from both victims and facility employees, said Ronald Costen, a former criminal prosecutor who directs Temple University's Protective Services Institute.

"You have to treat these cases of sexual assault in a long-term care setting like coming across a dead body on the side of the road — you have to look for hard, forensic evidence," Costen said.

In addition, experts said, police sometimes decide that mentally ill perpetrators lack the intent needed for successful prosecution and may have a better shot at treatment in nursing facilities rather than prison.

Only one of the 48 Chicago cases involving the most serious allegation, criminal sexual assault, was referred to the Cook County state's attorney's office for felony review, according to a records search done for the Tribune by prosecutors.

Chicago police say they vigorously pursue every sexual assault allegation. "We're not real quick to drop investigations ... that's not the case," said Thomas Byrne, chief of detectives for the department. "Sexual assaults are something we take very seriously."

In April 2008, police were summoned after midnight to Somerset Place on the North Side after a mentally ill 28-year-old resident told staff that he had beaten, then raped a schizophrenic 53-year-old woman after forcing his way into her fourth-floor bedroom, records and interviews show.

The man told police "he wanted to make a confession," and a police report said he sexually assaulted his female housemate "without the victim's consent." Sent to the emergency room with a blood-filled and swollen black eye, the woman told police and Somerset employees she had been sexually assaulted.

The victim's mother, Dorothy Foster, of Bolingbrook, saw her daughter at the facility the next day. "I just broke down," Foster said. "It was so bad."

But in the end, no arrest was made in the case. According to a police detective's report, the victim refused to cooperate with officers. She and the male resident now live in different facilities.

Somerset, another Rothner nursing home, sent a description of the incident to the state Department of Public Health as required by law, and the facility has not been accused of wrongdoing in the case.

Somerset has had seven reports of alleged sexual violence since July 2007, more than any other Chicago nursing home, records show. Federal and state authorities this month moved to revoke its state nursing home license and cut off its federal funding because of citations for abuse, safety breaches and other problems. The facility is contesting those actions.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-nursing-home-rape-20100126,0,5898338,full.story

"Confused consent" is the lame rationalization of a rapist who is trying to blame the victim. If he wasn't absolutely clear about her consent, he should have stopped

Why hasn't it worked? Perhaps it's because making rape prevention the responsibility of young women teaches students that guys can't be expected to be responsible for their own actions. Not surprisingly, that results in student bodies eager to let rapists off the hook and campus policies (like the one recently implemented at Tufts that forces victims into "mediation" with their rapists) that treat rape as an unfortunate disagreement instead of like the violent crime it is. Make no mistake about the danger of these equanimous attitudes -- in his 2002 landmark study of 1,882 male college students in the Boston area, Dr. David Lisak demonstrated that most campus rapes are perpetrated not by well-meaning boys confused about consent but by repeat-offender sociopaths who know exactly what they're doing. Treating rape like an unfortunate but understandable miscommunication doesn’t just deny victims justice and downplay the traumatic nature of the experience -- it allows rapists to remain free to rape again and again.

Meanwhile, we set an impossibly high bar of behavior for young women -- one that they're bound to miss at some point, because, just like the rest of us humans, young women sometimes choose short-term pleasure over the abstract possibility of risk. And when a guy rapes a young woman while she's violating the Rules of Safety -- let's say she's at a party and dancing and she's flirting -- what follows are questions about her behavior, how much she'd been drinking, how she might have led him on

Why hasn't it worked? Perhaps it's because making rape prevention the responsibility of young women teaches students that guys can't be expected to be responsible for their own actions. Not surprisingly, that results in student bodies eager to let rapists off the hook and campus policies (like the one recently implemented at Tufts that forces victims into "mediation" with their rapists) that treat rape as an unfortunate disagreement instead of like the violent crime it is. Make no mistake about the danger of these equanimous attitudes -- in his 2002 landmark study of 1,882 male college students in the Boston area, Dr. David Lisak demonstrated that most campus rapes are perpetrated not by well-meaning boys confused about consent but by repeat-offender sociopaths who know exactly what they're doing. Treating rape like an unfortunate but understandable miscommunication doesn’t just deny victims justice and downplay the traumatic nature of the experience -- it allows rapists to remain free to rape again and again.

Meanwhile, we set an impossibly high bar of behavior for young women -- one that they're bound to miss at some point, because, just like the rest of us humans, young women sometimes choose short-term pleasure over the abstract possibility of risk. And when a guy rapes a young woman while she's violating the Rules of Safety -- let's say she's at a party and dancing and she's flirting -- what follows are questions about her behavior, how much she'd been drinking, how she might have led him on
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=combating_the_campus_rape_crisis

I fail to see any opposing argument in that quote--in fact nothing said in that entire quote supports your views. Quite the opposite.

Dr. Lisak's work completely shoots down your notions of "confused consent"--

You keep posting articles which you think support your positions but which, in fact, often repudiate your conclusions and views. I don't know why you have such difficulty correctly understanding the material you choose to post, but you do

I'm from the government, and I am here to help

Sorry, Hawkeye, that article is a condemnation of the approach taken by Tufts

Preventing sexual violence is apparently women's work
Published Thursday November 11th, 2010

Chances are, if you're a woman, you've been given the rundown of ways to avoid being sexually assaulted: don't walk alone at night, watch your drink, walk to your car with your keys out and ready to jab, avoid bad neighbourhoods, and so on.

This "risk reduction" approach to preventing sexual violence is everywhere, so we rarely wonder whether it is effective - or question the message it sends.

Women should not abandon exercising caution and there is fantastic prevention work being done by activists and outreach centres.

But we need to question the message behind the common public discourse that surrounds sexual assault, the information we get in e-mail forwards passed around by women, and the warnings that are given to young women moving onto a university campus. Information that says: strangers are the dangerous people who will attack you and your safety depends on you taking these steps.

Women will follow all these "rules" and some will still be raped, by strangers or by men they know.

And women do follow these rules. Checking the backseat of our cars, figuring out the best-lit route home, and walking with our thumbs on the panic button of our remote car keys are habits that are second nature for women. These routine precautions and avoidance behaviours are so ingrained in women, in fact, they can affect our freedom of movement and, therefore, our quality of life.

Men and women between the ages of 25-54, living in Canadian cities, perceive about the same level of crime in their cities, but women are seven times more likely to adopt behaviours that limit their day-to-day activities in order to avoid victimization, according to the 2004 General Social Survey by Statistics Canada.

Reducing your risk has a limited effectiveness, and places a very real burden on women. It also invites people to blame women when a sexual assault does occur.

When society views rape-prevention as a woman's responsibility, it means that when an assault takes place, many people ask what the victim did to "get" raped.

In a recent poll in the U.K., Wake Up to Rape, more than half of both male and female respondents, age 18-50, said there were some circumstances in which a victim must accept responsibility for her rape.

This approach also leads to the victim blaming herself for the assault. The public face of sexual assault is stranger-rape, which may also lead victims of acquaintance or intimate partner rape to question if what happened to them "counts" as sexual assault since their attack wasn't at the hands of a stranger.

This self-blaming line of thinking could be part of the reason that a mere one in 10 sexual assaults are actually reported to police in Canada.

Stranger rape does occur, but it is not a common type of sexual assault.

According to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, the victim knew the perpetrator in 82 per cent of the 2007 police-reported cases of sexual assault in which the relationship between victim and perpetrator could be established.

Imagine a commercial about impaired driving that, instead of asking people not to drink and drive, advises sober people to stay off the roads to avoid being hit. Can you imagine a public service announcement like that?

Of course not, because we're not afraid to directly address what causes drunk driving, which is, of course, drunk drivers. So why are we afraid to directly address what causes sexual assault?

Women doing whatever normal activity they happen to be doing when they are attacked don't cause rape. Rapists do.

When we talk about what potential-victims can do to prevent being assaulted, we are treating sexual assault like a naturally occurring event, one that might be avoided but that we can't hope to eradicate.

Why do we prefer to teach women to live in fear instead of teaching men not to rape?

There are examples of real prevention campaigns, aimed at men, though they are rare. Men Can Stop Rape's public awareness campaign is organized around the theme line, "My Strength is Not for Hurting," Other campaigns are aimed at men as allies "Being a friend means stopping him before he does something stupid." One, evidently from the United States, states "Imagine telling your parents you need an extra $12,000 this semester" then detailing what will happen if he forces a woman to have sex: "You'll have to get a lawyer. You'll have to go to court. You'll have to tell your parents."

The city of Dallas recently managed to grasp this concept. A few weeks ago at a municipal public safety meeting, Dallas' Police Chief responded to the city's 25 per cent increase in reported rapes by suggesting communicating to women that they should watch how much they drink and have their friends keep a watchful eye.

When women's response to the Chief's was felt, he said he was trying to explain that alcohol was a factor in many rapes and did not intend to suggest that victims' behaviour caused their attacks. The police department then created a poster that read: "Don't be a Rapist. If she says stop and you don't, that's rape."

Dallas stuck with the personal responsibility theme, but applied it to potential rapists instead of potential victims.

This is the kind of public discourse we need. Direct, unflinching, and placing responsibility where it should be: those who commit rape.

http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/opinion/article/1303122

In a recent poll in the U.K., Wake Up to Rape, more than half of both male and female respondents, age 18-50, said there were some circumstances in which a victim must accept responsibility for her rape.

According to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, the victim knew the perpetrator in 82 per cent of the 2007 police-reported cases of sexual assault in which the relationship between victim and perpetrator could be established

Reducing your risk has a limited effectiveness, and places a very real burden on women.

Dallas stuck with the personal responsibility theme, but applied it to potential rapists instead of potential victims.

Crime & Courts
Trial resumes for man charged in Smart abduction

Published November 29, 2010
Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY – Defense attorneys for the man accused of abducting Elizabeth Smart are not disputing the facts in the case, but they're trying to show at Brian David Mitchell's trial that he's mentally ill and can't be held responsible.

Smart was 14 when she was abducted from her home at knifepoint on June 5, 2002. She was recovered nine months later — on March 12, 2003 — disguised in wig and sunglasses and walking a suburban Salt Lake City street with Mitchell.

Now 23, Smart has testified during Mitchell's ongoing trial that she was forced to enter a polygamous marriage with Mitchell, endured near daily rapes, was forced to use drugs and alcohol, and was taken to California against her will about four months.

If convicted, the 57-year-old former street preacher could spend the rest of his life in prison.

After a break for the Thanksgiving holiday, the federal trial was resuming Monday for Mitchell, charged in U.S. District Court with the kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines for the purposes of illegal sexual activity.

As the trial moves into its fourth week, the defense is expected to call on psychiatric evaluators to testify about Mitchell's competency.

Included on the list of defense witnesses is Dr. Richart DeMier, a forensic psychologist from a federal prison facility who was court-ordered to evaluate Mitchell in 2009, DeMier diagnosed Mitchell as paranoid schizophrenic and said he was not competent to stand trial.

DeMier's findings contradict those of Dr. Michael Welner, New York City forensic psychologist hired by prosecutors to conduct his own evaluation. Welner diagnosed Mitchell with an anti-social personality disorder, psychopathy, alcohol abuse and said he is "malingering" — faking or exaggerating an illness to avoid prosecution.

Both evaluators were also on the stand during a 10-day competency hearing held in 2009.

DeMier said then he had based his conclusion on Mitchell's belief that "he is divinely ordained to fulfill a special role at the end of the world, putting himself on par with Jesus or God."

In March, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball ruled Mitchell competent for trial.

Also expected on the witness stand is Utah psychologist Dr. Stephen Golding who found Mitchell incompetent for trial in a parallel state case. Golding has said Mitchell has "referential thinking" and ascribes special meaning to ordinary experiences.

During the 2009 competency hearing, Golding testified that religious-based delusions left Mitchell believing he was being pressured or commanded to do certain things. The directives came through emotionally distressing revelations, Golding said.

"Mr. Mitchell's ego, his self, was constantly warring with what he thought he needed to do," Golding explained last year. "Over time it developed into a pretty frank delusional disorder."

Smart has testifed that she never believed Mitchell's religious beliefs were sincere and that he used religion to manipulate others. That included Smart and Wanda Eileen Barzee, Mitchell's now-estragned wife, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in the case last year after more than year of court-ordered treatment with anti-psychotic medications.

Last week, a tearful 65-year-old Barzee, who is serving a 15-year prison term, testified that she had once believed that her husband was being directed by God. In hindsight, Barzee said, she sees it was a ruse.

"He was a great deceiver," she said.

Rape victim's family sues nursing home
By Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel
Nov. 26, 2010

The family of a 90-year-old woman who died after she was sexually assaulted by another resident at Franciscan Villa has sued the South Milwaukee nursing home for wrongful death.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, claims that administrators and staff at the home at 3601 S. Chicago Ave. were negligent because they failed to take action earlier against the perpetrator despite prior sexual outbursts against residents and staff.

According to the complaint and state records, a 90-year-old male resident was caught trying to sexually assault a different woman in a dining room on Jan. 25, 2009. He was pulled away and led to his room by a manager, who then left him unattended while she went to get medication to stop his sexual urges. He was found shortly thereafter in another female resident's room with his pants down.

Staff responded but again left him alone in the hallway, the suit contends, and he next found the victim alone in her room and raped her. A visitor to another resident heard the woman's distress and went to her room, where he found the man assaulting the victim. She stopped eating from the shock and trauma of the attack and died 18 days later.

A state Department of Health Services review later found that the initial assault on Jan. 25 had never been documented, and that the Franciscan Villa administrator defended his staff's actions that day.

The lawsuit contends the administrator, James Weibeler, also refused to apologize to the family of the 90-year-old victim, who had resided at the facility for 49 months.

Jeffrey Pitman, the lawyer representing the victim's estate, said the perpetrator, who suffered from dementia, was later committed in a different facility. He was never charged criminally for any of the sexual assaults.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

Asked for comment, Weibeler released a statement Wednesday that said Franciscan Villa was and is a safe facility with quality care and has fully cooperated with local and state authorities.

"In order to respect the rights of the victim, Franciscan Villa will not publicly comment on the factual allegations contained in the Complaint. We deeply regret this incident and our hearts go out to the family of this resident."
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/110893629.html