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How do you raise rape conviction rates?
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,735 Bot
I'm surprised nobody's raised this issue here yet...
In a speech today, David Cameron called for rape laws to be toughened up. According to the Beeb; "Tory leader David Cameron has called for tougher sentences for rapists, saying too many men 'think they can get away with it'. England and Wales have the lowest conviction rate - 5.7% - among leading European countries, he said. He pledged longer-term funding for rape crisis centres, to change attitudes towards rape through sex education and announced a Tory review of sentencing. The government says it has taken action to improve conviction rates." Click here to read more.
He's right, isn't he? The conviction rate on rape is pathetically low. It's a national disgrace, quite frankly. Just one in 20 rapes ever ends up in a conviction, and that's just the ones we know about! Compare with countries such as Spain, where 10 in 20 are convicted, or the Republic of Ireland, where the rate is roughly 12 in 20. And isn't he also right that an attitude still exists that women are sometimes "asking" to be raped. During the few rape cases that make it to court, the defendant throws shameful accusations that, by being drunk or by wearing a short skirt, she effectively deserved to be raped. It's no wonder women don't report the crime!
But there's one question which Cameron doesn't answer. And I don't blame him. I struggle to answer it either. How the hell do you raise such an appallingly low conviction rate? What can you do that ensures the scumbags who are guilty of such heinous crimes end up behind bars? Just what do Spain and Ireland, for instance, do which is so different to us?
Any ideas, anyone?
In a speech today, David Cameron called for rape laws to be toughened up. According to the Beeb; "Tory leader David Cameron has called for tougher sentences for rapists, saying too many men 'think they can get away with it'. England and Wales have the lowest conviction rate - 5.7% - among leading European countries, he said. He pledged longer-term funding for rape crisis centres, to change attitudes towards rape through sex education and announced a Tory review of sentencing. The government says it has taken action to improve conviction rates." Click here to read more.
He's right, isn't he? The conviction rate on rape is pathetically low. It's a national disgrace, quite frankly. Just one in 20 rapes ever ends up in a conviction, and that's just the ones we know about! Compare with countries such as Spain, where 10 in 20 are convicted, or the Republic of Ireland, where the rate is roughly 12 in 20. And isn't he also right that an attitude still exists that women are sometimes "asking" to be raped. During the few rape cases that make it to court, the defendant throws shameful accusations that, by being drunk or by wearing a short skirt, she effectively deserved to be raped. It's no wonder women don't report the crime!
But there's one question which Cameron doesn't answer. And I don't blame him. I struggle to answer it either. How the hell do you raise such an appallingly low conviction rate? What can you do that ensures the scumbags who are guilty of such heinous crimes end up behind bars? Just what do Spain and Ireland, for instance, do which is so different to us?
Any ideas, anyone?
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Comments
That's just a few...
It's been raised several times in the past.
It's more a problem with the nature of the crime, and the circumstances under which it happens, rather than the legal system. Although as I said we need to change the attitudes in society (if the statistic - nearly half of young men think it's ok to force a woman to have sex in some situations - is true then it's worse than any of us thought) so that the police, CPS and the community work together.
Although the cynical part of me is a bit miffed he's just going to bring up contentious issues because he's a politician and wants to win votes, I think it's good that he's gone on record and said 'I'm going to do something about this'.
Although, as we have seen in the past 12 years, saying and doing are not the same thing. If we take the politics out of the issue of rape (it's sad that its there at all - but there we are) I think it's simply a case of the burden of proof being too high. For a criminal prosecution it must be proved beyond all reasonable doubt in the UK, and you need fairly strong evidence. Screams of 'No', scratches, attackers DNA under fingernails and so on. But in private, with no witnesses, where the victim is too scared too fight back - if she goes to the police the attacker can either play the 'it was consensual' card and pretty much get away with it, or just deny it downright. Which of course means, the victim needs to have invasive tests done to try to gather evidence (which only remains 'good' for so long) to try to get a conviction.
I would feel uncomfortable about changing the burden of proof though. Whilst I despise the very notion of rape, I think it's worse to send 1 innocent man to prison than 10 guilty walk free.
That's a staggering problem. Personally I agree with Amnesty's decision to highlight it as a systematic violation of human rights within British society and should be seen as an example of the fact that equality absolutely does not exist within this country, at least within the legal system.
The thing is, every living creature has instincts, wants, needs, desires. That goes without saying. But just because it happens, just because you get an urge to do something, does not absolve you of responsibility. The responsibility to society, for the greater good, should be much greater than lust. And besides, read up on rape - it is not a crime of sex but of power - much in the same way as false imprisonment. Taking control away from the victim for some sick pleasure.
It is a sick pleasure, because a normal and healthy member of society will not enjoy this. Whether that's down to social conditioning, is largely irrelevant, because most of everything we do is down to how we're brought up. You're arguing that if we have an urge to go toilet, we should, right there and then. Wet ourselves in public. But we train ourselves, like most living creatures learn about their environment, that it's far better for us if we wait until we are at an appropriate place to go toilet.
Just because you had the instinct to do it is never a justification. If you can't help your instincts then you should seek medical help, because you become a danger to society. And as sad as it sounds, the needs of society are greater than the needs of one - especially in the context of weighing up the damage you can do to one person through rape vs. the 'pleasure' or satisfaction the rapist derives.
We are social creatures and have been from our conception whether devine or through evolution, and there is no use denying that. We always have and always will have social expectations and these must be met.
"No man is an island" (ok, not the best quote, but gets across my point)
We are not hard coded with rights or wrongs, researchers who've looked at feral children for example have seen they exhibit none of the norms of society, as well as children brought up in situations of neglect and so on.
I think that there is some higher level of instinct that guides the way we've evolved sociologically, but it is only a guide and has not given us a fixed profile.
See, therein lies the rub. You don't seem to care, but being human is about caring about others. Despite the wars and in-fighting, we are a collective family of humans. Unlike many other animals we are highly social, in fact a lack of social contact can and does cause depression - it is part of our nature to fit into a cohesive society naturally. Whilst you may argue a big cat kills for food so it can be justified, we have come to a level of thinking where we avoid unnecessary cruelty to (almost) all creatures. This first and foremost includes humans. The amount of damage emotionally, mentally and physically caused by rape makes it one of the most abhorrent 'human' crimes there are. Regardless of the legislature, as a human, you have rules to live in a society. The most basic of them are to protect (not harm) others in your society.
That's why, for the typical human being, those who do go against these are often punished harshly. That's why we have a legal system to bring justice and fairness so that everyone is punished equally according to their crime. But whatever time a rapist gets - it will never make up for the damage they have done.
They're the rules, and they exist to protect us and guide us. Just as not paying taxes damages the common good, attacking a fellow human hurts everyone. We are not solitary creatures like insects who are only subject to single instincts, we have very complex webs of desires so the justification 'it's a natural instinct' is very null and void.
I very much doubt, in reality, that you would go toilet in public in the middle of the day. You would hold it in. Whether you like it or not the social rules that govern our society are ingrained into us from day 1.
The route cause is that people are learning the wrong attitudes towards women and as the statistic shows, 'think it's ok to force a woman to have sex in some situations'.
Tougher sentencing is often cited as a need but I think prevention is infinitely better than cure. Changing peoples ideas, the way they think, will in the long run pay off. Putting a person in prison is in my eyes a failure of society to accomodate that individual. Not that they're absolved of crimes, but when you're 1 year old you're innocent and something has happened to change a 1 year old to a 20 year old who thinks rape is ok.
Last time I said it I got a lot of stick for it, because it was seen as a problem only men could deal with (since they're the perpetrators). But men and women need to come together to stop rape. The community needs to come together to build social cohesion, build up notions of right and wrong and the idea of respect and love for one's fellow human whether male or female.
At the moment, parents carry the torch alone until their kids hit teenage years when they do the whole tantrum thing and learn from other teenagers. Where are the socially responsible mentors? The fact that people look up to their elders doesn't change - a 13 year old will respect a 17 year old and look up to them 9/10. But the 17 year old got the wrong ideas about 'banging a girl' and passes them on again. In fact, in families where even the father has these ideas, we need intervention from either schools or the wider community to help teach the youngest and most impressionable what's acceptable.
I sincerely believe it's a developmental stage that the damage is done that makes someone behave in a manner incongruous with society (i.e. rape / murder / even anti social behaviour)
(i don't support lowering the burden of proof)
i think what david cameron said is a load of crap though since me and everyone i knows to make sure they want sex and that no means no - the problem is people who don't care about that or are misguided
if 2 people have sex when completly drunk and one person says it was rape, what do you do? honestly? part of it is bad experience which happens to us all, part of it is out of order ie there's women i wouldn't say yes to normally but beer goggles can have a big effect
I think the only way to improve the situation is better education to change people's attitudes. Tinkering with the law will make little difference, and may even result in innocent men being convicted.
Similarly, men shouldn't be going out getting horrendously drunk, to the state where THEY don't know what they're doing either. Neither should they be looking around for suscepible, drunken women because they fancy a quick shag that night. If men and women exercised more caution in the first place, instead of getting blotto cos their mates will be, then we'd see less of these awful situations, where people wake up in bed next to one another in the morning, with no idea what happened, or how either of them got there.
Incidentally, does anyone think that date-rapes on the rise? I would suspect they are. That might partly explain why the number of rapes being reported has been increasing.
Legalise prostitutes so that if blokes are that desperate they don't go looking for the drunkest girl on the dance floor. In the long term though, attitudes need to change through education.
I think the use of date-rape drugs is on the rise, but more often than not, they're not used to rape people.
I think date rape is definitely on the rise, and it wouldn't surprise me if there was a correlation between the rise in date rape and the rise in binge drinking among young women. A drunk woman is much more vulnerable to attack than a sober one, which means any man who is wired up that way will make a bee line for the drunk girl.
Why not?
And what relevance does this have to the debate?
There was an interesting point raised by today's Guardian, though: Met research has shown that rapists deliberately target woman who won't be believed when selecting a target: the young, the drunk, the mentally ill, those who come from fractured domestic situations. They do this knowing that the police won't investigate properly because the police (sadly but correctly) think that no jury would convict.
What I would do to increase the rate of conviction is have specialist rape investigators, specialist rape prosecutors, and specialist rape jurors. There is overwhelming evidence that juries won't convict men who are wealthy or educated, or if the man is good looking, or if the man reminds them of their son.
It wasn't about you
as i have said before, there is a difference to not averting risk and being to blame
when i get drunk i take responsibility for fact i may go home with someone i didnt like sober and might not of when drunk either but was too drunk to care
getting yourself into a bad decision making state doesn't make you completly innocent imo
As for reasons why people get off rape charges... well, for another one, just think about what a jury has to do. In the rare case that it gets to court, imagine the jury is confronted by a woman who's convinced that she was raped, and a young man who is shaking in fear. Who are they to believe? They get the decision wrong, and you're either going to have a young woman living in fear afterwards, or a young man doing porridge for a crime he may not have committed. Put it this way - would you want to be on that jury? I wouldn't!
And for the record, I don't think there are any circumstances where a woman is "asking" or "deserves" to be raped. Alright?
Nope, I never condemned you at all. Read it again.
So should a woman take responsibility for the fact that she may meet someone in the street who rapes her?
She should recognise it as a possibility and take appropriate procautions. Would you tell your sister to just walk home by herself at 2am, or would you get her a taxi? Would you trust a stranger to bring your semi-conscious sister home, or would you recommend that she makes sure she always sticks with her trusted friends? Advising procautions isn't about placing blame when something does happen.