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Many rape cases wrongly dismissed as unfounded
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
Story.
A new report from two Government watchdog slates the police and CPS for repeatedly botching rape cases, by not believing rape victims and dismissing their stories simply because of subjective opinions about how the victim behaves. As a result far too many cases never get to court, with police officers deciding that there was no crime in about a third of cases. Fantastic when the Government's own figures show that the actual level of false reporting is about 3%.
I think it's time that the CPS and police got serious about reforming the rape prosecution process- there should be specialist rape-case police officers, prosecutors and judges specially trained for these cases. Too many judges and prosecutors dismiss cases simply because the woman was drunk or the man was known to the victim, and too many judges and prosecutors dismiss cases because the woman can't remember saying no (which obviously means she said yes).
Still, when you see cases like this, it's not difficult to see why the conviction rate is so low. Regardless of the merits of that particular case (I don't know all the facts) it does show that if you call the victim a slut her entire story will be disregarded.
Rape is probably the second-worst crime to commit, yet because it is mostly women who are victims 95% of people who come to court walk away. And it isn't because cases can't be proved, its because the will isn't there to prove cases properly. All the defence have to say is that the woman was a slut and the defendant will walk away, regardless of whether she was passed out or totally drunk and regardless of whether the defendant was sober and in a position of authority.
A new report from two Government watchdog slates the police and CPS for repeatedly botching rape cases, by not believing rape victims and dismissing their stories simply because of subjective opinions about how the victim behaves. As a result far too many cases never get to court, with police officers deciding that there was no crime in about a third of cases. Fantastic when the Government's own figures show that the actual level of false reporting is about 3%.
I think it's time that the CPS and police got serious about reforming the rape prosecution process- there should be specialist rape-case police officers, prosecutors and judges specially trained for these cases. Too many judges and prosecutors dismiss cases simply because the woman was drunk or the man was known to the victim, and too many judges and prosecutors dismiss cases because the woman can't remember saying no (which obviously means she said yes).
Still, when you see cases like this, it's not difficult to see why the conviction rate is so low. Regardless of the merits of that particular case (I don't know all the facts) it does show that if you call the victim a slut her entire story will be disregarded.
Rape is probably the second-worst crime to commit, yet because it is mostly women who are victims 95% of people who come to court walk away. And it isn't because cases can't be proved, its because the will isn't there to prove cases properly. All the defence have to say is that the woman was a slut and the defendant will walk away, regardless of whether she was passed out or totally drunk and regardless of whether the defendant was sober and in a position of authority.
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It seems after that though they are left to the CPS who dont really care one way or the other.
The conviction rate does need to improve, but I am very uneasy about changing the balance of proof which has been suggested.
If a woman testifies that she passed out and woke to find someone raping her it should be enough- she shouldn't then have her case thrown out of court because she couldn't remember saying no.
Basically there is no point going through the whole hassle of taking your rapist to court- even if the police and CPS believe you enough to take the case to court, if you knew the rapist (even tangentially), or you were drunk, or you were wearing nice clothes, you won't be believed and your rapist will walk free.
Thus changing the balance of proof.
There would need to be more than just her testimony and I don't mean proff that intercourse took place. Blood tests for alcohol levels etc to show that she could have been incapable of responding... if the report happens too late then eye witness to her drinking... for example.
For her to say, "I was too pissed" just isn't enough.
Which is where I have a real problem, because I know if it was me in the court and it was largely down to one word against another I'd go for not guilty.
But having said that there can be a lot more done to handle the cases properly, and give them the best chance of success.
But surely the capability issue doesn't solely rest on alcohol and/or drugs being present. What if a women is so terrified by her rapist that she can't physically speak full stop?
As you should because they rule of "reasonable doubt" applies. It's why evidince of character is relevant. An "upstanding" member of the community is more likely to be belived than a "fraudster", on matters of truthfulness for example.
When there is a case of one ward against another then promisciouty becomes relevant and I don't say that lightly. But again it goes towards character and norms of behaviour. That doesn't mean that in the instance before the court there wasn't a "no" but it does give a jury something else, other than one word against another, to go on.
Being a victim of rape is hoorendous, convicting an innocent man of rape isn't great either. Rock - hard place.
Again, evidence to suport that.
Why should his word be ignored?
Her saying "I was drunk, I was passed out, I awoke to find him raping me" shouldn't result in the dismissal of the case because she "couldn't remember saying no so she may have said yes".
It is definitely a rock/hard place situation, but I honestly do not think that enough, or indeed anything, is done to change the situation. When you have judges vetoing the use of expert witnesses to explain victim behaviour and challenge stereotypes then you know something is very very wrong.
The current situation is that if I call the complainant a slut, and insinuate she was gagging for it, then all other evidence is discarded. The student who testified that she was comatose when a sober security guard has sex with her is an excellent case in point- the judge simply threw the case out because she "might" have said yes. Quite how she may have said yes when she was asleep is anyone's guess, and we didn't even get to hear the defendant's story.
The problem is not in that you often have to believe one over the other, the problem is that the defendant is never put to proof. Cases are dismissed immediately unless the victim is a sobbing little wreck who was raped at gunpoint in an alley when she was on the way home from the shops.
The simple fact of the matter is that if I go out and rape someone's wife or someone's mother or someone's daughter there's a 99% chance that I will get away with it. The police won't care, the prosecution won't care, and the judiciary certainly won't. The conviction rate is 5% and that includes those who plead guilty. I think specialist prosecutors and police officers would go some way to changing that.
Really?
I wouldn't like to generalise, but I would say:
1) Genocide
2) Mass murder/terrorist attack
3) Murder
4) Child abuse/paedophilic abuse
5) Torture/kidnap combined with physical abuse
Then perhaps rape, although of course it depends on the severity/cruelty of the rapist.
The worst is a less than 1% conviction rate. Sources to follow later, I'm revising.
The conviction rate isnt even 5% though is it, I heard that in some parts of the country about 1/3rd arent even recorded, so they wont count towards the 5%.
The dedicated centres in London are a start, we now need to move that idea nation wide, and extend it from when the person reports the rape till the day the court case finishes.
Budda, I completely agree. Sadly the Government doesn't- whilst it could find £200,000 to redecorate the Lord Chancellor's private residence, it couldn't find £50,000 to keep the national Rape Crisis helpline and centres going.
Which all goes to show just how little anyone cares about this issue. After all, good girls don't get raped, do they?
Its not an election issue, women dont like to think about it, and men dont like talking about it. There is no political capital in it, same as there isnt in children's prisons, where apparently the situation has got so bad that in one they have to remove their own shit in plastic bags and throw it out of the window.
Well, firstly you ignored number five. Secondly, I don't think you can "safely lump" genocide, terrorism/mass murder and murder together. Thirdly, there is an obvious distinction between abuse (whether it be sexual, physical assualt, etc) of a child with the majority of rape cases in this country: adult women with some kind of relationship to the rapist, ostensibly equal in the eyes of the law.
The point is that rapes are extremely varied in their nature. Is the example you gave:
"If a woman testifies that she passed out and woke to find someone raping her it should be enough- she shouldn't then have her case thrown out of court because she couldn't remember saying no."
Obviously that is disgusting, immoral, and harmful to the woman involved. But is it worse than a gang of men assualting and physically disfiguring a mother on the street during a robbery? Or a man repeatedly stabbing somebody for being of a different race? Or setting fire to a house with three children asleep inside it? A husband who beats his wife every day for 20 years?
A man jumping on a woman in a park, holding a knife to her throat, and brutally raping her is probably worse (or equal) to those crimes, but that is at the other extreme on the scale.
You are generalizing, massively, as always.
Not that this is at all relevant. I don't consider terrorism or genocide crimes in the traditional sense, because they're too big to fit into normal catagories. Rape is more than just a physical assault as well. It's abuse on all levels.
Hmmm...thats a difficult one but I would say yes, marginally. But it depends on the exact circumstances.
But those are not the two extremes: i.e. violent, threatening rape by a stranger and "borderline" rape by a boyfriend, or husband, or "rape" where consent or denial of consent is unclear for either (or both) parties (e.g. some cases where alcohol or drugs are involved). Again, I'm not saying that isn't wrong or harmful, but in my view its not as harmful as a gang assualting and disfiguring somebody on the street or somebody repeatedly stabbing somebody.
Thats a matter of intention though isn't it? A racial assualt on somebody with a baseball bat is also more than just physical abuse...as is child abuse...torture...sustained domestic abuse...etc.
Again, I'm not saying that rape isn't a terrible crime, but that it involves a very wide variety of cases which can't all be lumped together as "the second worst crime somebody can commit." Especially as there are so many "grey" or "borderline" cases.
You're also, in my opinion, fucking mental if you think it would be better for me to be raped by my own brother-in-law that by some bloke in a back alley.
If you can't see shades of grey in this (or any issue) you have a strange and dangerous perception of the world.
Rape is rape, obviously, by definition. But you're missing the key points I've made here:
1) Some rapes are worse than others: more harmful, with more destructive consequences, and with more spiteful or sociopathic/pshycopathic intention.
2) Thus some rapes are not as bad crimes as other unrelated crimes. In my examples: a woman and a man in a relationship where consent is unclear to either party, where no violence is involved, vs. a gang of people assualting somebody in the street and leaving them with lasting physical and mental injury.
Why? Both are terrible but surely one is going to have stronger/worse consequences than the other...depending on the specific cases, and the specific "preferences" or the person who has been raped. I'm just going on which one I would not want most.
Scenario 1) I'm raped at knifepoint in a park by someone I don't know. I'm physically violated and probably injured by the experience. I go home, I tell my parents we call the police. I am appropriately dealt with by the authorities and can give a description of my attacker, his DNA is also recovered from my body. etc.
Scenario 2) I'm raped by my brother in law. I tell my sister, she accuses me of lying, I go home to find she's already rung my parents who demand to know why I would say such things. I call the police, am dealt with appropriately, it's proven that he raped me etc. But my neice and nephew have no father and my family is torn to shreds because I see neither them, nor my sister again.
Anything to say on the actual topic?
Whats your point? I said that they are both terrible things, and which one is worse depends on the specific case and the personal preferences of the person who is raped.
I don't think I have missed "the point of the thread." I understand the point of the thread to be the difficulty of prosecuting rape and the difficulties it throws up to the legal system.
The reason I focussed on that particular line is because it epitomises the generalisations and absolute statements people make about a problem which is obviously much more complicated.
I could have taken any of the initial statements from:
1) "Rape is probably the second-worst crime to commit"
2) "because it is mostly women who are victims 95% of people who come to court walk away."
3) "And it isn't because cases can't be proved, its because the will isn't there to prove cases properly"
4) "All the defence have to say is that the woman was a slut and the defendant will walk away"
And I could have cried bullshit at any of them, but that would have taken too long. The second is possibly 10% true but there is no evidence for it. If it were the case, why are 95% of other non-rape cases brought by women are not successful prosecutions? The fourth is patently untrue and a ridiculous generalization.
The third is precisely the point. Its exactly because there are inherent difficulties - absent in many other crimes - in proving the charge of rape in a court of law that there are so few convictions. By its nature rape is almost always a crime which relies on one person's word against another's, which can hardly ever be shown to be true beyond reasonable doubt without additional evidence, which in the vast majority of cases does not exist. That doesn't mean it didn't happen and that it wasn't terrible if it did, but it means it is to dangerous to convict.
:rolleyes: Time waster.
Why are you putting an example of rape by saying consent is 'unclear' to either party? If she is claiming rape then by definition she didn't consent.
And why do you assume that this kind of rape isn't violent? Just because he didn't beat her and left her marks on her body doesn't mean it isn't violent.
I'm not saying all rape cases are experienced in the same way by the victims and that they leave the same extent of harm to the victim but that it depends entirely on each case and individual. Ranking one kind of rape as more harmful than others can be quite unprecise. But if you do want to make generalisations, then at least make them the other way round: at least for children, the closest the reationship with your perpetrator is, the more harmful it's likely to be. For adult women I can't speak with the same authority but I'd say likely so too.
But now you don't? Why?
To be honest its to be expected that no one will actually engage in any of my points. Understandably, its one of those issues that people get emotionally riled at and don't feel the need to actually debate, feeling they can just dismiss anyone who disagrees with them as a nutcase or a rapist sympathiser, or whatever.
Heres what it comes down to: this is the way things are at the moment, and if you want it to change (which I do), you're going to have to learn to counter these arguments rather than dismissing them and blindly hoping things are going to improve. Otherwise nobody is going to listen to you, except those who agree with you already.
Thats not the prejudice being claimed against the police though, as far as I understand. The 'prejudice' is about the likelyhood of that investigation resulting in a prosecution: which is one the police make in all crimes. If the person accused of rape is in/has been in a relationship with the victim (50%) of cases and there is no evidence beyond the testimony of the victim then the case will almost certainly not result in a conviction, because there is not enough proof to prove beyond reasonable doubt that there was no consent/objection to sexual intercourse was made clear.
Right...so the problem is that it is very difficult to prove that there was no consent or that objection was made clear.
Because the law is unclear on this issue. A man can claim that he had an "honest belief" that the woman consented to sex even if she did not and considered it rape.
I'm not assuming that it is always non-violent, I'm talking specifically about the cases where it isn't violent.
Agreed.
This is why I'm saying that generalizations should not be made: the comparisons I were making were hypothetical, not to say which "types" of rape were worse than others, but to make the point that some are different, or much more harmful than others. Each case should be decided on its specific characteristics and consequences.