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Chance of rapist going to jail is less than 1%
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/07/rape_a_complex_crime.html
85,000 women raped a year and only 800 rape convictions secured? That's shocking. But, if you read on, it is more complex than that:
57% of rape victims don't believe they've actually been raped (if I'm reading that correctly). Does this mean that the definition in law is wrong, or the attitudes of rape victims is wrong and they feel that attackers are 'allowed' to rape them? Or a bit of both :eek2:
What if rape cases were heard by a tribunal instead of a jury? So, it would be legal experts making the judgement as to whether rape occured or not rather than people who don't understand what the question of law is. Especially so if 57% of rape victims don't even believe they are rape victims - it seems even more likely that a jury of peers will probably think its rape in less than that 57% of cases.
It will -always- be a difficult crime to prove satisfactorily, but there is clearly something wrong with a system which convicts 800 attackers a year with 85000 instances of rape a year.
Although having said all of this, I still believe prevention is better than cure and we should be putting most of the effort in dealing with the causes of rape (which i've talked about before, but it got a bit heated as I think some misinterpreted me saying reducing risk as blaming the woman ). Most rapes are committed by someone the victim knows. The only way you can stop it if it's someone you trust if is the attacker knows its always always wrong if they say no.
It is an exercise that has been conducted three times now and is backed up by other academic studies. The results are consistent. One in 20 women said they had been raped since they were 16. One in 200 said they had been raped in the previous 12 months. In terms of the population of England and Wales, that suggests 85,000 women are raped each year - 230 a day. And yet the number of men convicted of rape is fewer than 800 a year. So the chance of a victim seeing her attacker jailed is less than one in 100.
85,000 women raped a year and only 800 rape convictions secured? That's shocking. But, if you read on, it is more complex than that:
What's more, even though their experience is technically rape in law, 57% of rape victims don't necessarily think of themselves that way.
57% of rape victims don't believe they've actually been raped (if I'm reading that correctly). Does this mean that the definition in law is wrong, or the attitudes of rape victims is wrong and they feel that attackers are 'allowed' to rape them? Or a bit of both :eek2:
What if rape cases were heard by a tribunal instead of a jury? So, it would be legal experts making the judgement as to whether rape occured or not rather than people who don't understand what the question of law is. Especially so if 57% of rape victims don't even believe they are rape victims - it seems even more likely that a jury of peers will probably think its rape in less than that 57% of cases.
It will -always- be a difficult crime to prove satisfactorily, but there is clearly something wrong with a system which convicts 800 attackers a year with 85000 instances of rape a year.
Although having said all of this, I still believe prevention is better than cure and we should be putting most of the effort in dealing with the causes of rape (which i've talked about before, but it got a bit heated as I think some misinterpreted me saying reducing risk as blaming the woman ). Most rapes are committed by someone the victim knows. The only way you can stop it if it's someone you trust if is the attacker knows its always always wrong if they say no.
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Comments
Technically that's rape, but most women who go out for a night, get hammered and go home with a guy in a good humoured drunked stupour wouldn't see the evenings shagging as rape.
It's not just to start using tribunals for rape (or any other crime for the sake of being) as most western legal system is based on the principle of "conviction by an equal", usually consisting of a jury of "laymen".
Yes, it's a shame that some perpentrators are being let off easily, but the quesion is what one can do about that if we want to maintain legal security. One could of course lower the requirements to evidence in rape cases, but i do think that the cost could be high in terms of people being convicted on an innocent basis, and there's no crime that justifies that. It is probably better to increase maximum penalties for sexually oriented crime.
Yes, this is always the problem of saying that you might just have the chance of avoidance of rape if you take care of yourself, just seems that so many people just doesn't get that preventing something from happening isn't the same as accepting responsibility for it should it happen anyway.
After my assault it took two people to sit down and point out to me what had happened in the legal sense. I was still in a bit of shock and it didn't really occur to me what to think as my mind had gone into 'survival' mode so I was a bit numb to what was going on around me. A ex of a friend was raped a couple of years ago and something similar had happened to her, she had been locked in a room for a day and in her words, her priority was to get out alive. Reflection came later.
Unless there is serious physical assault done as well (mild bruising/bleeding could just be seen as rough sex), it seems impossible for there to be a conviction (maybe if CCTV clearly shows he was an unwanted stranger maybe).. as if its her word against his, insufficient evidence means innocent until proven guilty..
Well, it can be hard to separate the liers from the real victims. Personally I don't understand how people can use such grave allegations against innocent people. Just makes it harder for victims to be believed.
In afraid that having a mental health problem doesn't justify posting offensive comments and the user had made a specific agreement not to post about these issues if he wished to continue using the boards. He broke that here and being in a pissed off mood doesn't change that. Given his long standing membership of the boards the decision will be reviewed in the morning but I can't imagine the it changing.
Most of the comments have been removed and it's probably best you try to return this thread to it's topic.
Back on topic...
How many females do you know? How many of them have been raped? It's one thing when it's a number, but to think of real people you know and spend time with going through it, it's an entirely different matter. 1 in 20 is far too much, thats 5% of women in this country who say they have been raped.
Far more serious than knife crime imo.
I think most women(victims) realise how terribly hard it is to prove they were raped so many won't be wanting to go through a long exhausting trial where it tends to be he said she said -woops, we don't have enough evidence!
You preferably need to be bruised and battered and have medical records to show it in order to get justice. Even that's not always enough, as an Icelandic jury proved. Apparantly us girls like to be roughened up in public toilets.
Still today, where I feel I've recovered after being sexually harassed and groomed to the point that if he had tried to rape me I wouldn't have twitched a muscle, I'm still not sure I'd want to press charges if I thought I could. I don't think I could deal with going to court only to see the man who left my life in ruins walk away leaving my honesty in question.
The worst part is probably knowing why it's so hard to change those shameful statistics. I wish I could scream about how unfair the system is but I just can't bring myself to do it because I wouldn't either want an innocent person get sent down for rape.
I think our culture views rape with a strange mix of fear, blame and a kind of enforced silence. Many of my friends were practically encouraged from their early teens to not trust any men at all to a completely unsustainable degree. For example, I have one friend who was told when she was 14 to never sit by a man on the bus incases he touches her, which obviously isn't practical and she was terrified that if anything did happen to her she would be blamed for sitting next to him when she was told not to. She was never sexually assualted, but felt ashamed and guilty when she'd done nothing wrong, and if somebody did attack her I don't think she would have told anyone, because of what her parents put her through when they thought they were protecting her.
Although in my experience people mostly believe anyone who's been raped should be supported, there's always the one person, in my expereince often a woman, who asks "what was she wearing? How much did she drink? Why didn't she scream louder?" I actually think this response is due to fear. If a woman convinces herself that ther person who was raped contributed in some way she can convince herself it won't happen to her.
I think ShyBoy had a good point when he said that talking about how to prevent rape can get heated, even though no sane person could ever truly believe that the victim was to blame. In some ways I don't understand it because when I go out with my friends we makes sure someone is always watching the drinks and if we seperate we meet up at certain points in the night. This doesn't mean that if we didn't do this we would be in any way responsible if one of us was raped, but it might reduce the risk. Obviously being having a few drinks or being alone is not an invitation to be raped, anybody who thinks it is is dangerous and I think it's horific that people need to say that. We seem to be relying on victims to prove they deserve support and the system needs to change, which is completely unfair.
Hmmmmm ... because most rape victims are women and are attacked by men, I would say more thought needs to be placed on how to prevent this horrible crime happening, as opposed to how men might possibly get out of a rape conviction.
A lot of the posts got deleted in this thread
but we operate on a beyond reasonable doubt burden of proof, most times of sexual assault, the victim knows the attackers, how can an act between 2 people in private,with or without consent be proved that's the problem because if you presume innocence in all trials, then most will be thrown out if it's just word against word, unless you can prove the defendant is a liar with a history, but then the defence can attempt to prove she consented but regretted it after
None of them have reported it, two of the three see it as rape and one just (one of the drunken mistakes) wants to forget about it so doesnt label it.
I think rape has to be something intentional. That doesn't mean drunkeness is an excuse in fact I would say it makes it worse because you are more likely to do something horrible like that (if you are not thinking about your actions). But... where is the line.
Not something I've mentioned before as its obviously personal to me and upset me a lot, but one time I had a (regretable, I was in another relationship) mutual encounter with a friend who then told my best friend afterwards I had taken advantage. It never went that far as we both felt guilty, but it has often made me think that rape has to be the crime as it is in the books - non concensual sex - where consent can never be withdrawn after the fact.
This is why alcohol makes it such a problematic issue because consent can be misinformed under the influence.
But I do no mean to imply in any way your friends were not raped, just the alcohol issue does open a whole new can of worms. It's a shame that people feel they can't come forward.
Giving consent after putting yourself in no fit state to do so is still consent. A person willingly intoxicating themselves then doing somethign they regret is their own fault.
I really dont get people when they say if a woman was so drunk and in no fit state to consent but does so anyway the bloke should get 10 years but if shes so drunk shes joins in a brawl she should be prosecuted.
If you're past out on the floor you haven't given consent
Seems reasonably clear cut.
Just world hypothesis, aka "blame the victim"; I'd be wary of thinking that it comes mainly from women, it's probably split quite evenly. There's still such stigma surrounding rape, socially, similar to the examples you gave of people being told they must be incomprehensibly alert all the time, plus the fear of the actual confession to the police and subsequent trial - the possibility of dealing with an insensitive police officer, and later in court the very real possibility of being made out by the defence to be a liar or a whore. It's really not at all shocking that a lot of it goes unreported and unconvicted.
Alcohol makes you forget stuff which is the problem I think. Not remembering giving consent doesn't mean you didn't, and doesn't mean you were raped.
People will drink too much though, and it doesnt make them responsible for any creimes committed against them. Personally I think the best solution for this particular issue is staying with a group of friends. But since most rapes occur with someone you know, you might be having an avening with a friend talking and drinking a bottle of wine, then they decide to take things too far.
I don't know how society can help prevent that happen...
That's the problem with many rape cases/other sexually oriented cases, as you can often argue in both directions, meaning that a "neutral" (not saying anything) means the same as not giving consent or that not saying anything means giving consent, and this issue gets even more unclear when there's alcohol in the picture.
Here are the revelant sections of the Sexual Offences Act
The early part is the most relevant section, it is the responsibility of people having sex, under British law, to show in court how he or she judged that consent was given and what measures they took to assertain this.
Another important point, especially around alcohol, is the section that covers unconciousness and sleep. If a person is unconcious then they should be judged under the law to not have given consent. If two people have been getting drunk and getting off with each other then one of them fall asleep drunk and can't be woken up - that means their isn't consent anymore. What happened before the person became unconcious doesn't allow the other person to do whatever they want with the unconcious person.
If on the other hand he or she doesn't remember giving consent that doesn't make it rape - the problem is that in court a lawyer for a defendant will absolutely claim that consent was given and forgotten - even when it wasn't. Indeed, especially when it wasn't.
Given the way society views 'binge drinking' there is also plenty of evidence that juries will think that - a woman who was drunk was out looking for sex and that anyone who get drunks will normally forget what they've done.
For example, the comments that people have made saying 'I'd remember what happened when I was drunk' doesn't necessarily apply, just because you'd remember everything that happened doesn't mean a lawyer won't say that you've forgotten giving consent and will simply point to your drinking as proof.
I think in the case of rape and sexual assualt involving young people, especially who have been drinking that there is a clear argument for forming juries of people's real peers. At least young people themselves with some experience of drinking and the social scene they exist in. Better that than a jury of 65 year old tea-totalers who think that drunken sluts get what they deserve....
It's more a case of "did i just dream that?" - i know it's not always the way it is in the movies. Rape is and it isnt what you think it is.
I can imagine a lot of cases are impossible to prove because people don't go to the police straight away. We can't just start tossing people in jail who get accused. Remember the taxi driver who's life was ruined by a girl who was too drunk to remember?
What we need is to give people more information on what to do should they feel they've been raped as well as develop more conclusive methods of colelcting evidence.
The list that follows the first bit is the evidential presumptions - these are the situations in which consent is automatically assumed not to have been given. If none are present it doesn't mean that consent has been given - a person still needs to consent and the people involved still need to demonstrate why they believed consent was given. Threatening someone's life to get them to have sex wouldn't be seen as a consenting sexual activity.