Its later than you think

I have no idea wtf they were thinking. The judge even commented that the... scumbag had shown absolutely no sign of remorse. So here, have a couple of years.

Where does that leave someone with a much less cut and dried case? Why would even bother TRYING to take it to court and putting yourself through it? For that?

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lazy-hoor.livejournal.com

I tend to be a sandal-wearing-muesli-eating Guardian reader but hearing stuff like this makes me feel a bit hang-em-flog-em Daily Mail. I hate to say it but I hope this man gets raped every single day of his paltry term.

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Same here. Currently I'm hoping the pair of them get their knee caps either blasted off or battered to tiny pieces with a Stick With Nails in as soon as they get out.

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You know, that comment could only have been posted by a Nordie :P

I, although half Nordie, have been Mexicanised to the extent that I was angrily thinking:
'They should be locked up for life and forced to take part in the State Treatment Programme. YEAH.'

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Well obviously (and now that I am not so much seething with rage) Locked Up and Treatment Programmes are much preferrable to punishment beatings/knee capping, but when one walks out of court and the other will be out in 3 years or less it's hard to stick with the system.

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caramel-betty.livejournal.com

I think the judiciary tend to think of rape as 'ah, it's just a bit of sex'. Unreal.

Not in general. There'll be some, just like there'll be some coppers or whoever else who think that. However, the judiciary's hands are tied on the matter by fairly clear sentencing guidelines.

http://www.sentencing-guidelines.gov.uk/docs/82083-COI-SCG_final.pdf - pages 25 and 26. It's presumably been taken under the second box (either rape with more than one offender, or rape with sustained attack). The range you get is 6-11 years, with 8 years as standard. The aggravating factors they can apply are relatively limited.

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caramel-betty.livejournal.com

Sorry, 8-13 for a 15 year old. Though I am not 100% sure how this works if it would be thought the girl is 16 or over. (See the "Young Man's Defence" for men who sleep with 14 or 15 year olds, thinking they are 16.)

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I thought it might have been a set term thing, but thought even 8 years seems light - the 50% remittence thing just makes it a joke. Eight years isn't exactly a long term, but four? Probably 3 at most if you thrown in time on remand?
And this where there is absolutely no doubt that a. it was rape and b. it was him.

What hope does that give to anyone with a less cut and dried case? Who didn't have witnesses? Or a rapist who admitted at the TIME it was rape and then pleaded guilty?

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caramel-betty.livejournal.com

There aren't too many crimes with set terms/punishments, once you get too far beyond things like fixed penalties and points on your driving license, that sort of thing.

The various forms of cutting of sentences are all really awkward. There's time off for pleading guilty, because this wastes a lot less time (and a lot less heartache for victims) if there's an incentive to plead guilty. Otherwise, everyone just pleads not guilty. And time off for good behaviour and all that sort of thing. It gets... messy.

I do wish that sentences were reported more openly, however. There's a fair body of opinion these days around reporting "life" sentences as the actual tariff in years, and I wish ordinary sentences were done the same way - 4 years minimum, up to 8 if you don't behave in prison, or whatever.

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being-here.livejournal.com

And there. In a few short paragraphs: the reason why I didn't bother with the police when it happened to me.

Every now and then I think I made the wrong decision. But no. The world is still thronged with fuckwits.

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Exactly. To be entirely honest if it happened to me, I'm not sure I'd report it. Because seriously, what's the fucking POINT?

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i have tried to explain this to some male friends, and tried to explain how much that compounds my fear of being assaulted (again). i mean, really. i don't think i could face being disbelieved you know? and yet i understand that the statistics on false reporting of rape (not, e.g. mistaken identity cases - a pretty common problem with all serious crimes; in these cases there WAS STILL A RAPE, something that some people seem to have problems understanding) are about the same as for all serious crimes against the person, somewhere around 2%. i.e. pretty damn low.

and the conviction rate for reported rapes is what, 5%? and they think only one in twenty cases are even reported? and - yeah. really, what is the point?

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i stop spamming your journal now, sorry!

*sends ponies in apology*

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yeah. sad and brutal truth: your number one responsibility here is to yourself. it's pretty clear going to the police is most likely to cause you more pain and lead to sweet f-all in terms of justice, given that you can have WITNESSES to rape and it's still not enough to secure a reasonable sentence. so, what can you do, except deal with it your own way? at least you know what to call what happened and that the man in question is a fucking rapist.

this comment from a thread on feministe nails the wtf-ery of commmon reactions to rape cases for me:

If I go to the police and claim to have been mugged, and they arrest someone and it goes to trial, it’s never assumed that I’m a liar. The person being charged is assumed innocent until proven guilty, and there may be the assumption that I made a mistaken [sic] when I picked that particular person out of the lineup, but if the trial makes it to court, people aren’t going to automatically assume that I’m a stupid liar who wasn’t really mugged. But when rape trials go to court, for some reason things are different. Suddenly nobody even believes that a crime was commited. It’s not a matter of worrying about whether you’ve got the right defendent- it’s “was a crime even really perpetrated?”

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Suppose the law were changed so that the judge/jury is not allowed to doubt that a rape occurred. The trial forumula now becomes:
1. Person says they were raped on a particular occasion.
2. Police find person suspect of having sex with first person on that occasion.
2.a. Police prove suspect had sex with first person on that occasion. Guilty.
2.b. Police fail to prove suspect had sex with first person on that occasion. Not guilty.

What would the consequences of this be to society?

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you are missing the point: in many criminal cases the question is not "did the crime take place", the question is "is there sufficient evidence to convict THIS PERSON of the crime that is accepted to have taken place". if someone is found not guilty of murder, it doens't mean there was no murder. anyway, your proposed changes are a straw man. nothing in the above quote suggests the defendant should not be considered innocent till proven guilty. it suggests that rape not be the only crime in which there is a supposition the victim might be lying that is hugely disproportionate to the actual likelihood this is the case.

and drop the "person". most rapes - outside the fucked up power dynamic of prison rape, involve a man raping a woman (or sometimes a child). this "a person" stuff obscures that fairly important characteristic of rape. if you feel that's unfair to men, well, tough. i find it pretty tough that society basically says anyone who wants can shove his cock into my body without my consent and there's every chance he will get away with it because, hey! those women, they lie about rape. i know it's true, i saw a tabloid headline about it last week!

you know why false rape accusations make the headlines? because they're vanishingly fucking RARE. that and they feed nicely into the useful stereotype of women being flighty, evil-minded bitches who lie about rape to get innocent men into trouble for spurning them/because they had sex and regret it.

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you are missing the point

Am I? I took your point to be that in rape cases, the defendent might say, in their defence, "She consented". In which case, the trial comes down the question of who is lying: the defendent or the suspect — and if the suspect is lying, a crime did not take place. This is different from most (all?) other crimes.

So, I proposed a law change to always assume the victim is telling the truth.

An immediate consequence of this is that, in order to convict someone of rape, all you have to do is prove that they had sex with the victim at the time the rape occurred. I then asked you what other possible consequences could be.

and drop the "person". most rapes - outside the fucked up power dynamic of prison rape, involve a man raping a woman

According to http://www.rainn.org/statistics/index.html men make up 10% of rape victims. ^O^

But that's beside the point. I originally wrote that with "woman" and "man", but I changed it because if you're writing a law, you shouldn't write it with the assumption that only women can be raped and only men can be rapists.

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who is lying: the defendent or the suspect — and if the suspect is lying, a crime did not take place.

Obviously I messed this up — the defendent or the victim.

You might take this to be some kind of Freudian slip, or revelation of masculine bias that renders all I have written tainted — but please ignore that and focus on what I intended to say.

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If people who are raped never talk about it, how will the situation ever change?

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um, wow.

are you suggesting that she owes it to society to traumatise herself all over again in pursuit of a conviction that is almost certainly never going to happen? you don't think - just maybe - that the changes ought to start somewhere else?

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I don't know where the changes should or can start. I do know that the rapist certainly won't be convicted if the victim never complains.

It just seems to me that if rape victims never talk about what happened to them then they are not helping with the problem you discuss, and could possibly be making it worse.

If 5% of drink-spiking rape victims go to the police, and 5% of those result in conviction, then potential drink-spikers can act with impunity because their chances of being caught and convicted are very low. If 80% of rape victims go to the police, rapists are likely to go to court and have a higher chance of conviction (still only 4% though).

And if the rate of sexual abuse complaints increases significantly, it may provide political capital for people in parliament who would like to change things.

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being-here.livejournal.com

I take your point. This is where I feel I might have made a mistake. Maybe if it happened to me now I would. I'm 32. I can fight my own corner.

At the time I was 18. I'd been held in a room in a squat for 4 (4? Around 4) hours. Threatened with death. I won't bother recounting the other details. I remember getting out, and running up the road. I remember wondering what to do. I was wearing trousers and a scoop neck top. I remember thinking that I couldn't cope with going to the police - with being questioned as if I was a liar - facing months of having this drama perpetuated, and if it got to court being questioned as if it was my fault. As if I had asked this man to do that to me.

And yes. The absolute right thing to do in that circumstance would be to stand up to the system. If a biased or corrupt system isn't challenged by the people who suffer at its hands then there is no chance. However, the relative right thing to do was for me to let this go. To not be a victim. To get on with my life and start university without the label.

If I was back there again (and if I couldn't avoid it again) I think I would do the same thing. If it happened to me know I don't know what I'd do. I'd like to think I'd have the courage to face the system - but realistically I might not.

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vashti.livejournal.com

You know if she kills him, she'll go down for life.

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It's so fucking depressing. The four years there aren't even solely for rape either. It's for the theft and holding of the boys with her AS WELL. So being raped publically merits what, a year or two?
There's a strong message to send out...

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vashti.livejournal.com

Ya know what, fuck it. I'm done being liberal. The statistics on the prosecution and perception of rape are appalling, the system is never going to serve us. It's never going to protect us.

What's needed is for women, everywhere, to rise up as one and *kill rapists*. Fuck the offensive weapons laws. Fuck all the "omg, don't hurt him, he might hurt you" bullshit. If you rape, you die.

What are they going to do, jail us all? Perhaps we can go in the free cells they aren't putting rapists in.

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Eh, I don't want to kill rapists.

I hate them, I hate what they do, I want them to pay, but pay by facing the full horror of their actions and by incarceration. I hate the out-dated legal system, the complete lack of accountability on the part of the judiciary (*waves at evil uncle*) and the utter lack of support and protection for victims of rape.

But I don't want to kill anyone.

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well done on surviving the interview.

am squished by work & cramps but A-FUCKING-MEN on the news report. i was livid when i read that this morning. four fucking years. and then i have arguments with arseholes online who think that feminists "make themselves into victims" by talking about the prevalence of rape, and the disgraceful way it's prosecuted - when it actually is prosecuted, of course. gah! in other news, black people cause racism by talking about discrimination and gravity is caused by apples falling out of trees.

on the same cheerful note: here's a female lawyer happily spouting misogynistic crap as part of the defence in a rape case. i shit you not, she said that the fat rape victim was probably glad of the attention. holy. mother. of. fuck.

today i am despairing of society. i have already this week read a blog in which the blogger explains why an online radio station's rape-jokes aren't funny. the responses in the comments from the men who like the show made me feel physically ill. (in short? they say: she lied about getting raped; if she was raped she should be grateful because she's fat; she can't have been raped because she is too fat to fuck [because rape is allllll about desire]; she can't have an opinion anyway because she's a. a woman and b. fat and these things make anything she says meaningless because they are clear indicators that the speaker is not an actual human being; she just needs a good deep-dicking and then she'll shut the fuck up about it; omg the menz freedom of speech is being threatened [because cheering on a man who wants to "hate fuck" named women in positions of authority to death is in NO WAY hate speech. at all.]; and my favourite, the expression "fuck her to death" doesn't imply rape because it hasn't got the word "rape" in it, you silly overemotional womenz.) i would like to not share a planet with these people, please. PLEASE?

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Well obviously every chubby 13 year old out there is just desperately waiting to get gang raped. And the skinny ones are obviously only skinny so they can attract the attention of rapists in the first place!

I lost the power of speech when I read that one last week.

As for the rest ... well. If you find another planet, can I come too?

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i'm building a spaceship now - think flash gordon. i'd happily share a planet with brian blessed in a nappy if it kept me away from some of these people.

the thing that nags at my mind, sometimes, is: how many men secretly think like that? what was that survey a wee while back where some terrifying proportion of men in a survey (i think they asked students) admitted they'd rape if they could be totally assured there would be no consequences? (no consequences to them, that is - i have yet to hear about a consequence-free assault. :/)

i am very cheerful today, can you tell?

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I haven't heard about that survey. I remember the BBC one where a strong percentage believed women were responsible for being raped (what they wore, what they drank, what they said...), which was bad enough. That one sounds frankly terrifying.

I know not all men think this way, I know plenty of men who don't.
But I really shouldn't have to think myself LUCKY to know them, 'not rapist' should be the default setting, not the other way round.

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re: lucky. i know! some of the "boys" on the board i mod - but may be leaving over issues not unrelated to this topic - are so damn smug as they announce "of course, i could never do such an awful thing."

as if it's something you get sweeties and a pat on the head for. gah! i'm not about to praise someone for meeting base-line standards of decency!

of course, they all think rapists jump out of dark alleys wearing ski masks, and that some girls are, you know, just more likely to get themselves raped (slutty ones, natch). not a date rapist among them. yet.

(hi. you now have a political blog thing. and it's all my fault.)

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'hey, i'm not raping you, do i get a PRIZE??'

meh.

and don't worry, I agree with pretty much everything you're saying anyway!

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Well obviously every chubby 13 year old out there is just desperately waiting to get gang raped. And the skinny ones are obviously only skinny so they can attract the attention of rapists in the first place

well, quite! because the magical powers of retrospective victim-blaming ensure that everything a woman is or does can be used to place the repsonsibility for rape where it belongs: on the shoulders of the women who get raped.

*looks for spare rocket fuel*

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And that's why I spent my teenage years in fear after being evil and depraved enough to develop a large bust.

CNICOMETOYOURPLANETPLS

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kelemvor.livejournal.com

Y'know, while I don't like the death penalty, I sometimes see that it has its points. This waste of skin deserves a careless hanging so that he strangles for a bit, followed by a brief hope of reprieve before undergoing it all again.
If my Dad had been at that mockery of justice, neither of the defendants would have walked out of there, and dental records would have been needed. (Since my Dad turned 70, his already low fear of jail has all but disappeared - "They can only put me away once, and if they give me life, I've got the better part of the deal!")
It never fails to dismay me how utterly inhuman my fellow humans can be to one another. *Beckons the mahoosive asteroid*

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8 years *maybe*, huh? That's the same sentence that a woman here got for trying to steal and sell Coke's secrets to Pepsi. Something about these two cases does not seem like they should be on-par punishment-wise.
I'm sneaking on unhurt's spaceship with you.

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okay, but you have to bring snacks.

p.s. hi!

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not a problem, I am quite good with snacks!

(hi!)

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i HAEV THE SNAX

*strokes hellison's speshul cider bottles*

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Eep. Hellison can keep her speshul cider bottles - I'll just take the un-speshul, un-stroked ones over here *hides them*

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kanaalzahir.livejournal.com

NFEEAAGH. This is an accurate impression of me trying not to post but my fingers took over. Anyway.

Two points.

One. repton_infinity (hi, have we met?) makes one of my constant points about the problems with sex crimes. In muggings, "all" you have to do (which is not necessarily easy) is to prove that the suspect wapped the victim over the head and took their monies. In rape cases, it's not enough to prove that the suspect and the victim had sex, not even in what seems to be a somewhat kinky and strange way, to prove rape. You have to prove that it wasn't consentual (is that a word?).

Two. The judiciary as a whole are not insensitive horrible old farts who hate young women and believe they all lie. You don't know *anything* about their feelings, when they for instance have to judge the evidence as not satisfactory. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but this sort of prejudice pisses me off every single time I see it.

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