![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wildeabandon's post, so we don't hijack/derail the original post any further.I'm getting so much interesting information from this discussion, heh.
Regarding sympathy - I think our opinions diverge on this issue, because as soon as it comes out that someone knew something was wrong at the time and did it anyway, my sympathy goes flying straight out of the window. If there were mitigating circumstances around lack of education that meant they weren't sure it was wrong, hmm, maybe. Unfortunately, all of the ones I know of from work were sure and did know and just ignored it.
Regarding "exotic" treatments for "normal" rapists - the sex offender programme that probation run where I work spends a huge proportion of its foundation block tearing down the idea that there's a difference between sex offenders. They will have paedophiles, stranger rapists, domestic sexual abusers, date rapists, people who expose themselves, people who've committed sexual offences online, people who've viewed indecent images of children but never actually touched a child and so on and so forth, all in the same group. One of the first exercises they do is to split the group into three, and ask each group to write down what they think the victim of an offence would feel as a result of the offence. One group looks at a child's feelings, another looks at an adult's feelings, and the third looks at someone who has an indecent picture of them on the internet. The point of that exercise is to put each list up next to each other so you can see, immediately, that they're all but identical.
The programme goes on in that same vein, pointing out that there will be individual differences, but they don't matter because fundamentally all their offending is based on sex. So it's known before the group starts that every person on the group has some form of distorted view/distorted thinking around sex, partly because of the nature of their crime and partly because of an assessment pre-commencement. When you pare it down, all these crimes that seem disparate on the surface - the distinctions between them fall away in the face of the realisation that it's all based on distorted ideas of sex and relationships.
Of course, the US is a hell of a lot bigger than the UK. My geography's not great, but I know we're smaller than most if not all of the US' states, and even we have to devolve policy to a county-wide level - in London, for example, sheer population density necessitates totally sentences than where I work, simply because of how London probation has had to restructure to manage the overwhelming numbers of people they deal with. But then, that's sentencing, not charging for the original crimes.
And for crap's sake, charging someone with indecent exposure for peeing discreetly in a public place is just stupid. Our indecent exposure charge is tagged with the priviso "...with intent to insult a female" (which pisses me off on one hand, because why not just with intent to insult?) but that does seem to cut out bullshit like that.
Of course, the other day I walked out of the front of my work to find one of the offender's peeing against the side of the building. I'm pretty sure that was with intent to insult. *eyeroll*
Comments
So long as we're holding more sympathy for the kid than the victim
On rereading this I realised that it didn't actually say what I intended it to say, at all. A more accurate phrasing would be "so long as we place more priority on our sympathy for the kid than the victim". The "we" was also intended for indicate an attitude I perceive in the general population of the UK - it was certainly not intended to indicate any single person, either. I do find it difficult to believe that anyone could have more sympathy in simple terms of quantity for a kid who sexually assaults someone than for their victim, irregardless of any mitigating factors. However, it often seems like more value is placed on the sympathy towards the perpetrator, as though it's somehow intrinsically more important that they be given the benefit of the doubt than that the victim gets justice - as though more scepticism has to be placed on whether we feel sympathy towards the victim, perhaps because the sympathy demands more of us by acknowledging that yes, this horrible shit happened. It is important that someone is innocent until proven guilty. But not so important that we compromise the ability of victims to seek jusice, which we (the UK) seem to be particularly adept at doing.
There's a particularly interesting book by Joanna Bourke called "Rape: A History from 1860 to the Present". While a lot of the history focusses on the UK, there's quite a bit from other cultures, particularly the US. There's a chapter almost entirely about the UK, however, entitled "Getting Away with Rape". In it, Joanna Bourke reproduces statistics generated by the Home Office of the attrition process in rape cases in the UK, based on data from 1996. It runs like this:
All cases (100%) -> carried cases (75%) -> detected cases (64%) -> defendant charged (31%) -> CPS prosecute (23%) -> court proceedings (21%) -> rape convictions (6%).
And this is only taking those cases of rape that are reported to the police. The statistics kinda speak for themselves, but if you want to know more this page has more detail.
There's a known "postcode lottery" in getting convictions, too - since jurors are drawn from the same area in which the defendant and usually the victim live, if you live in an area where rape myths are prevalent, those are the people who are going to be on the jury who you will rely on to convict the person who attacked you. Wealthier areas tend to mean better-educated, articulate juries, which doesn't guarantee a jury of non-idiots but at least makes the chances higher - similar to what you were saying about certain crimes just not seeming to apply to wealthy people.
With whether rape convictions are better or worse in the UK than the US - well, as crap as this wikipedia page is, it does link to the UN statistics on rape convictions so it provides a basis for comparison. Generally speaking, the UK rape conviction rate tends to be either half or two thirds of the US rate when adjusted for relative population size. I recall we had a prominent American rape prosecution lawyer come to the UK a few years ago to help point out the parts of our system that weren't working - unfortunately I can't remember her name, but just the fact that the government asked her to come says a hell of a lot. The system can fall down in far too many places - the police around where I live are great, but the CPS are shit, and the CPS are the ones who decide whether or not to prosecute. In other places the CPS are great but the police are shit, or both are great and the courts are shit, or - you get the point.
or other kinds of rape, the rapist might get "macho points" depending on circumstances.
Interestingly, that book by Joanna Bourke I mentioned before has a chapter dedicated to rape within the prison settings that draws on how a rapist of other men inside a prison would get "macho points" through the domination of another male, seen as something more difficult to accomplish than the domination of a female and therefore more worthy of "praise". It's difficult to do a direct comparison between US and UK prisons, which are of course set up and run very differently, but it doesn't seem to be as much of an issue in the UK. (Not that it isn't an issue, of course, but that in comparison it's not as much of one.) I'm currently trying to get hold of more of her sources to see if there's anything drawn out regarding a difference in cultural attitudes towards sex and rape that might account for the difference that occurs in concentrated microcosms such as prisons.