RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (Full Version)

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kalikshama -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 5:07:26 AM)

quote:

It's what happens when a society decides that they can't afford to imprison criminals and what they resort to is what people need to think about.


I'm still not getting your point as it relates to rape in our society.

Do you think the backlog of rape kit processing is deliberate societal policy, a funding issue, a trivialization of rape, disorganization, or something else?

Unanalyzed Evidence in Sexual Assault Cases

Law enforcement authorities nationwide have continued to uncover sexual assault evidence in their own files that has never been scientifically evaluated. The number of cases implicated is significant; for example, in Los Angeles alone, there are 10,000; in Dallas, 12,000; and in Detroit, 10,500. In some instances, sexual assault kits (SAKs), which are designed to collect biological evidence in relation to crimes such as rape, were not sent to be analyzed in a lab for legitimate reasons. Many cases never went to court and triggered further analysis. But the pervasive lack of consistent or standard reasoning for leaving SAKs unanalyzed raises troubling questions about the justice system at large.

In 2011, the National Institute of Justice published a report, “The Road Ahead: Unanalyzed Evidence in Sexual Assault Cases” (PDF), providing an overview of the situation and the contributing factors to the ongoing problem. These backlogs and delays may lead to a lack of justice for victims, the report notes, and “in worst-case scenarios … lead to additional victimization by serial offenders or the incarceration of people wrongly con­victed of a crime.”

The report’s findings include:

* As an indicator of how widespread this problem has become, “18 percent of unsolved alleged sexual assaults that occurred from 2002 to 2007 contained forensic evidence that was still in police custody (not submitted to a crime lab for analysis.)”
* One major challenge is that 43% of law enforcement agencies “do not have a computerized system for tracking forensic evidence, either in their inventory or after it is sent to the crime lab.”
* On average, 50–60% of SAKs test positive for biological material that does not belong to the victim.
* Survey responses indicated that there may be some misunderstanding of the value of biological evidence. 44% of the law enforcement agencies said that one of the reasons they did not send evidence to the lab was that a suspect had not been identified. 15% said that they did not submit evidence because “analysis had not been requested by a prosecutor.”
* Due to lack of sufficient resources, it may be impossible to analyze all the newly discovered SAKs. Different cities are prioritizing in various ways. In Dallas, for example, “only unsolved stranger rapes are being tested; based on a preliminary analysis, this represents 20–25 percent of the recently discovered evidence.”
* Various states and jurisdictions have different statutes of limitations rules relating to sexual assault and cases with DNA evidence. These continue to evolve, but there remain difficult questions about whether or not all SAKs should be tested both to provide resolution for victims and to shed light on other cases of rape or sexual assault.

The report concludes, “As the nation grapples with the discovery of thousands of older sexual assault kits, it is crucial that we balance justice, public safety and the victims’ needs. The goal, of course, is to move beyond the ‘crisis man­agement’ of the moment to the adoption of systematic practices, procedures and protocols that will prevent this situation from ever happening again.”



samboct -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 8:20:21 AM)

Hi Kalikshama

OK- you've raised two points.

The simple one first-about the untested evidence. I looked at the report and there is untested evidence in 18% of rape cases, and 14% of homicide cases. To me, this suggests that rape is treated pretty similarly to homicide.

I think the simple explanation is that DNA testing has evolved. When DNA testing was first developed- it could only be used on an exclusionary basis- i.e. it could rule OUT that someone was the criminal, but it couldn't identify who the criminal was. So if there wasn't a suspect (which I think was 44% of the cases), the DNA evidence wasn't any use, and hence it was stuffed in a drawer. I think there are also state to state differences about whether DNA collected from one crime can be used on a broader search, but I'm guessing here. Also- a lot of SAKs (sexual assault kits) are incomplete, and only show the biological material of the victim- I think it was 50-60% actually. Couple that with the backlog in current cases and a lack of funding, and I think it's pretty easy to get to a bunch of untested SAKs- it's not a magic wand, and as the cops note in some cases- the identity of the perpetrator is not in question, i.e. non-stranger rape.

The second point- In terms of A Clockwork Orange...if you're not understanding why that movie shows my fear of these rape statistics, that means that I haven't done a good job of explaining myself.

First- I'm going to recap at the risk of boring you all, while I think these statistics are BS.

1) The writer/interviewer made an assumption that a woman who had been raped might not realize it. Well, to me this is pretty damn presumptuous on the part of the interviewer- these are college women, and they can't figure out if they've been raped?
2) If asked directly whether or not they've been raped, we get a very different answer- a much lower figure. (Don't have it off the top of my head.)
3) Rape as a crime still has the same requirements as most other crimes: a perpetrator and a victim. The perpetrator of a crime has to have intent for there to be a crime- one should not be able to "accidentally" rape someone. Shouldn't even be close.
4) The one crime where there doesn't have to be a perpetrator and a victim are the current drug laws. We've imprisoned a massive part of our populace- especially African-Americans, and spent a ridiculous fraction of our GDP on trying to enforce these laws. The US spends more on prison than any other country, and we have one of the highest fractions of citizenry imprisoned. There's a pretty good correlation in between the rise of "zero tolerance" and the erasing of gains made by African-Americans in the 60s. Hence, imprisoning large parts of the population doesn't work- it's destructive- it leads to impoverishment.
5) If the statistics that you posted are correct, and we consider all of these rapes crimes, then we have to imprison large parts of the population- that's what we do with criminals.

Let's get to A Clockwork Orange- an interesting dystopian vision. That movie sets up a two tiered society- a working underclass and a wealthy privileged class. The youth of the underclass turn to violence in a big way, robbery, rape, and eventually murder. The prison system becomes overwhelmed, so a new idea is tried to "reform" criminals- an aversion therapy using drugs and images to reinforce the therapy. Essentially, the criminal is chemically "neutered"- he is rendered physically incapable of violence. He then becomes a victim of his former associates- at which point, the experiment is abandoned, and his free will is restored.

Please note- the technology to do such "aversion therapy" if it doesn't exist today- well, we're probably not far from it.

Hence the reason I find your statistics so frightening- because we've tried to imprison large fractions of the population for a war on drugs with disastrous results, and it's possible that we would make such a massive push to imprison a large percentage of the male population for rape. Whether or not our society could recover from such a disaster is something I'd rather not find out.

From my perspective, if we're going to make headway on reducing rapes, we've got to change the dialogue. I've been trying to point out, what seems largely unsuccessfully here, is that if the statistics that you posted are correct- we're all in trouble because it becomes effectively an insoluble problem. People deal with insoluble problems differently than soluble ones. While it may seem paradoxical, my viewpoint has been from the outset, that if we would reduce the projected number of rapes to something that people can find believable, we might make some headway on reducing those numbers. But we can't over react from incidents like this one where what may be a single individual who hasn't raped anyone has created a national uproar. This is not conducive to showing that we've got a real handle on what's going on.


Sam



Aswad -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 8:58:05 AM)

I will be brief, so as to not be tempted into the rants I just deleted from this Fast Reply.

DNA evidence will not make a major difference, speaking based on experience with a comprehensive national database, nationally standardized kits and consistent reporting. It will remain the case that most incidents will still rely heavily on traditional police work to get anywhere, and the gain will only exist where this investigative work has actually been done to a satisfactory degree in the first place. Most suspects will not be in the database. Assaults will have a higher hit rate, but hits will match to other cases, not to real suspects, making it more difficult, not less, to investigate (due to information mismanagement apparently already being rampant, they will not gain from more input without an improvement in signal to noise ratio). Federal cases will benefit slightly, and cases will be flagged as federal earlier, assuming local police doesn't try to prevent federal involvement.

The fact of the matter is: we don't actually care all that much. Not in any meaningful, non-feelgood sense of the word "care", as in "throw real money at" or "make sacrifices for" or the like. When discussing public efforts, the metric of interest is "priority reduction". If you prioritize everything, then you've reduced the priorities of everything. It's a question of reducing the priority of something. Tag, you're it. Because that's what it comes down to: what are we willing to give up to deal with rape? You're cynical enough that I don't have to answer that for you. Be like rubbing the nose of every woman on the board in it to do so.

A consequence of that is: whatever gains you get will be offset by budget cuts to match.

If you really want to deal with assaults, start a movement to escort the ladies home in groups, especially on the weekends. We've done that. It works. The main cities here now have a Night Watch, and the ones that are worried head to the meetup spots, often together with others from the same area, then they're escorted to their doorsteps. A substantial number of men, and a token number of women, have signed up as volunteers for this effort. They do one to four days per month, each, on average. Not a huge commitment, but one that has all but eliminated assaults in those cities, hinting at the importance of opportunity as a factor.

By contrast, DNA only starts to be a particularly significant factor when all citizens have been registered.

Anyone that supports registering all citizens... there goes that other rant... better post now.

Health,
al-Aswad.




kalikshama -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 9:22:21 AM)

Good points al-Aswad.



kalikshama -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 9:34:56 AM)

quote:

1) The writer/interviewer made an assumption that a woman who had been raped might not realize it. Well, to me this is pretty damn presumptuous on the part of the interviewer- these are college women, and they can't figure out if they've been raped?

2) If asked directly whether or not they've been raped, we get a very different answer- a much lower figure. (Don't have it off the top of my head.)


75% of the Yes respondents did not label themselves as rape victims, perhaps because their internal definition of rape only includes strangers and dark alleys, perhaps as a psychological defense mechanism.

49 percent who answered Yes consider this to be miscommunication rather than rape: penetration by penis, finger, or other object under coercive influence such as physical force, alcohol, or threats

http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9502/sommers.html

Koss and her associates interviewed slightly more than three thousand college women, randomly selected nationwide.[8] The young women were asked ten questions about sexual violation. These were followed by several questions about the precise nature of the violation. Had they been drinking? What were their emotions during and after the event? What forms of resistance did they use? How would they label the event? Koss counted anyone who answered affirmatively to any of the last three questions as having been raped:

8. Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?
9. Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man threatened or used some degree of physical force (twisting your arm, holding you down, etc.) to make you?
10. Have you had sexual acts (anal or oral intercourse or penetration by objects other than the penis) when you didn't want to because a man threatened or used some degree of physical force (twisting your arm, holding you down, etc.) to make you?

Koss and her colleagues concluded that 15.4 percent of respondents had been raped, and that 12.1 percent had been victims of attempted rape.[9] Thus, a total of 27.5 percent of the respondents were determined to have been victims of rape or attempted rape because they gave answers that fit Koss's criteria for rape (penetration by penis, finger, or other object under coercive influence such as physical force, alcohol, or threats). However, that is not how the so-called rape victims saw it. Only about a quarter of the women Koss calls rape victims labeled what happened to them as rape. According to Koss, the answers to the follow-up questions revealed that "only 27 percent" of the women she counted as having been raped labeled themselves as rape victims.[10] Of the remainder, 49 percent said it was "miscommunication," 14 percent said it was a "crime but not rape," and 11 percent said they "don't feel victimized."[11]






kalikshama -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 9:59:27 AM)

Sam,

Do you think the fact that when I was 19 I didn't realized sexual harassment was broader than "fuck me or you're fired" means I wasn't sexually harassed when my supervisor created a hostile work environment because he didn't believe women belonged in the military?

KK

quote:

1) The writer/interviewer made an assumption that a woman who had been raped might not realize it. Well, to me this is pretty damn presumptuous on the part of the interviewer- these are college women, and they can't figure out if they've been raped?



xXLithiumXx -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 11:31:40 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady

quote:

ORIGINAL: xXLithiumXx

quote:


The college is helping the now displaced students to find housing.. so there is no "poor me, im homeless" bs to deal with.


Buahahaha...I wish I could go to campus there and hear just -one- of these boys ask for sympathy.

I would beat them about the head and shoulders with the section of the dictionary from shit to syphilis and ask them if there was any sympathy in there.


I do believe there might have been members of the fraternity who were not involved.  Without the "author" of the survey stepping forward, the local frat president not divulging the name and who all received the survey, it really isn't fair to hang each boy for the incident.

quote:


To be frank, they shouldn't even still be able to attend school there. The fact that the parents haven't been notified is just about the most ignorant thing I have EVER heard. (I have a son, he is 11, I would want to know if he had done something like this, because even if it was some ignorant frat house fantasy, I would skin him alive.)


They likely will be on academic probation and receive other sanctions from the school.  As for "calling the parents," these aren't grade school or high school boys, they are legally adults.  Parents aren't even entitled to get their grades or talk to their instructors, so whether *you* would want to know or not is irrelevant.  That law doesn't allow you to.

quote:


I think we are all enraged because in our minds, the what may have happened is the scary, fucked up part of it all. The really pissy part to all of us is that there is not a damned thing that can be done about it and we are all thinking about what rape victims endure.

Maybe it is best for everyone if it is left to anonymity.


Yes, what *could* have happened is frightening.  But it is frightening to think what *could* have happened when your child is out of your sight in a store for 3 seconds.

The people on this forum can't do a thing about it.  However, the school has taken action, the National Fraternity has taken action.  The school is still investigating the incident.  This wasn't a "plan" to rape people, and these boys definately need to learn appropriate behavior and get a bit of an education regarding violence against women.  What they don't deserve is to be hung for their stupidity, which is essentially what so many people here want to do.  Lock them up and throw away the key, post their names all over campus, expel them from school, do everything to make them feel what a rape victim feels.  They did NOT rape anyone.  In fact, to our knowledge so far, they didn't even terrify any female on campus with this email which was reported by a member of the fraternity, let's not forget that.

Academic probation, loss of scholarships, housing in the dorms, volunteer work and attending the same classes that men who have commited violence against women need to attend (they aren't anger management, although that is part of it), review of their behavior once a month for a year.  In this case, while frats are known for their feelings of entitlement and bad behavior, these boys were caught before (well mostly before, considering the other issues they had) anyone was truly hurt.  There is an opportunity here to teach them why what they WROTE was wrong.  If they could learn a lesson, they might spread what they learned to others, and they might raise their sons to know better.




No arguing truth and logic.



samboct -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 11:51:28 AM)

KK

Clearly one of our areas of disagreement is whether or not college women think they've been raped. Your viewpoint, if I understand it correctly, is that they don't fully understand what rape is, and therefore may not recognize it when it's close to home, i.e. in a relationship. Therefore, the researcher used their own definition of rape.

I disagree. I think college women are smart enough to know when they've been raped, especially after 30 years of "education" on the subject, since IIRC, the publication of Koss's findings were in 1982? I think the women who have been questioned on the subject understand the penalties for rape very well, and think that whatever their partner, has done, it doesn't warrant jail time.

From my perspective: here's my view on what happens if I rape someone: I go to jail- and not for 30 days, for years. I will probably be brutalized, and I expect that most of what I have struggled for in my life will go down the toilet. I think most men think this way. I think college women ARE smart enough to realize that these are the stakes here- accuse someone of rape, and their life goes to hell. So on the survey- they don't consider themselves as having gotten raped, because they realize that the punishment would be too severe. Or, like Oliver Wendell Holmes on pornography- "I know it when I see it."

Also-if the question is have you ever had unwanted sexual contact in college- roughly half of both men and women agree.

Your second question brings up sexual harassment- and I think it's a useful comparison. Have we both been sexually harassed? Yes,- when I was an underclassman in high school, an upperclassman whenever he would pass me would pat my ass, and call me bimbo. Do I think he should have gone to jail for it? Not then, and not now. Do I think anyone should have gone to jail? Nope. Have we as a society improved our attitudes in terms of sexual harassment over the last three decades? I'd say so- and I suspect you would as well. Did we do it by putting large numbers of people in jail? Nope. Did we change attitudes by threatening peoples jobs and fines? Yep. Did we start a dialogue between men and women on the subject? Yep.

Why can't we start a dialogue between men and women on the subject of rape? Anyone who thinks that we can, I suggest this thread offers a strong retort. Could it be that the punishment for rape is so severe that to even talk about it is terrifying? I suspect so- if I were a guy whose girlfriend said, "You SOB, you raped me last night." I'd be scared stiff. (well, actually limp in my case- I'm not wired that way.) Would I ask her, "Gee, sweetheart, I was a little rough with you last night- did I rape you- or was I close?" Nope- too terrified about that conversation too- don't wanna go to jail. So the communication between men and women never happens, because the threat is so terrifying. And the statistics that one in four women in college get raped make even the discussion around rape even more so. Hence my comment that what we've tried for the last 30 years doesn't seem to be working- can we try something else?


Sam






tazzygirl -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 12:04:50 PM)

quote:

Your second question brings up sexual harassment- and I think it's a useful comparison. Have we both been sexually harassed? Yes,- when I was an underclassman in high school, an upperclassman whenever he would pass me would pat my ass, and call me bimbo. Do I think he should have gone to jail for it? Not then, and not now. Do I think anyone should have gone to jail? Nope. Have we as a society improved our attitudes in terms of sexual harassment over the last three decades? I'd say so- and I suspect you would as well. Did we do it by putting large numbers of people in jail? Nope. Did we change attitudes by threatening peoples jobs and fines? Yep. Did we start a dialogue between men and women on the subject? Yep.


People arent arrested for sexual harrassment, they are arrested for rape.

These studies are hitting the 20 year old mark. I would say manyt hings have changed, including women's knowledge about what is rape.



kalikshama -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 2:43:11 PM)

quote:

Your viewpoint, if I understand it correctly, is that they don't fully understand what rape is, and therefore may not recognize it when it's close to home, i.e. in a relationship. Therefore, the researcher used their own definition of rape.


My viewpoint is that the survey respondents didn't understand the legal definition of rape. Koss used the Ohio penal code's definition of rape, not her own.

Erasing Rape
Media Hype an Attack on Sexual-Assault Research

The point Gilbert makes most frequently against Koss is that 73 percent of the women identified by Koss as having been raped do not label their experience as rape. This critique is taken up by Roiphe: "These are not self-proclaimed victims, then," she writes in her book, "they are victims according to someone else." Other writers intent on debunking acquaintance rape "hysteria" have also made the charge; a Washington Post op-ed (5/31/92) complained, "Do these feminists believe women, or do they believe women need expert guidance to know when they're raped?"

Koss explains that she included these women in her figures because of the prevailing public misconceptions about the legal definition of rape. Particularly in 1985, when the survey was conducted, awareness that an attack by an acquaintance was legally rape was much lower. In a more recent study by Baltimore's Towson State University, 14 percent of the students surveyed labeled an experience in their past as "rape," "sexual assault" or "date rape."

But the implication by Gilbert and others that because women do not use the word "rape," their experience is therefore trivial, is simply false. According to the Koss study, of all respondents who reported an incidence of legally defined rape (whether or not they used the term), 30 percent considered suicide afterward, 31 percent sought help from a therapist and 82 percent said the experience had changed them. Only 11 percent reported that they "don't feel victimized."

*****

Book written about a different study that took place in the same time period:

I Never Called It Rape: The Ms. Report on Recognizing, Fighting, and Surviving Date and Acquaintance Rape

...Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

I Never Called It Rape confronts the issue of what used to be known as "date rape" but is now commonly referred to as "acquaintance rape." First-hand accounts by women who have been raped by men whom they knew provides a background for analyzing this crime . These stories are meant to make women aware of how this type of rape happens, how to avoid the pitfalls of certain situations, and how to acknowledge that a rape has taken place even if the person is familiar . Chapters are directed toward preventing such an assault as well as what to do if you are a victim of acquaintance rape. The statistics in the book indicate that this is a widespread occurrence often ignored by women who deny what happened or feel they won't be believed. This book will enlighten young women about what constitutes an assault against them and how to deal with it.




minx01 -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 2:50:19 PM)

I didn't read this thread because one,
It looked as if I would have a lot to read and two
I was rather sure people would say why they wouldn't.
are you people being serious???
name who you would like to rape on campus??
honestly
growwwwlll!!!
I rest my case, I am speechless. shame on you all



minx01 -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 2:54:59 PM)

I apologize. you obviousely ARE serious.



kalikshama -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 3:02:34 PM)

Executive summary - fraternity was shut down for its survey "Name who you would like to rape on campus."

Discussion revolves around 1. appropriate action for college to take, 2. various studies of the prevalence of rape on campus, 3. is the prevalence of rape exaggerated or under reported, and 4. definitions of rape.



tazzygirl -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 3:52:00 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: minx01

I didn't read this thread because one,
It looked as if I would have a lot to read and two
I was rather sure people would say why they wouldn't.
are you people being serious???
name who you would like to rape on campus??
honestly
growwwwlll!!!
I rest my case, I am speechless. shame on you all



My my, I missed this one.

allow me to explain minx, since you obviously have not read any of this thread.

The title is the title to the article... its what was asked by someone at a fraternity house to other fraternity members.

Noticing your posts on the Gorean board, you do have a habit of not actually reading anything...

you may want to start instead of appearing to be posting with one foot between your lips.



samboct -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 4:46:52 PM)

"But the implication by Gilbert and others that because women do not use the word "rape," their experience is therefore trivial, is simply false."

Excuse me KK- but you can slide a Mack truck in here. I don't know what these authors wrote beyond this- but the idea that only rape is a traumatic experience is wrong. My comment- again, a view I haven't changed through this thread- is that one can have nasty experiences that should not be dealt with by the criminal system. I view the legal system as the last resort for dealing with problems, and I suspect a bunch of these women do as well.

That we're having this discussion shows how crummy the data are that we're trying to base a decision on. Seems to me that a series of in depth interviews- probably taking a couple of hours, to gather a detailed history, would probably give us a better handle on what's going on here. Yes, Koss has not been discredited, but let's be clear, there's plenty of scholarship from people like Christina Hoff Somers who strongly disagree with her- as well as Aya Gruber. This is not the open and shut discussion that clearly many people on this board believe that it is.

Sam



tazzygirl -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 4:53:23 PM)

You may wish to read up on Somers.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1246

She is no paragon of facts.



tazzygirl -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 4:58:51 PM)

quote:

"There are a lot of homely women in women's studies," Christina Hoff Sommers, a professor at Clark University in Massachusetts, is quoted as saying. "Preaching these anti-male, anti-sex sermons is a way for them to compensate for various heartaches -- they're just mad at the beautiful girls."

Nonsense. Professor Sommers might not be doing what she's doing today if many women, some attractive, some not, had not fomented social change over the last three decades because of much more than heartaches.


http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/19/opinion/public-private-and-now-babe-feminism.html

Nice sentiment.



kalikshama -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 5:29:56 PM)

Not happy about Gruber either:

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/crimprof_blog/2004/12/crimprof_profes.html

One overarching project of mine is to delve into the transactional nature of criminal incidents, focusing specifically on the culpability of both those deemed victims and those labeled criminals.



kalikshama -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 5:32:08 PM)

quote:

the idea that only rape is a traumatic experience is wrong.


I don't understand how your gleaned that from my post or links.



kalikshama -> RE: Name who you would like to rape on campus (12/27/2011 5:33:46 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: tazzygirl


Thanks for the interesting side trip! Haven't been there in a while.



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