Comments on: Is Rape a Crime?

By: Good News from Texas! - The Pursuit of Harpyness

Good News from Texas! - The Pursuit of Harpyness — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:01:07 +0000

[...] I just found out that contrary to the story that made the rounds earlier (SarahMC’s post is here), Texas has not been charging victims for the cost of their rape [...]

By: lalaland13

lalaland13 — Tue, 12 May 2009 21:58:24 +0000

Another reason I’m ashamed to call Texas my home state-although plenty of other states do this as well.

I’m not sure where all the blame should go, but I’d love to ask an insurance adjuster why the hell they would deny someone’s claim for a rape kit. But it shouldn’t even come to that.

The thought of some collection agent calling and saying “So when are you going to pay us for getting raped, huh? If you can’t afford to get raped, then why did you go out in such a tight dress?” It all makes me wanna puke. Even if they aren’t saying it, they’re basically saying it.

By: J.D.Regent

J.D.Regent — Tue, 12 May 2009 21:06:58 +0000

Spark yes, I just have to work for a few hours and will post later in the evening.

By: kelsium

kelsium — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:15:53 +0000

SIXTY SIX AND A HALF MILLION DOLLARS.
I’m sorry, my brain is still reverberating from that. What the hell are they using the money for, then? What a waste of money, lives, time.
There is no reason not to pay for and process these kits.
Someone with more economic prowess than I should calculate the estimated (because obviously they’re not all reported) number of women who are sexually assaulted every year and come up with some way to put a monetary figure, call it “production loss”, for the emotional toll of an assault PLUS the expense of a rape kit PLUS the knowledge that her attacker is free because no one bothered to process the kit she payed for. Then maybe someone will pay attention.

By: Spark

Spark — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:23:17 +0000

JD, can you elaborate on how evidentiary laws treat rape victims preferentially, in comparison to victims of other crimes?

By: J.D.Regent

J.D.Regent — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:22:38 +0000

Skip, my legal advocate straight up told me not to bother reporting if I didn’t want to. With no evidence the case would have gone no where and I would have gone through a ton of grief. I have absolutely no regret about not reporting. I made sure my perpetrator experienced the consequences of his action in other ways.

By: SkipToMyLou

SkipToMyLou — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:13:43 +0000

This is why women don’t report their rapes. Because reporting a rape is motherfucking *hard*. I don’t just mean getting your shit together to tell someone in time to gather evidence, or even realising one was raped, or dealing with the denial/emotions you’d be feeling if it was someone close to you, or someone you’d consented to before or whatever, I mean reporting a rape means dealing with bureaucracy. Hospitals. Police. Insurance companies. People I avoid talking to when I am in the best possible, most unstressed, confident frame of mind.

I can really see how some women, when raped, even in a case where everyone would believe them- like by a stranger who broke into their car or something- would just deal on their own and put the rape-kit money towards therapy rather than stretch out the event by chasing Blue Cross Blue Shield for any kind of reimbursement.

By: J.D.Regent

J.D.Regent — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:05:09 +0000

Well, in any criminal trial the state has the burden to prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. So the burden is on the state (not the victim, though it feels that way) to prove non-consent. It isn’t that the law assumes the victim is lying (though police, jurors, and others may), it just leaves questions of credibility up to the jury. As you all know there have been major reforms to the evidentiary laws surrounding rape so that it actually is treated differently (more preferentially to the victim) than any other crime. And in almost every criminal case the jury tends to credit the testimony of victims over the testimony of defendants (for better or worse). The reason consent tends to be contested is that unless you are saying “you got the wrong guy, somebody other than me raped her,” consent is pretty much the only defense available to defendants. If you stipulate there was sexual touching, the only question left is if there was consent. I have defended a couple of juvies on auto theft cases perpetrated against people they knew and often we do end up fighting about this stuff too (was it a gift? did he lend it to you?) but most of the time cars are stolen from strangers (this would be analogous to stranger rape I suppose, easier to prove rape happened), there is often a co-conspirator who the cops get to testify, or the car was hotrodded and they didn’t have a key, etc. It does happen that theft cases hinge on consent but it is much more infrequent than in the case of rape (I think).

I don’t have enough evidence but I would guess that trials lost on the consent issue do not comprise the majority of rape cases that do not result in conviction. Many many more I suspect are unreported, fucked up by police or crime labs, or neglected by prosecutors. I do actually believe rape is incredibly difficult to prosecute, more so than other crimes, for evidentiary reasons. I am very open to further legal reforms people have in mind because I often feel stuck about this issue and so tend to advocate around issues like rape kit testing, etc. instead.

By: Cimorene

Cimorene — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:15:32 +0000

“Rape tax,” that’s exactly right. Good god what the hell. That’s a perfect summation of what it is.

As for consent–why is it that women need to prove that they did not consent? Why not have the rapist prove that she did? Because (unlike when someone has your car) the female body is under a constant state of assumed consent. It’s why men grad my ass at bars (or used to, when I went to bars). Because they assume (rightly) that my body is theirs to do as they please, and if I have a problem with it the onus is on ME to prove that my body is not public property. I have to prove that I didn’t want a stranger to touch my ass, because unless I can prove it without a doubt, it is assumed that I wanted it/asked for it/deserved it. Because the world is a hellish place.

By: baraqiel

baraqiel — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:41:25 +0000

Well, two things. One is that many crimes are only crimes when they happen without consent. If I consent to give you my car, that’s not a crime. If I don’t consent to give you my car and you take it anyway, that’s grand theft auto. But in cases like that, when the defendant has been found with the car, what he tries to prove is that he is not the one who took it away from the owner, not that the owner consented to give it to him. Lack of consent in terms of rape is only sometimes difficult to prove, and yet it’s questioned in almost every case. Furthermore, I think this is one time when “innocent until proven guilty” goes too far. I think it hurts society more to assume that most women are lying about having been raped than to make incorrect convictions in the 2% of cases or whatever it is in which the woman actually is lying. The difficulty that women have convincing people that they did not consent reinforces all sorts of patriarchal norms (obviously) and the criminal justice system is helping that continue.