A story about the understaffed Minneapolis Police Department Sex Crimes Unit:
Investigative units measure success by something they call a “clearance rate”—the percentage of reported crimes that lead to an arrest. The 10-year high for the Sex Crimes Unit was 57 percent in 2004. Last year, the rate fell to 26 percent—just 1 percent above a 10-year low.This year, with data available through August, the unit’s clearance rate is 12 percent.Translation: For roughly nine out of every ten rapes reported to the police, there is a victim waiting to hear word of an arrest.
Meanwhile, the number of reported rapes in Minneapolis has been rising steadily—from 362 in 2002 to 453 last year—even as the number of reported rapes nationwide continues a decades-long decline.
Thanks to a Minneapolis reader for sending this.
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Ducky Doolittle has posted a call – they need advocates in Queens County:
I am writing to you on behalf of the Mount Sinai Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Program (SAVI) in hope that you or someone you know might be interested in becoming a Volunteer Emergency Advocate for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. The Advocate is on call once a month in Manhattan or Queens to accompany people who have been recently sexually assaulted or domestically abused through their stay in the Emergency Room, so that they don’t have to face the difficult decisions, emotions and follow-up procedures alone.
The work the Advocate does is invaluable, and SAVI Advocates alone helped more than 500 survivors in New York City Emergency Rooms last year—that’s almost 2 survivors a day!
New York still needs your help! Rape and Domestic Violence are still a huge problem in our communities—but through SAVI, it is possible to make a difference.
If you are interested in becoming a Volunteer Rape Crisis and Domestic Violence Emergency Room Advocate, please review the dates and information below, and then call the SAVI office at (212) 423-2140 or (718) 736-1288.
To get more information about SAVI you can visit the website at www.mssm.edu/SAVI/.
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In the aftermath of the Duke lacrosse rape case, lawyers in North Carolina are learning lessons from the faulty rush to judgment against three college athletes.
From the start, when players Reade Seligmann, David Evans and Collin Finnerty were wrongfully indicted for raping a stripper in 2006, there was a stampede by the media, some members of Duke faculty and one overzealous prosecutor to prove them guilty, say authors Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson.
In their new book, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, Taylor, a columnist for National Journal, and Johnson, a history professor at Brooklyn College and CUNY, document the facts of the case and how they were misconstrued to assume guilt.
(more . . . + book excerpt)
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POPE AIR FORCE BASE, N.C. — A court-martial has been scheduled next month for a female airman who says she was charged because she refused to testify against three male airmen she had accused of rape.
The woman is charged with one count of committing indecent acts and one count of consuming alcohol as a minor. The defense says the charges against her involve the same men she accused of raping her.
The military won’t identify the men or confirm whether they were ever charged because the case is pending, base spokesman Ed Drohan said Tuesday.
“The whole thing is a system failure,” said Capt. Christopher A. Eason, one of the woman’s military defense attorneys. “This is unprecedented.”
In letters dated June 7 to the congressional delegations and governors of North Carolina and her native Texas, the woman said she decided not to testify against the three men because she was “under enormous stress.” (more. . .)
[via Feministing]
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We’ve all heard the old saw about how some folks are so arrogant that they they jerk off while looking into a mirror. Well, what do you say to the woman that commissioned a $12,000 lookalike sex doll of herself?
Artist Amber Hawk Swanson uses her RealDoll doppelgänger, named Amber Doll, to explore “the interplay between fantasy and reality in sexual relationships”, including staging rape scenes from movies featuring herself and the doll both dressed as the victim.
I know that it’s infeasible (or at least self-indulgent and pointless) to attempt to judge the relative value of artistic expression, but speaking strictly personally… that’s fucking creepy.
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By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff
Published 5/10/07
A Hampden County man who allegedly tricked his brother’s girlfriend into having sex with him by impersonating his sibling in the middle of the night cannot be convicted of rape, the state’s highest court ruled yesterday in a controversial ruling that affirms the court’s long-held view that sex obtained through fraud is no crime.
The Supreme Judicial Court unanimously ruled that a judge should have dismissed the rape charge against Alvin Suliveres, of Westfield, because Massachusetts law has for two centuries defined rape as sexual intercourse by force and against one’s will and that it is not rape when consent is obtained through fraud. (more. . .)
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John Wirenius (a former public defender), comments on the press conference held yesterday by North Carolina’s Attorney General Roy Cooper regarding of the dropping of charges in the Duke lacrosse team rape case:
…Two things stand out for me in Cooper’s press conference:
First, Cooper was willing to criticize, in genuinely scathing terms, a sitting District Attorney for abusing defendants’ rights. I practiced as a public defender for three years in New York City’s Legal Aid Society, doing criminal appeals. I had several cases that presented instances of DA misconduct at the trial level. It takes a high showing before the State admits error, and it certainly seldom does so so overtly, and in such detail.
Second, and more importantly, Cooper went far further than I envisioned; a cautious state lawyer would have merely said that there was “insufficient evidence to support a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt” and dismissed the charges. Cooper went remarkably far to try to give the accused their reputations back, going so far as to state:
Based on the significant inconsistencies between the evidence and the various accounts given by the accusing witness, we believe that these three individuals are innocent of these charges,” Cooper said at the news conference today. Although rape victims often give accounts that contain inconsistencies, he said, in this case they were overwhelming and could not be reconciled with other evidence. Eyewitness identification procedures used in the case were unreliable, no DNA evidence or other witness confirmed the accuser’s story, and “she contradicts herself,” Cooper said. All this “led us to the conclusion that no attack occurred,” he said.
(more…)
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By DUFF WILSON
RALEIGH, N.C. April 11 — All remaining charges were dropped today against three former Duke University lacrosse players who had been accused of rape more than a year ago, North Carolina’s attorney general announced, concluding a three-month investigation of a racially charged case that polarized and outraged many in the state and nation.
An independent investigation “showed clearly that there is insufficient evidence to proceed,†Roy A. Cooper, the state attorney general, said at a televised news conference. “ We believe these individuals are innocent.â€
He said the accounts of the events given by the woman who made the accusations were so inconsistent that they were not credible. “She contradicts herself,†Mr. Cooper said.
“In this case, the inconsistencies were so significant and so contrary to the evidence that we have no credible evidence that an attack occurred in that house on that night,†he said.
The decision brings to an end a 13-month ordeal for the young men, two of whom were dismissed from Duke because of the charges. (more…)
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Experts have warned that sexual assaults assisted by drugs are a more significant problem than official records suggest.
The government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs said it was concerned that two substances linked with sexual assaults were legal.
It said hospitals and police need to do more to detect the drugs.
Last year separate research by police chiefs found evidence of date-rape drugs was over-stated.
But in its report into drug-assisted sexual assault, the council said it had concerns over two types of drugs thought to be used in date-rape attacks.
The first kind were sedatives which altered behaviour or caused memory loss.
…
In its recommendations, the council said it recognised the “very significant role” played by alcohol in sexual assaults – but added that specific action was needed to deal with attackers who also relied on chemicals.
(Read more…)
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