HOW THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM HANDLES RAPE VICTIMS
Before public consciousness was raised by the anti- rape movement, complainants who courageously reported sex crimes frequently found themselves socially stigmatized. An old-fashioned notion of “Good girls don’t get raped” prevailed, so those who did get raped must have done something to deserve their fate. Even if an unquestionably inno- cent victim was taken against her will, she was callously looked down upon as being “defiled” and “devalued” by the experience. Those who dared to press charges were often told that their cases were unwinnable, given the unreasonably stringent legal standards required for conviction.
The laws passed over the centuries and amended by judges’ case-by-case decisions were not intended and never functioned to guarantee women’s safety, freedom of movement, and peace of mind. The use of terms such as fallen, ravaged, and despoiled to describe rape victims betrayed anti- quated attitudes of men toward girls and women: that they were the “property” of their fathers or husbands who lost “market value” and became “damaged goods” if they were “violated.” Rape laws reflected and reinforced prevailing double standards regarding appropriate forms of sexual conduct and sex-based roles for females and males (LeGrande, 1973).
The account presented in Box 10.2 illustrates how the system routinely mistreated women who were raped in the “bad old days” before the vic- tims’ rights movement raised objections and brought about meaningful reforms. This fictional composite sketch illustrates everything that possi- bly could go wrong. It was compiled by the Pre- sident’s Task Force on Victims of Crime from testimony about real-life ordeals brought to their attention at the start of the 1980s. Because this worst-case scenario provides a virtual checklist of nearly all the possible problems, frustrations, and abuses that can arise, it can serve as a standard for comparison with current case handling to identify how much progress has been made and exactly what remains to be accomplished.
The narrative follows one woman’s plight as her case is processed. The presidential task force pinpointed why victims find themselves pitted against the police, the prosecuting attorney work- ing for the government, the defense lawyer acting on behalf of the accused, the judge presiding over the case, the jury sitting in judgment, and the parole board determining the convict’s future. This excerpt accentuates the negative by emphasizing the mishandling of rape cases at every level because victims of sexual assaults were—and still are—the most mistreated of all those who seek help from the criminal justice system (see Box 10.2).
The account presented in Box 10.2 identified and dramatized all the antivictim practices and pro- cedures that had accumulated within the criminal justice system over the centuries. One by one, they have been addressed by the antirape movement. Many policies and practices have been reformed over the past few decades, including the basic legal statutes that govern court procedures.
And yet 25 years after the President’s Task Force issued recommendations for reform (based on this collection of horror stories), a coalition against sexual assault released a report that con- cluded that rape victims often still suffered mistreat- ment in New York City. The study, based on interviews with 65 male and female victims, deter- mined that only one-third were asked whether they had a safe place to return to in the aftermath of the
V I C T IMS OF R AP E S AN D OT H E R S E XUAL AS S AULT S 341
Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-203