"'If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.' So goes the old saying. Yet conditions in some American facilities are so obscene that they amount to a form of extrajudicial punishment." Mother Jones is profiling "America's 10 Worst Prisons." Facilities were chosen for the list based on "...three years of research, correspondence with prisoners, and interviews with reform advocates."
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on May 14, 2013 -
87 comments
Sexual Assault In The U.S. Military is the focus of a serious contender for Best Documentary Feature at this year's Academy Awards.
The Invisible War is a groundbreaking investigative doc that sheds light on the under-reported epidemic of
sexual abuse against female members of the military, as well as the lack of punitive action in these crimes: of the 8 percent of sexual assault cases that are prosecuted in the military, only 2 percent result in convictions.
A female soldier in a combat zone is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.
By
official estimates from The Department of Defense,
19,000 violent sexual crimes occurred in the military in 2011 alone. Sexual assault is
grossly under-reported in the military. In 2011,
3,191 assaults were reported when its likely that somewhere between 19,000 and 22,000 assaults occurred.
The women in the film speak about the physical and mental abuse they underwent while serving in the military - and about the the lawsuit they joined and the verdict in which their experiences were labeled "occupational hazards".
The film is already garnering much attention, especially as front-running Oscar Nominee -
and lawmakers are taking notice. [more inside]
posted by fantodstic
on Feb 19, 2013 -
46 comments
In October, 18-year old high school senior Ryan Romo was
arrested for the sexual assault of a child (someone 16 or under, by TX state law).
On October 31, CultureMap Dallas's managing editor, Claire St. Amant published an
article asking, "Is this Highland Park baseball star a rapist?" St. Amant ended her article, stating: If it's a case of impulsive teenage decisions, remorse and guilt, then no one suffers more than 18-year-old Ryan Romo.
[more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen
on Nov 26, 2012 -
44 comments
He was methodical, he rode the highways, and he preyed on teenage girls. Girls who'd run away. Girls no one would miss. In the summer of 1985, the author was such a girl. One night on I-95, she hitched a ride from a stranger and endured the most terrifying moments of her life. Now, years later, she returns to the scenes of her fugitive youth looking for clues to that terror—and the girls who lost their lives to it -
The Truck Stop Killer
posted by Artw
on Oct 28, 2012 -
23 comments
"
The Justice Department estimates that more than 209,400 people are sexually abused in US detention every year… A great deal has been learned about this over the past few years. The [Prison Rape Elimination Act] legislation, which charged the [Bureau of Justice Statistics] with undertaking annual statistical analyses of the problem that have proved indispensable, also created a body called the Review Panel on Prison Rape.… A commission charged with issuing recommendations didn’t do so until six years after the bill’s passage; then Attorney General Eric Holder missed by nearly two years the statutory deadline for promulgating them. But the standards that Holder’s Department of Justice finally did issue are very strong."
posted by the mad poster!
on Sep 25, 2012 -
51 comments
'In 2002, five years before journalist
Chauncey Bailey was murdered by members of
Your Black Muslim Bakery,
(Previously) a woman identified only as Jane Doe No. 1 stepped forward to report decades of sexual abuse, welfare fraud and violence by the bakery's leader, Yusuf Bey Sr. She was prepared to hand over to Oakland police DNA from her three children -- evidence that Bey had impregnated her, the first time when she was 12. This was a risky move, but the woman had powerful motivation: her daughter, then 18, had alerted her that Bey was trying to abuse her -- his own child.
Now, Jane Doe No. 1 has decided she no longer wants to be nameless. Her name is Kowana Banks and she is the first of Bey's victims to speak publicly.'
Video interview.
Transcript. (Via) This post recounts experiences of rape and sexual abuse. Topics may be disturbing to some readers. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Aug 9, 2012 -
8 comments
Did the Met betray rape victims to avoid bad PR? "Former Metropolitan Police officer -- and Lib Dem mayoral candidate -- Brian Paddick has appeared at the Leveson Inquiry, and his witness statement contains an astonishing allegation against his ex-employers.
In a section about the Metropolitan Police Service's attempt to improve its image in the media, Paddick details the "negative commentary" on Ian Blair after he took over as Met commissioner. "The Met went from being very open to being almost paranoid," he writes.
One of the consequences of this, he adds, was that he was asked to "water-down" a report critical of the Met's handling of rape cases."
[more inside]
posted by marienbad
on Mar 9, 2012 -
13 comments
Almost one year after Congressional Republicans tried to
limit the definition of rape to only include "force" (
previously), the Department of Justice is redefining the term--but this time to
to expand it dramatically:
The outdated definition that has been governing national rape statistics since 1929, “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will,” has been updated to "penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” According to Susan D. Carbon, director of the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, the previous definition “excluded an untold number of victims.” For the first time, men will be included in national rape statistics, as well as those raped while unable to give consent due to intoxication or other mental and physical incapacity.
posted by zombieflanders
on Jan 6, 2012 -
47 comments
The crime against women that no one understands "They would be 10 educated, professional women versus a demonstrated liar—a man who had pretended to be a doctor, a CIA employee, even an astronaut—whom a court-appointed psychologist would decide met the legal definition of a "sexually violent predator." And yet the most remarkable thing about both trials wasn't the way they exposed the alleged tactics of a serial date rapist. It was that despite the outrageousness of the accusations against Marsalis, the testimony of 10 women wasn't enough to get a single rape conviction against him. The verdicts in these cases would be far lighter than his accusers sought—and victims' advocates say the outcome reveals a disturbing truth about the justice system. Nationwide, despite all the legal advances of the past three decades, little has changed for women who report a date rape. Because in far too many instances, juries don't believe date rape exists."
posted by nooneyouknow
on Dec 14, 2011 -
253 comments
Previously, we discussed the strangely serious 1985
Too Close For Comfort episode titled:
For Every Man, There's Two Women - a show of note in that one of its main characters, Monroe Ficus (Jm J. Bullock), is kidnapped and raped by two obese women with a jello fetish. At the time of the previous post, no footage of the episode could be found online. Recently, however, the entire episode [
part 1] [
part 2] was uploaded to YouTube. Trigger warning: the episode, though it deals with a serious subject, often plays the abduction/assault for laughs. [
via]
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates
on Nov 3, 2011 -
72 comments
The Pervocracy is a kinky, feminist sexblog. Holly writes about her experiences as an active member of the BDSM community, a partner in a polyamorous relationship, and an all-around completely horny slut. She also writes editorials from a sex-positive feminist perspective, advice on sexuality and kink, and humorous critiques of sexism online and in the media. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb
on Oct 12, 2011 -
86 comments
As de Waal says, couldn't the full range of human nature encompass both those who want to rape and those who are powerfully averse to it? Put another way, just because some men commit rape doesn't mean all other men are only restrained from it by the artificial strictures of society. In fact, the fantasy of a hyper-willing female partner, one who is both exceedingly desirous of sex and exceedingly satisfied by a man's skills, is common in both porn and pop culture. A few current videos on XTube, for instance, include Climax2000, Cuming [sic] For You, Debbs Dark Desires, and Wanting Some Big Dick, all of which appear to depict women in various states of hunger-for-your-cock. Of course, Debbs Dark Desires may depict more what dudes want Debb to want than what she actually craves, but the point is that even quite male-centric depictions of female sexuality often include not just consent but enthusiastic desire and orgasm. The idea that men's natural instincts are rape-centric isn't supported even by media that serve their most private predilections.
posted by outlandishmarxist
on Jun 28, 2011 -
63 comments
The Bravest Woman in Seattle "The reason for her sitting on the witness stand of a packed and sweltering eighth-floor courtroom at the King County Courthouse on June 8, in jeans and a short-sleeved black blouse, hands clasped over knees, a jury of strangers taking notes, a crowd of family and friends and strangers observing, a bunch of media recording, was to say: This happened to me. You must listen. This happened to us. You must hear who was lost. You must hear what he did. You must hear how Teresa fought him. You must hear what I loved about her. You must know what he took from us. This happened." (Trigger warning for rape and violence.)
posted by verbyournouns
on Jun 22, 2011 -
86 comments
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick recently decided that the state would not participate in a federal program to deport illegal immigrants accused of crimes. Several Republican state Representatives have been very vocal about opposing Patrick's decision. One is
Ryan Fattman (really), who says that
all illegal immigrants should be deported. When asked if a woman who was raped and beaten on the street should fear deportation, Fattman
replied, "“My thought is that if someone is here illegally, they should be afraid to come forward."
[more inside]
posted by waitingtoderail
on Jun 11, 2011 -
47 comments
