Preview

Sexual Assault Victims: Article Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
142 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Sexual Assault Victims: Article Analysis
This article provides further evidence that victim of the rape trial is judged on more than just if she was assaulted or not in that one instance. Disgustingly enough, when a sexual assault victim is put through a trial, it is their past that is being judged. Their sexual history, their wardrobe, and their overall personality is being tested for likability, with the whole process starting from the police deciding that the assault is “legitimate.” Despite having assaulted someone, the offender might be declared innocent because the jury did not find the behavior of the victim appropriate. This
Journal article was published in 1990, and it brings in further evidence form situations even older than it. This may be a bit older than my other sources,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Ronald Cotton Case

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages

    On April 19, 1989 a white female jogger was attacked and raped in Center Park, NY. The jogger was twenty-eight-year-old investment banker, Trisha Meili. The attack on the female jogger left her in a coma for 12 days. Five juvenile males—four black and one of Hispanic descent—were wrongfully convicted of the attack, each one sentence ranged from five to fifteen years. Five years prior to the Central Park Five another individual by the name of Ronald Cotton was wrongful convicted of the rape of twenty-two year-old college senior Jennifer Thompson Cannino. Ronald Cotton spent over ten years in prison before DNA evidence pardoned him of any and all wrong doing. Ronald was thirty-two upon his release. Were these wrongful conviction of these individuals…

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To say that Ronald Cotton’s experience represents the worst of the American Criminal Justice system is an understatement, he is proof of the countless bumps and flaws it endures. If there was anything Jennifer Thompson was sure of after her attack was that she would put her attacker behind bars and make sure he would never assault another woman again. So while being raped she decided to take mental notes on her attacker that would later help her identify him to the police. After helping put together a sketch of her rapist with the police she was asked to come in for a photo lineup and a physical lineup. That is when she identified Ronald Cotton, an innocent man, as her rapist, saying she was “absolutely certain” it was him. Thompson was then…

    • 248 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Have you ever heard of the court system acquitting someone that the public unanimously believed was guilty? Casey Anthony was a young mother who appeared outwardly to be a promiscuous woman who was living life with a rough childhood behind her. She appeared like a normal young person, trying to find herself, until she was accused of the murder of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee Anthony. An abundance of evidence, holes in her story, and the lack of concern in Anthony’s attitude lead the world to undoubtedly point fingers at her.…

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sadly, many people have served time for crimes they did not commit. Unfortunately, this is an ongoing epidemic that has terrible consequences for the innocent people who are wrongfully accused and incarcerated. In class, we watched a video about a man who was convicted of burglary and rape in the first degree and sentenced to life plus fifty years. According to a reporter by the name of Lesley Stahl, who did a 60-minute Broadcast on this case, the individual who was wrongfully accused and convicted of this crime, endured 11 years in prison until he was finally exonerated of all charges and released from prison.…

    • 299 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Frohmann, L. (1991). Discrediting victims’ allegations of sexual assault: Prosecutorial accounts of case rejections. Social Problems, 38, 213-226.…

    • 1426 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first questions people usually ask about a rape crime are “What was the victim wearing?”, “Was the victim drunk?.” But these are the wrong questions that we ask, these questions make victims feel like them being sexually assaulted is there fault for wearing something revealing or drinking to much, but that does not mean they are asking to be violated it is NOT in any way their fault. We need to ask the questions of why the abuser thinks that something so immoral is okay to do to someone. “The right question is, ‘What made him think this is acceptable,”’ (The Nation). This is the approach we need to have on rape crimes, this does not put the blame on victims and it helps people to understand what they did was not okay for any…

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Fact, sexual assault is a crime of any type of forced or coerced sexual contact or behavior that happens without consent. Fact, many people will not talk about their own experience with sexual assault. This is a problem no matter what sex, gender, race, class, or age a person is, they will have to endure this through life. Many people ask “why is it so hard for victims to speak out?” and there are reason for it. There are great number of societal barriers within society and many relating to fear. In the story “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson she explores the concept between the connection of fear and sexual assault. In “Speak” Anderson demonstrates that the fear of retribution, guilt and shame, are factors why Melinda is scared to share her…

    • 134 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    When it comes to sexual assault, it is the common belief that the offenders are male and the victims are female, but this is not always the case. In 2014, a study was done looking at the effects of victims, offender and juror gender could impact decisions in child sexual assault cases (Quas, Bottoms, Haegerich & Nysse-Carris). This case study was done by having mock jurors read scenarios of a man or a woman defendant accused of molesting a 15-year-old boy or girl. There were four different versions of the scenario where the 15-year-old student was allegedly assaulted by a 36-year-old teacher, who was also the soccer coach; the only difference in these scenarios was changing of the genders. The mock jurors would then state their verdicts and rated both the defendant…

    • 445 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A large issue is based around how offenders who commit horrible crimes do not end up being punished the way the victims and victim’s families feel they should be. In one of the most controversial Canadian cases, Karla Homolka made a plea deal, where she was sentenced to twelve years after assisting in the killings of three young girls. This case was difficult for the public to understand. In the beginning they viewed Homolka as a woman who had been beaten by her husband. However, after more information came out about the case, it became apparent that Homolka had more involvement in the murders than originally thought. Kilty and Frigon (2007) found that, “once the videotapes of the sexual assaults were found, acceptance of Homolka’s discourse of forced participation seemed to dissipate, and the re-construction of Homolka as dangerous and narcissistic ensued” (p.45). Outrage from the public followed, as it was described that Homolka was smiling and enjoying herself in the videos of the sexual assaults against the women. Conversely, court officials were found as saying that, “if the videotapes had been available at the time, Karla Homolka would have found herself in the prisoner’s box beside Paul Bernardo” (Kilty and Frigon, 2007, p. 55). Unfortunately these positions made no difference as the plea deal was already decided. This case creates bias towards plea-bargaining because it shows how unfair the system can be. Serial murder is described as a person who commits three or more killings over a period of time. Such as Homolka, though she received a lenient sentence compared to her counterpart, Paul Bernardo. Leniency, as shown in the Homolka case makes society uncomfortable with plea bargains because the feeling is that a person who commits a crime should do the appropriate sentence. However, Smith (1986) found…

    • 1039 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For this week’s assignment I am going to discuss one federal and one state rule of evidence or statute and what affects they may have on both the prosecution and defense of sexual assault cases.…

    • 648 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Guardian’s article, “Prosecuting Sexual Assault”, Gentleman states, “ More recent analysis of the figures, based on a more usual definition of conviction rate (the proportion of cases prosecuted in the courts), suggests that 62.5% of rape cases end in a conviction”(Reilly 1). This shows that countless criminals walk free, and a multitude of victims do not receive justice. They will have to live in fear with knowledge that their rapist is walking around in the world. It seems there is nothing to be done, but in fact, there is. Rape kits that could help the victim receive justice are left to sit in a freezer for decades allowing rapists to commit more crimes. Reilly brings up this point in USA Today, “After 18 years without justice, Joanie Scheske believed the man who raped her would never be caught. That changed when St. Louis police called in 2009. Evidence in a separate, eight-year old sexual assault was finally tested and matched her attacker's DNA. Rapist Mark Frisella, whose attack was so brutal Scheske still suffers from epilepsy, is serving 19 years in prison. "I had a really difficult time wrapping my head around why that rape kit was never tested," Scheske said. "My case is a poster child as to why you test these kits.” A USA TODAY Media Network investigation identified tens of thousands of sexual assault evidence kits never tested by police”( Reilly 1).…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Victim Interview Paper

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Victim parked their vehicle, a green 2003 Toyota Corrola, on the side of a Family Dollar in Fort Worth, Texas. Upon the victim's arrival, she went into the store, leaving her car on because she would only be a second and she did not want her car to get cold again since it was early January. While she was in the store, the suspects pulled into the parking lot next to the victim's vehicle. One suspect jumped in her vehicle and they both drove away. After the victim realized that her car was not in the parking lot, she called police to the scene to file a report.…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Stebner, B. (2011). 'She couldn 't say no ': The shocking state date-rape ad pulled amid anger over suggestions that drunken victims are to blame. [online] Mail Online. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2071890/She-say-Pennsylvania-Liquor-Control-Board-pulls-controversial-ad-blames-date-rape-victims-victims-friends-receiving-hundreds-complaints.html [Accessed 22 Oct. 2014].…

    • 914 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jury Stereotypes

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Both the person under inquiry and the jury scrutinizing the defendant are effected by the presence of the media and that they use to portray their information. It can be seen in the previous examples that women are put on a culture based pedestal and any deviation from what they are “meant” to do is damaging to their reputations and can lead to issues in convincing those who fall into the media’s jargon filled trap of anything other than the opinions that they have already established. As women fight to break free of the stereotypes that they are held to, this begs the question whether society has really come as far as it is portrayed in the case of feminism. Is society intelligent enough to handle media in trials and still hold their own opinions rather than falling into the opinions established by others? This leads to a bigger question as to whether the media has enough benefits to trials to still be allowed in court rooms and to portray their opinions to the public with the possibility of jurors being swayed. The answer seems to be no. The mindset of the viewers and jurors seems to be too easily manipulated to match whatever news that the media has chosen to spew to them as proven by the previous…

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sexual assault occurs on every college campus. It does not matter if the institution is public or private, have a higher or small number of students, co-ed or same sex, urban or rural; students can become a victim of sexual assault at any school. Men can be victims of a women rapist or a male rapist. Women can be victims of a female or male rapists. While, sexual assault can happen to anyone.…

    • 541 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays