Why We Need A Better Approach To Handling Rape Cases
By Hope Salts
Every 68 seconds an American is sexually assaulted
1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape.
Only 1 out of 3 survivors will report their assault to police.
Out of 1,000 sexual assaults only 25 perpetrators will be incarcerated.
Out of 1,000 sexual assaults 975 perpetrators will walk free.
In 2017, a graduate student in New York was drinking heavily. When she awoke from unconsciousness, she saw her attacker raping her and recording it on his phone.
She grabbed the phone and was able to get away. The woman’s attacker told his fraternity brothers about having sex with the women while she was passed out.
But when the woman reported her rape prosecutors stated that even though she was passed out from drinking, that was not enough to prove she did not consent.
Ultimately, the woman’s case was dropped and her attacker went free.
Alcohol is involved in at least half of all acquaintance sexual assaults.
However, the law treats victims who voluntarily choose to drink or take drugs very differently than victims who are involuntarily intoxicated by their attacker.
New York law insists that all cities who were involuntarily intoxicated during their assault retain the capacity to consent to sexual activity.
This means that survivors who moved in and out of consciousness during their assault, who could not control their own body, or cannot remember whether or not they were conscious are still considered people who could consent to sexual activity.
The real life impacts of these failures in the law are devastating.
When a person comes forward with an allegation of rape they are asserting “This happened. It was wrong. It matters.” But when the justice system fails survivors it tells them “that didn’t happen, it wasn’t wrong, and it doesn’t matter.”
Discrediting a victim can impact their entire life - their social relationships, their mental health, their physical health, and their economic health.
A person who experiences sexual violence will have an increased likelihood of suicidal or depressive thoughts.
The estimated lifetime cost of rape is $122,461 per victim. Sexual violence results in $1.2 trillion in medical costs, $1.6 trillion in lost work productivity, $234 billion in criminal justice activities, and $36 billion in other costs, such as victim property loss or damage.
Survivors suffer a physical toll in terms of higher risk of drug use, risk of unwanted pregnancy as a result of the rape, and an increased risk of STI’s.
Survivors will often experience issues in school or work and have problems with family or friends due to feeling of mistrust and not feeling as close.
New York Senate Bill S54
Bill S54 would “prohibit the use of intoxication of the victim as a defense in sex crimes where the victim is under the influence of any drug, intoxicant, or other substance…” The Bill would “allow sex crime charges to be brought in cases where the victim has become voluntarily intoxicated if a reasonable person in the defendant’s position should have known that the victim was incapable of giving consent due to that intoxication.”
How Can You Help?
Call your local NY Representative and ask them to support the Bill!
Speak out against rape culture and educate yourself on your state’s rape laws!
Slide 1 : https://rainn.org/statistics/scope-problem
Slide 2: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/18/nyregion/manhattan-da-rape-cases-dropped.html.
Slide 4: N.Y. Penal Law § 130.05(3).
Slide 5:
Deborah Tuerkheimer, Credible: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers, 1 (Harper Wave, 1st ed. 2021).
Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics, supra note 2. Cora Peterson et al., Lifetime Economic Burden of Rape Among U.S. Adults, 52 Am. J. Preventive Med. 691, 691-701 (2017).
Slide 6:
Rebecca Campbell et al., An Ecological Model of the Impact of Sexual Assault on Women’s Mental Health, JSTOR (July 2009).
Cora Peterson et al., Lifetime Economic Burden of Rape Among U.S. Adults, 52 Am. J. Preventive Med. 691, 691-701 (2017).