Racially Charged Sexual Violence

After a week of mental, physical, and sexual toture, Megan Williams was finally rescued from the home of Frankie Brewster earlier this month. She had been kidnapped by six people who beat and sexually assaulted her, including a mother-and-son and a mother-and-daughter couple. Not only was this a horrible incident of inhuman torture, the incident was also racially charged. The six offenders were white and the victim was a young, black women.

The victim was regularly racially degraded throughout her torture. She was forced to eat animal feces and drink from a toilet along with multiple beatings and pervasive sexual violence. According to an officer "The things that were done to this woman are just indescribable." The survivor is stil unable to describe everything she endured. Her mother reported she often wakes up screaming from nightmares and is constantly crying. To read more details of the story visit:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1660701,00.html?xid=feed-cnn-topics

Although officers responded quickly to a tip and rescued the women, they are still investigating "whether the woman knew her assailants." The only reason for such an inquiry is that knowing your assailants lessens the penalty in virtually every state. Apparently torturing and degrading a victim physically and sexually is less henious if you knew them before you violated their person and safety, at least according to the law. It is disgusting that under any condition of sexual violence, let alone one this repulsive, that such considerations are taken to lessen the penalty against such rapists and torturers. When will the law be reformed to consider all forms of rape as devestating to victims and society?!

Further news coerage includes:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/11/woman.tortured/index.html#cnnSTCText

The Indecent Act of Rape

The AP has recently covered a story where Cassandra Hernandez, a rape victim, is being charged with underage drinking and indecent acts because of her assault. Hernandez is a member of the US Air Force and was raped several months ago by three other Air Force members. This woman escaped from the room of her assault, fleeing partially clothed and went to receive medical attention. She declined to testify after she was interrogated without a lawyer by an Air Force defense attorney. The following article link provides further information:

http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=10464&email=sent&email=sent
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rape12aug12,1,1436364.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

This woman is essentially being charged with the indecent act of being raped. Normally authorities waive issues of underage drinking violations when the person coming forward is the victim of a rape (let alone a gang rape). By charging Hernandez not only of drinking, but of the acts forced upon her person, the military is literally shifting all blame to her by granting immunity to her rapists. Not only that, but these men blame the woman for their actions as well. According to the LA Times:

"In sworn statements provided to The Times by the defense, the three airmen say Hernandez initiated the sexual encounters after baring her breasts and then removing her clothes following several hours of drinking."

Despite blaming her for the sexual encounter they admitted to swapping off and on who was having sex with her, that she cried, and that she fleed the situation. Playing on the classic myth that women only claim rape to avoid being labeled a "slut", they claimed it was for this reason that she had cried during the sexual encounter. If anyone has doubts about sexism in our society, this story surely highlights and bolds the issue. The military has enough issues of intra-troop assault and rape; to treat victims so shamefully is yet another step backwards regarding their handling of the pervasive sexism and violence allowed in armed services.

Victim censored in Rape Trial

You cannot say "rape" and you cannot say "sexual assault", but you can call it "sex" or "intercourse". This is what Judge Cheuvront told Tory Bowen before she had to testify against her rapist, Pamir Safi. During the first trial Ms. Bowen conformed to this silencing rule and spent 13 hours on the stand carefully qualifying her testimony in order to make sure the defendant, not herself, had a fair trial.

Rape trials do not simply determine whether a defendant is guilty of sexually harming the victim, they often are truly trials of the victim to determine if he/she really was harmed at all. Sexual assault law results in such framings at trial since sexual assault revolves around whether the victim "consented" or not to sexual contact (as opposed to scrutinizing a defendant's actions employed to dimish consent), and this often boils down to a classic "he said, she said". This is difficult enough to successfully prosecute without censoring what "she" has to say regarding the violence her body suffered.

The first trial ended in a hung jury and upon the eve of the second trial Tory Bowen decided to speak out by refusing to sign away her right to use the word 'rape', meaning she faced jail time if she testified using those words at trial. Through the organization PAVE (Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment) she drew national attention to this travesty of justice:

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_196163730.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/13/censored.trial.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch
http://www.cbc.ca/radioshows/AS_IT_HAPPENS/20070622.shtml
http://video.msn.com/v/us/fv/msnbc/fv.htm??g=96f5eb09-71fe-46b5-a931-60f08c5da6b5&f=05&fg=rss

(This is but a slice of the media coverage in this case, visit http://pavingtheway.net for all news coverage and updates on this on going legal issue)

The judge's decision to silence the victim on stand was justified as protecting the defendant's right to a fair trial, but what about a victim's rights? The purpose of censored words in trial is to make sure the jury is not biased against the defendant so that he or she can have a fair trial, but what about the bias using consensual words like "sex" will create in the jury against the victim? Jury's need to know that the defendant faces charges of "sexual assault", that the victim went to receive medical treatment from a "sexual assault nurse" and had evidence collected by a "rape kit". None of these things can be known at trial with the censorship, nor most importantly can Ms. Bowen adequately testify to what was done to her.

This struggle for victim's rights is necessary to ensure that future victims may be able to speak the truth on stand and shatter the silence that surrounds sexual violence. For a 10 Step Action Plan to petition to ensure free speech for victim's on the stand visit: http://pavingtheway.net

Victim to Survivor: A Voice of Courage

I joined the PAVE media team, because I knew I had a lot to express that only I could communicate. I had been silenced my whole life and have lived as a victim. Even as recent as few months ago, as a grown woman living on my own, I was not taking control of my life. The first step was to become conscious of it, and the second step was to do something about it. Since I was not yet comfortable talking about my past, I decided I must express myself through writing. There is no one else who knows exactly what I have survived, and people need to hear the truth.

For quite some time, I knew I wanted my life to change, but I did not know how to go about making my life better. I finally committed to writing an article in my hometown newspaper one night in April while lying in bed unable to sleep. I grew up in Eau Claire, Wisconsin which is a very conservative city. I knew if I wrote anything about abuse it would shake the city up a little bit. I also knew that if I attached my name to my abuse the city might not believe me, and would deny everything to protect my family of origin. My mother was well-liked a fifth grade teacher at the elementary school I attended, so she had taught most of my high school friends. My father was a huge sports fan, who had always been present at my siblings and my athletic events. My family was also very active in church: my mom led worship in the band with her vocals, my sister and I worked in the nursery, and one of my brothers led youth groups.

I started writing because I was angry. I'm angry because my family made me suffer alone for so long. I'm angry because even though I don't live in Eau Claire anymore, I'm still suffering. I'm angry because no one knew how strong I had to be just to live. I'm angry because I know other children are abused too. Then I realized that if I, someone who was well-liked and well-known in the community, could reveal her pain that it would be empowering for others who are silently struggling. I wanted to help others, because no one helped me in Eau Claire. I added statistics and a website with more statistics and information to engrain in peoples’ minds that I am not suffering alone (http://www.womenofsubstance.org/sexabuse.htm); there are a lot of people who are still suffering in silence. Even if people choose not to believe my story, the stats are scientifically proven.

I had a lot of adrenaline to push me through the first draft. I liked writing the names of those who wronged me, because it validated my feelings. I knew I would not be able to print the names because of legal reasons. The system is set up to protect the perpetrators rather than the victims. I have learned that shame thrives in silence, and not being able to print names makes my story less personal. I also knew I would not be able to write about the details of what happened to me. After all, this is a family newspaper. Even though I was such a little girl when the abuse started, it is still not appropriate to read about.

Another legal problem that came up was having one of my offenders underage when he sexually and physically abused me. I petitioned to judges at Eau Claire’s County Courthouse with no luck of gaining a copy of the police report, even though I was the victim, the perpetrator was again being protected. I later found out there was no court record for my brother. Contrary to my mother’s stories, he was never charged. There was a little paperwork that had been filled out with a social worker, and he did some community service at my church, and his record is clean. His record is clean and I have a speeding ticket from when I was sixteen.

So I re-drafted my article. I re-drafted it so many times that I lost count. I removed those people who had been mentioned without a police record, because it was “just accusatory.” When you’re ten years old and you depend on your mother for food and a bed, how are you supposed to know that you should call the police on her for neglect and emotional abuse? That’s ridiculous, because if I grew up living in denial, there’s no way I am going to know that is wrong and I have the right to do something about it. Only now do I see that I deserve justice.

I also ran into some personal issues with the editor. He has a daughter my age who had my mom for a fifth-grade teacher. He just ran a little blurb in the newspaper announcing the engagement of one of my brothers. He did not want to print the article because he did not want it to embarrass my family. He sent me an email on a Friday asking me if I could prove the sibling abuse. If I could prove it, he would print the article. I wrote him back saying how the article states that I cannot prove anything, because I was nine at the time, and the emergency room staff did not ask any questions, as long as they knew it was not my father who caused it. The whole point of one of my paragraphs was that sibling abuse was overlooked. To put his mind at ease, I told him my family knew I was a very realistic person who did not make up stories. He called me on Monday morning saying he had thought about the article all weekend, and decided he couldn’t print it. There were legal issues that he was not comfortable with.

He rejected numerous drafts, saying pieces were still accusatory and I should re-write the whole article. I refused to do this, and I continued to pick out detail by detail what he would not print. This became exhausting, because no draft fit his standards. I asked him to work with me and give me more feedback. He sent me a draft of his that he would print. I eagerly opened one of my drafts and compared them side-by-side on my computer. I grew sick to my stomach as I realized he had destroyed my story. What he wrote back barely resembled what I had submitted to him. I asked a friend to read it to make sure I wasn’t overreacting. She concurred that I could not put my name on that. He removed not only any potential legal concerns, but also all of my emotion and voice.

That evening, I wrote him an email that explained what I needed. I told him that I needed to get something published soon, because until I do, my trips to Eau Claire that were supposed to be relaxing were horrific. Instead of enjoying time with friends, I was always at the courthouse talking with family services or researching victim rights. This would send me onto an emotional roller coaster, and I did not have the coping mechanisms to handle this, especially in Eau Claire. I tried to explain that I’m a very passionate person, and I because of the sensitivity of the topic, I need my concern to be accurately portrayed. It must have finally gotten through to him, because a week later, I started getting emails from people in Eau Claire saying how much they appreciated reading my article.

The feedback has all been positive. I heard from past teachers and old friends’ parents. It feels really good to read about how strong they think I am. I really needed to hear these encouraging words fifteen years ago, but better late than never.

Read Libbie’s article at:

http://www.leadertelegram.com/story-opinions.asp?id=BDI4E1314EQ

Colleges, Police and Communication

When it comes to reporting sexual assaults, the numbers speak for themselves — only 5 percent of undergraduate women report sexual assaults to police, according to a 1999 report in the journal Violence Against Women. There are many factors that contribute to underreporting, such as victim-blaming attitudes that are prominent in our society. However, a large problem is the clear lack of coordination and communication between victim resources, which makes the process of reporting extremely difficult, disconnected and drawn-out.

As someone who has become more familiar with victims’ experience through working with PAVE (Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment), the disjointed and confusing system seems to be hostile and uninviting to those who are thinking about reporting. The Offices of the Dean of Students, the University of Wisconsin Police Department, the Madison Police Districts, University Health Services and other victim services do not run on a strong communication base to create one comprehensive network. While these services are working hard for our community, efforts to create an environment in which victims feel comfortable reporting and confident that reports will be handled competently are necessities to take the problem of sexual assault seriously.

The University of Wisconsin is federally mandated under Title IX and the Clery Act to respond to and handle crimes according to certain standards. For example, Title IX requires colleges and universities to "eliminate the hostile environment caused by campus sexual assault by requiring grievance procedures that ensure gender equity and to create timeframes for complaint resolutions, among other measures." Also, the Clery Act requires that universities give timely warning of crimes that present a threat to the safety of students or employees and to enact public security policies.

According to the Clery Act Campus Crime Reporting Handbook provided by Security on Campus, Inc., "While Clery does not compel the local police to cooperate with universities, it does require campus officials to make a good-faith effort to obtain such crime report information for both statistics and timely warning purposes." The Clery Act essentially requires continuous awareness rather than an occasional safety summit meeting. Unfortunately, universities often fall short of these mandates due to the poor communication between university services, programs and police — this contributes to the poor handling of incidence reports. Colleges have been found to violate Title IX when their procedures included several complaint processes (through housing, the disciplinary board and campus police) with no coordination among them.

According to the Senior Vice President of Security on Campus, Inc. S. Daniel Carter, “Universities should have a documented request in place that would require local police to immediately inform UW of all incidents occurring at, or suspected of occurring at, the house of any officially recognized student organization.” While the police may need to withhold certain information to protect their investigation and the victim’s confidentiality, there is no reason the school should remain completely oblivious to criminal incidences involving students until the news reports it first. Though the UW Police maintains open communication with the Offices of the Dean of Students, this is not so with the Madison Police Department, which controls certain sections of campus, including all UW fraternities. Following the recent sexual assault at the Zeta Psi fraternity, it became clear that adequate lines of communication do not exist between Madison police and UW officials. The current division of campus between MPD and UWPD hampers our university’s awareness and ability to help victimized students.

Hopefully, Dean of Students Lori Berquam has raised awareness and made efforts to promote campus safety including addressing communication issues between Madison police and UW to increase compliance with Title IX requirements. Perhaps campus boundaries should be redrawn to include student neighborhoods that are currently considered off-campus under UW police jurisdiction, or have cases involving UW students transferred from Madison to UW police to allow increased communication and coordination. Regardless, all victim services from reporting to personal care need to form a cohesive body to cultivate an atmosphere that encourages and properly handles reports of sexual assaults. Ultimately, increased communication and safety networks between Madison agencies will make campus safer for all victims of crime and our community as a whole.

Alexandra Cruickshank
PAVE Media Team

What our Words Say

Too often our society downplays sexual harm when it is not accompanied by additional physical brutality. Saying that any assault has a silver lining is disrespectful to a victims’ pain and may trivialize the harm of sexual contact against someone’s will without the use of violent force.

Please note Madison Alderman Mike Vereer's comments in the following news story:
http://badgerherald.com/news/2007/03/05/student_reports_sexu.php

The base harm in sexual assault is the sexual violation, which is a demonstration of power over and disrespect towards a most private and sacred part of an individual, their sexual being. Whether you need hospitalization after an attack or recover in a matter of days on your own, a most horrible violation has occurred. Wisconsin statutes do not require force for an attack to be considered sexual assault; it merely requires it to be without consent. Two men forcing a woman down to sexually harm her is assault, her wounds are sexual and that is all our wise state requires to make it condemnable.

To end sexual violence we must realize how our own attitudes and beliefs might contribute to the problem. Diminishing the sexual harm can discourage victims from reporting if they were not beaten or violated to the point of physical injury, also these attitudes can work to lessen culpability when someone forces themselves on another without needing much force, like in situations where someone is intoxicated, handicapped, sleeping, etc.

While we can all agree that the physical brutality is an additional harm during a sexual assault we must be careful not to dilute the underlying harm. Sexual violence is a wrong against our autonomy and sexuality, which are intricate parts of everyone’s lives and identities. How we understand the base harm will influence our community’s responses towards eliminating this problem. Sexual contact without consent in and of itself should be what we abhor, regardless of whether physical injuries accompanied the crime.

Rape Victims Need Police Protection

A female student from Tampa, Florida was recently arrested after reporting her rape to police due to an old warrant for failure to pay restitution on a juvenile offense. Despite having recently been rape by a stranger behind a building during a local parade the officers arrested her, ceased their investigation, and kept her in jail for two days. To add injury to insult, the victim was also denied a second dose of the emergency contraceptive, Plan B.

Full story at: http://www.sptimes.com/2007/01/30/Tampabay/Police_jail_rape_vict.shtml

The police excused these horrors on bad policies and immediately changed these harmful policies, but could this happen in Madison?

This November the Madison Police got a wake-up call by the City of Madison with the passage of the Justice for Patty Resolution. Patty was a blind rape victim who was charged with false reporting when she came forward after a brutal rape. She, like this young woman in Florida, was treated like a criminal when reporting one of the most heinous and serious crimes in our society. Like Florida, our local police lacked policies on treatment of sensitive crime victims that would safeguard against revictimize them.

It seems like police everywhere lack these policies despite specialized Sensitive Crime Units and trained detectives. Hopefully this police standard will change here by mid-February when Chief Wray submits policy reforms regarding treatment of sensitive crime victims in Madison. While Resolution supporters expect the elimination of tactics used to break down sensitive crimes victims, such as with lies and coercion, the proposal by Chief Wray may fall short. The Police Chief has suggested videotaping interrogations or instructing detectives on when to use these tactics, but this will not suffice. Everyday there are women disrespected, investigated, or arrested like criminals when bravely reporting the most under-reported crime in our nation. Will it really take another incident like Tampa’s before we make these reforms a priority?

Victims as Criminals

A female student from Tampa, Florida was recently arrested after reporting her rape to police due to an old warrant for failure to pay restitution on a juvenile offense. Despite having recently been rape by a stranger behind a building during a local parade the officers arrested her, ceased their investigation, and kept her in jail for two days. To add injury to insult, the victim was also denied a second dose of the emergency contraceptive, Plan B. The police excused these horrors on bad policies and immediately changed these harmful policies, but could this happen in Madison?

This November the Madison Police got a wake-up call by the City of Madison with the passage of the Justice for Patty Resolution. Patty was a blind rape victim who was charged with false reporting when she came forward after a brutal rape. She, like this young woman in Florida, was treated like a criminal when reporting one of the most heinous and serious crimes in our society. Like Florida, our local police lacked policies on treatment of sensitive crime victims that would safeguard against revictimize them.

It seems like police everywhere lack these policies despite specialized Sensitive Crime Units and trained detectives. Hopefully this police standard will change here by mid-February when Chief Wray submits policy reforms regarding treatment of sensitive crime victims in Madison. While Resolution supporters expect the elimination of tactics used to break down sensitive crimes victims, such as with lies and coercion, the proposal by Chief Wray may fall short. The Police Chief has suggested videotaping interrogations or instructing detectives on when to use these tactics, but this will not suffice. Everyday there are women disrespected, investigated, or arrested like criminals when bravely reporting the most under-reported crime in our nation. Will it really take another incident like Tampa’s before we make these reforms a priority?

Full Associated Press story: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2835475

Athletic Gang Rapes

The Duke LaCrosse case has been all over the media lately, but what most media have not picked up on is that the scenario of a black women being raped by multiple white, rich athletes is not. Back in 1991 an extremely similiar situation was reported by a black women at St. John's where she was raped multiple ways by three lacrosse players after they served her a quantity of alcohol.

St. John's rape: http://newsday.typepad.com/sports_lacrosse/2006/03/a_quick_history.html

From 1989-90 around 15 gang rapes were reported involving around 50 athletes. In a society that worships athletes and expects women around them to be always willing sexual partners, is it any wonder that these rapes occur and can be excused by media and juries? Gang rape among athletes happen, but they are just called 'group sex':

OUT OF BOUNDS: THE TRUTH ABOUT ATHLETES AND RAPE
http://www.interactivetheatre.org/resc/athletes.html

"Psychologist Chris O'Sullivan, Ph.D., of Buckness University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, studied 26 alleged gang rapes that were documented between 1980 and 1990, and found that fraternity groups committed the highest number, followed by athletic teams. In addition, she found that "the athletes who do this are usually on a star team, not just any old team. It was the football team at Oklahoma, the basketball team at Minnesota, the lacrosse team at St. John's. It seems to be our most privileged athletes - the ones, by the way, most sought after by women - who are often involved in gang rape."

The study of gang rape, as reported by the above article, terrifying exposes the reality of willing participation in such activities. Men not raping participate in other ways, and seem not to intervene or support the victim who they watch brutalized. It's about team bonding, men and conquests. Despite the boastfulness in which these assaults are discussed few prosecutions ever occur. We don't want to defame our heros, we don't want to lose that star athlete...so what are the female students? The sacrifice of families and the university unto our athletic gods? Suspending unwillingness to view the perpetrators as anything but good athletes and thinking about the realities the victim has and will continue to suffer may soften our nation's hearts and promote efforts to prevent this violence, rather than hide and excuse it.

Suggestion: Read 'Media Support for a Rapist' below to see if it sheds a different light onto the story.