In August, the Senate Judiciary Committee listened to experts' testimony on rape and sexual assault. Now the committee is demanding action, with a report and recommendations to bring down the number of sexual assaults in Alaska.
Well this is very good news indeed, perhaps we will finally see something substantial done to address this horrific situation.
They did not discuss educating the people in the villages that rape is damaging to the victim and it should not be swept under the table. When they live in a very small village and report rape they have to live with the anger of the rapist's family. This can lead to the elders telling the victim not to report it. I hope they keep in mind there are thousands of men in prison for rape who are innocent. They have to make sure the police are taught to use good science. They have to catch the right perpetrator, not go on a witch hunt. Part of this problem is incest in the villages which has been going on for a long time. This information has been well known for years and years. I wonder what made them finally do something. I use to see those girls from the villages, they end up with personality disorders. The counseling is low grade. It is so sad.
ReplyDeleteAround the nation, rape kits are sitting on shelves, in the thousands, unprocessed.
ReplyDeleteThere's lots of evidence sitting there uninvestigated.
Not only do women often have to pay for the rape kits, but then the DNA collected is not processed and so cannot be compared to DNA from other rapes or to suspect's DNA.
Is any other major crime, 60-80% of women are sexually assaulted, so ignored?
If 60to 80% of men were knifed in their own homes, at work, in the park, standing at a bus stop, in an elevators.....
You betcha that there would be a Czar and every governmental asset available would be utilized to stop that crime wave and protect those hapless male victims.
Every year on the hike and bike trail of Town Lake in Austin, Tx half a dozen or so rapes are reported and several murders/rape. Nothing is done to protect women except to tell them to be more careful.
The last year I lived in Austin, bicycles were being stolen at knife point along the trail. No one was ever hurt, most of the victims seemingly were men.
The cops were all over the place to protect those bicycles!
From the report:
ReplyDelete(snip)
First on the list: data. The report suggests it's inadequate -- and in some cases inaccurate. According to the report, 41 local police departments did not file sexual assault information for the federal Unified Crime Reports in 2007.
"It's not clear to me why the reports are not getting passed on to the Department of Public Safety," said committee chair and former prosecutor Sen. Hollis French. "But I think if DPS, the Department of Public Safety, were to shake the tree a little bit and remind the police officers across the state that it's an obligation, that something would change."
(snip)
This failure to turn in mandated reports is interesting and disturbing. I wonder whether any of these local departments are told by their mayors not to turn in the reports.
This reminds me of how Palin fired the Police Chief when she was Mayor, and wanted rape victims paying for the rape kits.
And it also reminds me that one of the reasons she used for firing Walt Monegan, when she was angry he did not fire Trooper Wooten, was that Monegan had gone to DC to learn about methods to reduce sexual violence. I seem to remember she claimed it was insubordination and that the trip was not approved, but Monegan produced the travel authorization for the trip. Just one more time that Palin put her personal preferences before the welfare of the citizens of Alaska.