romeoh
Norm Smith Medallist
- Oct 23, 2011
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- 4,083
- AFL Club
- Geelong
That was Wolf
That was Straughan. Wolf's response was to call her a rape apologist.
The often quoted 6% figure should be examined also. The Stern Review looked into it.
The way the conviction rate figure for rape is calculated is unusual. Conviction rates are not published or even measured in this way for any other crime so it is very difficult to make a comparison. The use of the term ‘conviction rate’ is in itself unusual. ‘Conviction rate’ usually describes the percentage of all the cases brought to court that end with the defendant being convicted. When dealing with rape the term has come to be used in a different way and describes the percentage of all the cases recorded by the police as a rape that end up with someone being convicted of rape. The figure arrived at is usually around six per cent. Some studies show that a further six per cent are convicted of another offence, usually a less serious sexual offence, but still convicted, so the conviction rate by this method of analysis is 12 per cent.
In the course of this review we have looked closely at the information about convictions for rape and we deal with this matter in more detail in Chapter Three. It is clear to us that the figure of convictions for people of all ages charged with rape is 58 per cent, as the term is normally used in relation to crime.
Yep you might question Wolf's numbers but do you think she made it up? And yep the figures might be hard to arrive at, and the conviction rate might be much higher but suspect a quick google will confirm that the rate of conviction is too low ( lower than most other serious crimes?) and as well, that still many women don't report rapes. The rape cases are obviously fraught with complexities, and yep, someone can tell lies on both sides etc. But there seems to be quite a lot of this crime going on and whilst Wolf could have used less inflammatory language, she had a not unreasonable point.
But why focus on Wolf's attitude-why not focus on the serious information she was trying to impart? Is rape a serious problem in most societies? Is the conviction rate too low? Yes and yes. So if Wolf is too much of a 'feminist' for you people, go and do your own research and like her, recognize there is a problem and go and work hard to try and change things.
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