Document 47: "Plank 20: Rape," from National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, The Spirit of Houston: The First National Women's Conference (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), pp. 81-82.
p. 81
PLANK 20
RAPE
Federal, State, and local governments should revise their criminal codes and case law dealing with rape and related offenses to:
Provide for graduated degrees of the crime with graduated penalties depending on the amount of force or coercion occurring with the activity.
Apply to assault by or upon both sexes, including spouses as victims.
Include all types of sexual assault against adults, including oral and anal contact and use of objects.
Enlarge beyond traditional common law concepts the circumstances under which the act will be considered to have occurred without the victim's consent.
Specify that the past sexual conduct of the victim cannot be introduced into evidence.
Require no more corroborative evidence than is required in the prosecution of any other type of violent assault.
Prohibit the Hale instruction where it has been required by law or is customary.
Local task forces to review and reform rape law and practices of police, prosecutors, and medical personnel should be established where they do not now exist. Such task forces should also mobilize public support for change. Rape crisis centers should be established (with Federal and State funding) for the support of victims, and the confidentiality of their records should be assured. Bilingual and bicultural information resources should be made available where necessary.
Federal and State funds should be appropriated for educational programs in the public school system and in the community, including rape prevention and self-defense programs.
The National Center for the Prevention and Control of Rape within the National Institute of Mental Health should be given permanent funding for operational costs, for staff positions, research and demonstration programs, and for a clearinghouse on sexual assault information and educational material with regard to prevention, treatment of victims, and rehabilitation of offenders. In addition, rape centers should be consulted by NIMH in the setting of priorities and allocation of funds. The National Center should be continued in order to insure community involvement, and the composition of the committee should be reviewed to assure minority representation and a majority of women.
State legislatures should expand existing victim compensation for the cost of medical, surgical, and hospital expenses; evidentiary examinations; counseling; emergency funds for housing, etc.; and compensation for pregnancy and pain and suffering.
Background:
"Rape leaves its victims with psychological damage far greater than that inflicted by virtually any other violent crime."
A crime of violence directed primarily at women, rape is the fastest growing crime in the United States. Because of the nature of the crime, its victims face humiliation and embarrassment compounded by the insensitive treatment they receive from police and the courts.
The number of reported rapes increased 48 percent in the United States between 1970 and 1975, according to FBI statistics. In 1975 alone there were 56,000 reported rapes, or one every nine minutes. The rise in number of cases may partly be due to better police reporting and the increasing willingness of victims to go to the police, but rape is still one of the most underreported crimes. Two studies in the Washington, D.C. area estimate that the number of rapes may range from three and a half to nine times those actually reported. (The studies were conducted by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and the District of Columbia City Council.)
Convictions are low The rate of conviction for those accused of rape is low. No arrest is made in 49 percent of all reported cases. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports for 1975 indicate that only 58 percent of those arrested were actually prosecuted. And of these, almost one-half were acquitted or charges were dismissed. The rate of conviction is lower than in other crimes for a number of reasons: victims are reluctant and even afraid to testify; the evidence required by many State laws may be impossible to produce; and medical and legal authorities have traditionally viewed rape victims with suspicion and hostility.
Some sexual assaults are not even considered rape under the common law definition, which is the basis for most statutory and case law. According to this definition, rape is the unlawful carnal knowledge (penetration, however slight) of the victim by the alleged assailant without the victim's consent. Other forms of sexual assault, such as oral and anal contact and use of objects, are not included in this traditional definition. Under common law, sexual intercourse by a man with his wife against her will can never constitute rape, leaving many women without legal protection against a violent husband.
The myth about rape Rape is not a crime of sexual passion;
it is a crime of violence. In most cases (85.1 percent, according to Menachim
Amir, author of Patterns in Forcible Rape, published by the University
of Chicago), force is used: choking, beating, roughness, or use of a
p. 82
Rape victims do not come from any specific age or socioeconomic groups. Women of all ages, races and economic background get raped. Rape Awareness, a Miami group, reported that victims range from two months to 85 years of age.
Contrary to common myth, rape victims do not secretly enjoy or invite the violation. Rape leaves its victims with psychological damage far greater than that inflicted by virtually any other violent crime. In a study on Rape and Its Victims, the Department of Justice described it as "one of the most brutal of all crimes. Rape victims need sustain no physical injury to suffer sever and long-lasting pain; few crimes are better calculated to leave their victims with lasting psychic wounds."
Some of these wounds were reported by Andra Media and Kathleen Thompson in their book Against Rape, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1974. After being raped, women said:
They were afraid of men;
Their sex lives had suffered;
They felt less independent or were afraid of being their own;
They felt worthless and lost their self-respect.
Rape "altered" their lives in a major way, reported 89 percent of the victims interviewed for a study by the Queens Bench Foundation, an organization of women attorneys and judges.
Another myth without any basis in fact is that rape victims accuse men they know as a form of revenge. In New York City, the police statistics for one year showed that only 3.4 percent of rape complains were unfounded—a rate comparable to that of other crimes. And of those unfounded reports, only 0.4 percent were believed to be motivated by "revenge." Most adult victims are raped by strangers, according to a study in the District of Columbia, published in Sexual Behavior, December 1968. Children, on the other hand, are more likely to be attacked by someone they know.
The victim and the law The rape victims usually faces skepticism, contempt, embarrassing questions, and generally callous treatment by police officers, hospitals, and criminal prosecutors at a time when she is most in need of consideration and support. The ordeal may increase the trauma she has already suffered, and it makes future victims reluctant to cooperate even with those authorities who seem zealous in pursuing rapists.
She also faces obstacles in State laws about evidence that are "based on a deeply suspicious view of both the nature of woman and sexual intercourse," according to the authors of Sex Discrimination and the Law, published by Little, Brown and Company in 1975.
Rape is the only crime in which the victim has to prove that she did not consent and did not want, even subconsciously, to be raped. Her past sexual history can be introduced to show consent or undermine her credibility, but the past behavior of the defendant, even if criminal, is often not considered relevant.
Many State codes have definitions of consent that place untenable burdens upon the victim. Accused rapists have been acquitted because the victim did not resist enough. A woman has to prove that she resisted even when resistance had been clearly impossible—when the assailant had a weapon, for example. In New York the burden of proof on a victim is now just somewhat lighter—the statute was amended to require that a woman resist as much as is realistically possible, given the circumstances of the attack.
Corroboration While most States do not require corroborative testimony to bring a case to trial, such evidence is usually needed to get a conviction. Criminals who intimidate their victims with weapons or threats of harm generally do not leave evidence behind, and such evidence is not required for many other substantive crimes. It places the testimony of a sex victim on the same footing as the world of a small child, whose testimony alone does not ordinarily suffice to establish a crime.
The Hale instruction Judges are required by law in some States, and by tradition in others, to instruct the jury that "rape is an accusation easily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the partly accused, though ever so innocent." These words of caution, known as the Hale instruction, date back to the 17th century jurist Lord Chief Justice Matthew Hale. They only enforce the suspicion that constantly haunts a rape victim and make it even more likely that the criminal will go unconvicted
Legislation The National Center for the Prevention and Control of Rape was created in 1976 (Public Law 94-63) as a result of legislation introduced by Senator Charles Mathias of Maryland. It had an initial appropriation of $3 million in 1976 and $5 million in 1977. It has a professional and support staff of six people and is under the auspices of the National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
The Center's responsibility is to develop, implement, and evaluate promising models of health and related services for rape victims, their families, and for offenders. It encourages research into the legal, social, and medical aspects of rape, and through its research and demonstration program is developing public information and training materials aimed at preventing and treating problems associated with rape.
As of March 1978, legislation was expected to be introduced by Senator Mathias authorizing the Center to enter into contracts with States, local government agencies, and nonprofit organizations, including local rape crisis centers, to develop and establish training programs and other direct services (including counseling techniques for both the victim and the offender), for paraprofessional, professional, and volunteer personnel in law, social services, mental health, and other related services that deal with rape problems.
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