Jian Ghomeshi: Guilty or Innocent?

[llwhiteoutll]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

You've totally missed the point. If during a drunken night at the bar and your best friend punches you in the face, does it matter that you were friends? And does it matter that you were being a jerk and deserved a punch in the face? Does it matter that you crashed at his house after sharing a cab home? I get that sexual encounters are different but that is exactly why the deck is stacked.

Of course those things matter and would be brought up.

Not to mention your example would most likely never see the inside of a courtroom anyways.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by sworkhard

Yes, those things matter. Both to being a jerk and to crashing at his house afterwards. As I said in my previous post, there is more to a court case than determining guilt or if the event happened. Further, suppose you were getting your best fiend drunk, knowing that he tended to get out of control and violent and then chose to egg him on anyhow. That won't change the fact that he assaulted you, but it could very well move the sentence from jail time to probation + community service.

Sure. But the most common stat you see is that in Canada for every 1000 sex assaults about 30 are actually reported, about 7 go to trial and about 3 result in convictions. If I deserved a punch in the face, there is still a much better chance I'll get a successful result in court than if I'm sexually assaulted. And while all those factors determine length of sentences is physical assault cases, they often result in victims being deemed unreliable even before they see a court.

[Canuck-Hater]

Interesting break down of Sexual Assaults in Canada. I had no idea it was that bad.

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

Sure. But the most common stat you see is that in Canada for every 1000 sex assaults about 30 are actually reported, about 7 go to trial and about 3 result in convictions. If I deserved a punch in the face, there is still a much better chance I'll get a successful result in court than if I'm sexually assaulted. And while all those factors determine length of sentences is physical assault cases, they often result in victims being deemed unreliable even before they see a court.

Sure, but that's irrelevant to the court process. Your issue has far more to do with how the police handle it than the courts. The primary difference between sexual assault and other crimes is that the only evidence is often he said/she said. This both makes it harder for victims to straightforwardly substantiate their claims and easier for someone who is seeking revenge to make false claims. It's both under-reported by victims, and has substantially higher rates of false claims than other serious crimes, though it's probably still a small minority) This is where the training that police forces have been doing the last 5 years will hopefully make a difference by ensuring that they record the reports (even if the evidence isn't sufficient; this is very important since the vast majority of people committing sexual assaults are repeat offenders) and doing a better job of distinguishing the people that likely have a real case from those that don't.

Edit: Most commonly reported doesn't mean most accurate. It likely just means most shock and outrage inducing in today's media and social media worlds.

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by Canuck-Hater

Interesting break down of Sexual Assaults in Canada. I had no idea it was that bad.

What all counts as sexual assault in that graph? Everything from copping a feel to forcible rape are sexual assaults by law in Canada, but I think that most people agree that not all sexual assaults on this spectrum should have the same punishment.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Canuck-Hater

Interesting break down of Sexual Assaults in Canada. I had no idea it was that bad

Saw this on facebook as well. My first reaction is that it's probably total bull####. It's basically impossible to get anything resembling accurate data on non-reported sexual assaults. On what basis can you say that criminal behaviour occurrs 458,620 times every year in this country but goes unreported?

In other words, my response is, "no, there aren't 460,000 sexual assaults in Canada every year. Stop making up numbers to attempt to shock people. It just makes me less inclined to engage with this issue."

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Saw this on facebook as well. My first reaction is that it's probably total bull####. It's basically impossible to get anything resembling accurate data on non-reported sexual assaults. On what basis can you say that criminal behaviour occurrs 458,620 times every year in this country but goes unreported?

In other words, my response is, "no, there aren't 460,000 sexual assaults in Canada every year. Stop making up numbers to attempt to shock people. It just makes me less inclined to engage with this issue."

i agree, especially when you do the math. Let's assume that every year, 40% of these assaults happen to women who've already been assaulted. Then your left with 279000 women who have never been assaulted before being assaulted each year. Do this for 20 years and 5.5 million individuals are assaulted. This means that 1/3 of canadian women can expect to be assaulted in any 20 year period. That seems a bit high at face value. Of course, if the repeat victim rate is a lot higher, then the number becomes more believable.

1.5% of women being sexually assaulted in any given year, assuming a very high repeated victim rate doesn't seem out of line (since <2% of men commit the vast majority of all sexual assaults, it actually sounds within the ball park)

On the other hand, if this includes things like some jerk at the mall randomly grabbing a woman's behind, then yes, even with a 40% rate of repeat victims I can believe it, but those don't cause the kind of long term harm the more serious sexual assaults cause. Either way, by combining everything that can be considered a sexual assault, graphs like this tend to be misleading.

[calgaryblood]

Originally Posted by Canuck-Hater

Interesting break down of Sexual Assaults in Canada. I had no idea it was that bad.

33 are reported to the police does not equal 33 sexual assaults nor does it make 33 assailants.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Saw this on facebook as well. My first reaction is that it's probably total bull####. It's basically impossible to get anything resembling accurate data on non-reported sexual assaults. On what basis can you say that criminal behaviour occurrs 458,620 times every year in this country but goes unreported?

In other words, my response is, "no, there aren't 460,000 sexual assaults in Canada every year. Stop making up numbers to attempt to shock people. It just makes me less inclined to engage with this issue."

Well, they are probably counting verbal, visual and thought assaults. The police are doing a terrible job getting to grips with those particular crimes.

[Roughneck]

Kind of feel for the judge. He's going to get dragged through the mud because of this even though you could pretty much tell it was a verdict he didn't want to give but that he had to give.

He's basically getting #### because he's too good at his job.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

Kind of feel for the judge. He's going to get dragged through the mud because of this even though you could pretty much tell it was a verdict he didn't want to give but that he had to give.

He's basically getting #### because he's too good at his job.

No, he's getting effed because crown was #### at their job.

[White Out 403]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

No, he's getting effed because crown was #### at their job.

No, the crown got ####ed because the witnesses were proven liars and sank their own case

[driveway]

Originally Posted by llwhiteoutll

What changes would you suggest? You can't lower the standard of proof and you can't stop witnesses or complainants from being cross-examined or discredited.

Honestly, I don't know. It's difficult because of the nature of our trial system. Mainly I think there needs to be better awareness of how victims of sexual assault act during and after assaults so a question like "and you continued to see this person after the assault?" Is not seen as discrediting of their testimony.

I guess my beef is more with juries and judges than the system.

[White Out 403]

Originally Posted by driveway

Honestly, I don't know. It's difficult because of the nature of our trial system. Mainly I think there needs to be better awareness of how victims of sexual assault act during and after assaults so a question like "and you continued to see this person after the assault?" Is not seen as discrediting of their testimony.

I guess my beef is more with juries and judges than the system.

You do know that it's not just that she continued to contact him, but, that she lied about it to police and in court? And that it wasn't just contact but bikini pictures?

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by Resurrection

You do know that it's not just that she continued to contact him, but, that she lied about it to police and in court? And that it wasn't just contact but bikini pictures?

Don't forget the multitude of messages between 2 of them on facebook with such gems as "let's stick it to him" and "take the ####### down"

not a good idea

[driveway]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I mean, being acquitted doesn't mean you're innocent, but that's probably just semantics. My real question is, what do you think is the fundamental difference between sexual assault and other kinds of violent crime?

Well, first of all I consider crimes against a person to be manifestly different than crimes against property, I don't think this is that radical a notion, I think most people-and the judicial system agrees.

Secondly, I find sexual assault to be different than other types of assault because of the way it relates to power dynamics between people. Sexual assault is fundamentally a revocation of another person's agency over their own body. I can see an argument that a violent assault has a similar effect, but I would argue that sexual assault is different because the acts that take place within the context of a sexual assault, in another circumstance would be not only consentual, but actively sought out and pleasurable.

Though people may in some circumstances consent to be 'assaulted' (I box, for example) getting punched and hit is never pleasurable. Essentially all the acts in any form of a sexual assault could be-in the right circumstances.

It is this specific perversion of normal, pleasurable acts into violence and assault, the revocation by one person of another person's agency over choosing to engage or not engage in those acts, which, in my mind, establishes sexual violence as of a fundamentally different kind of violence than simple assault.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by driveway

Though people may in some circumstances consent to be 'assaulted' (I box, for example) getting punched and hit is never pleasurable. Essentially all the acts in any form of a sexual assault could be-in the right circumstances.

I wonder if part of the problem here is that when one thinks "sexual assault" one tends of think of groping, fondling, and other 'harder' stuff, etc.

When one thinks of slaps, punches, hair pulling, one tends to think more "assault". A fine distinction, but I wonder if it played into effect at all.

If, for instance, what Jian did wasn't foreplay, he could have gone up the river for just plain assault. He never denied that it happened, just that it was consensual.

[PeteMoss]

I do think this will hurt people reporting sexual assaults of the 'date rape' variety going forward. Especially if the victim did something that might be considered irrational behaviour like these woman did.

I think most people will just decide they don't want to deal with the embarrassment of rehashing why they went out with the guy again or wrote some email after the fact.

Now was can you do about it.... not sure. Can you just limit allowable evidence to the actual event itself? Still not sure if that generates more convictions since its still he said/she said.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

No, he's getting effed because crown was #### at their job.

I doubt the Crown would have even proceeded with charges if they knew the full extent of the collusion and contact before hand.

What do you expect the Crown to do when one of their witnesses admits to being deceitful to police under examination and the lawyers for another bring up new information about contact after the incident they were told never happened the day before that witness was called?

It too late to pull the plug by the time everything went to hell for the Crown. Pretty sure after the cross of witness number one they saw the writing on the wall but it only got worse for them after that.

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

I do think this will hurt people reporting sexual assaults of the 'date rape' variety going forward. Especially if the victim did something that might be considered irrational behaviour like these woman did.

I think most people will just decide they don't want to deal with the embarrassment of rehashing why they went out with the guy again or wrote some email after the fact.

Now was can you do about it.... not sure. Can you just limit allowable evidence to the actual event itself? Still not sure if that generates more convictions since its still he said/she said.

If it does hurt people reporting sexual assaults it's because of the terrible reporting the media has done on it. It wasn't the irrational behavior that sunk the case of these women. The judge made that clear. It was their dishonesty, collusion, and hence unreliable testimony that sunk their case.

What can we do? Educate people on what their options are and what to do afterwards. Make it clear that manipulative behavior will backfire in court, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, etc. Explain to people why your reputation matters at times like these, etc.

Limiting the allowable evidence to the event itself would be useless and almost nobody would be convicted. The questions about the circumstances is what's use to establish the reliability of the victim (and the value of any third party testimony that may be present). When these people simply tell the truth as they perceive it, justice will be dealt in the vast majority of cases.