Sexual Violence And Gender Based Crimes

Within society, there is an engrained belief of what makes a person a legitimate victim and often their status as a ‘victim’ is questioned. This is especially true if the victim does not fit the typical stereotype of who is considered to be a legitimate victim. This is most widely illustrated in cases involving male victims of sexual assault.

Sexual Assault described in technical terms is defined as any sort of sexual activity between two or more people in which one of the people involved is involved against his or her will. (3) The description of "against his or her will" extends to varying degrees of aggression, ranging from indirect pressure to a direct physical attack. According to the Crime Victim Research and Treatment Center 1.3 adult women are sexually assaulted in the United States every minute. (1) Of these assaults 84% of the attacks occur by someone the victim knows. The Senate Judiciary Committee the United States sighted the United States as having the highest rate of sexual assaults per capita in the

University of Tennessee Knoxville was recently involved in a lawsuit for enabling athletes to sexually assault women by silencing the victims and failing to provide disciplinary actions or even investigation onto the accused. While this is a recent case, this is not the first time this sort of behavior involving a school has been brought into light. One in four women will be sexually assaulted by the end of their undergraduate career (Posluszny). Sexual assault happens throughout society no matter what the gender or age, seeming to be in increasing epidemic over the last few years. While the idea of sexual assault is largely met with public hostility in theory, actions often contradict this. This contradiction lies heavily in a culture that is unwelcoming to the victims and often leads to the perpetrators being tolerated. The existence of rape culture in western society occurs due to the preservation of violent media, patriarchal standards, and the state of the criminal justice system. This culture cannot be improved until we confront each of these problems to their roots.

The purpose of finding the appropriate definition of domestic violence is to clearly distinguish domestic violence from physical violence in general. Due to its nature, cases of domestic violence require specific treatment and perspective as it can be identified in many concealed forms and would not leave behind physical wounds. Therefore to know the types and forms of violence the victims have to face is crucial to develop a legal response.

Sexual assault is something that can affect people emotionally, physically, psychosocially, psychologically, and even spiritually. As often as it occurs in society, the effects that sexual assault can have on an individual are all relatively similar. Sexual assault is any sort of sexually-based action in which one or more participants have not given consent. Often times, people refer to sexual assault as simply rape, however there are other dimensions to sexual assault which can include unwanted kissing, groping, or touching of any form. Emotionally, victims are conflicted about whether it is their own fault or if it the fault of the attacker. In many instances, the victim will blame themselves for what has happened to them. Physically, there is nearly always damage in the affected areas (vagina, anus, penis, breasts, etcetera) that can lead to painful tissue damage. There is also the risk of pregnancy or STD’s that the victim must be aware of. Psychosocially, the victim becomes distant with everyone they were once close to. Their level of trust declines dramatically, causing relationships with spouses, family, and close friends to crumble. Since the victims tend to push their loved ones away, often without giving any sort of reason, they can sometimes face isolation and a lack of support from those whom would usually offer council. The psychological effects are tremendous as well. Victims of sexual assault will often have severe anxiety, post-traumatic stress

In a recent study posed by the CDC, 19.3% of the women’s population in the United States have reported rape (Prevalence and Characteristics of Sexual Violence, Stalking, and Intimate Partner Violence Victimization 1). That is nearly one fifth of the female population. While women who walk the streets alone flood with fear, men are being let off with a mere slap on the wrist for raping women. Another study shows that ninety seven of every one hundred rapists receive no punishment whatsoever. How can women feel safe if their perpetrator is freely roaming the streets? Although rapists are frequently punished, the rape punishment in the United States is far too inconsistent and should be more severe.

One of the philosophies not commonly used with sexual assault crimes is incapacitation. Although a perpetrator is placed in prison, rehabilitation immediately occurs. As for incapacitation, it does not require any assumptions about the criminal’s rationalism or “root causes” of the criminal’s behavior. Having the perpetrator incarcerated is beneficial because the physical restraint of incarceration prevents the commission of further crimes against society during the duration of the sentence. Reducing crimes is the most important factor is setting punishments (Muhlhausen, 2010). The problem is that sexual assault is one of the hardest crimes to prove. There are many factors that come in play such as the victim’s behavior, evidence and how it was handled by law enforcement. However, it the process goes through, then incapacitation will be able to reduce the problem.

In the United States sex crimes are a serious problem and the legal system don’t have a process of punishing sex criminals. My project show sex offenders don’t get sufficient prison sentence and parole is often too quick. The men that appears feminine will give the impression they are gay and masculine women will take the role as a lesbian. This project shed light on the race, age, gender, education level, and marital status of sex offenders within neighborhoods and communities. Although, sex offenders have evolved with the help of the internet and portable devices.

Since the 1970s law reform surrounding the issue of sexual assault has become more prevalent and extensive enabling law reform commissions and other governmental bodies to act as an effective force in achieving justice for the victims and society.

Limited success has been relevant, within prosecuting crimes based on gender violence at the domestic or international level. Transitional justice mechanisms, offer a means of pursuing gender justice by revealing gendered patterns of abuse; enhancing access to justice, and building momentum for reform. Assisted gender activists to challenge structural causes of gender in-equality, by public acknowledgement of factors in which made such abuse public. Also, offering

Utterly in love and best friends since the eighth grade two juniors decided to take a chance and become a couple. The night of their first official date, the hopeless romantic had butterflies in her stomach, daydreaming of the perfect night that lay ahead. Soon after he picked her up, they went to her favorite restaurant and afterwards headed to the boy’s house to spend quality time together. As the girl tried to kiss the boy, she quickly grew uncomfortable as he began sadistically taking advantage of the young female. The word “no” repeated more times than fathomable. Ignoring her plea and the tears flooding down her face the wanton boy simply stated, “it’s going to be okay” and continued undressing the girl and performing vulgar sexual tasks. After the boy had taken what he want, the girl’s innocence and virginity, he finally allowed her to go home. A year has now passed since the incident and since they last had any type of interaction. When telling the story to spread awareness peers reply with, “You willingly went to his house you must have had the same intentions” or call her a lying slut and come to the

Sexual violence is detrimental towards its victims. The act itself is damaging for many reasons and that individual’s life will be forever changed, however society often plays a big role as to why it is so harmful as well. The victim can often be looked at negatively as if they deserved what happened to them. The first questions that will be asked when telling anyone will be, what were you wearing? How much did you drink? Did you say no? Did you fight back? The fear of all the judgement alone can convince the individual not to discuss what has happened to them. Not talking about it can make the outcome much more severe because they are dealing with it alone. Often sexual violence results in the victim developing depression, post traumatic stress

An interesting observation that I have made in doing research in sex crimes is that there 2 terms that are used in the state of California in regards to legal definition which are “sex offender” and “sexually violent predator”. California penal code section 290 required everyone who has plead no contest, pled guilty or been convicted of a sex-related offense to register with local law enforcement which is a lifetime requirement for registrants (California Legislative Information, n.d.). According to California Reform sex offender laws website the term sex-related offenses includes but is not limited to “non-violent, non-contact offenses such as public urination, streaking and “sexting” as well as some consensual teen sex” (par 2). Sexually

Growing up, girls are constantly told to cover up, to not walk alone at night, avoid men, and to not dress provocatively. Girls are taught to not call attention to themselves, why is it that instead of teaching people not to rape, girls are taught to not get raped? Sexual violence is a widespread issue and it is paramount that we do something to get rid of it. This violence occurs in the world because instead of looking for solutions to potentially end an issue society decides to instead only offer temporary solutions and ways to prevent a crime from happening.

I have decided to examine sexual violence and in particular the motivations behind such crimes that constitute as sexual violence; this encompasses crimes such as rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity1,2,3,. In particular I am going to examine sexual violence in reference to the conflict in former Yugoslavia, known as the Bosnian war.