This file was prepared for electronic distribution by the inforM staff. Questions or comments should be directed to inform-editor@umail.umd.edu. VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN THE RESPONSE TO RAPE: DETOURS ON THE ROAD TO EQUAL JUSTICE Prepared by the Majority Staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee May 1993 CONTENTS Introduction by Chairman Joseph R. Biden, Jr Acknowledgments Summary Chapter I: Detours on the Road to Equal Justice: A Case Study of Rape Chapter II: Detours on the Road to Equal Justice: The Numbers Chapter III: The Violence Against Women Act: A National Response Chapter IV: The State Survey Appendices Appendix A -- Methodology Appendix B -- Acknowledgments Endnotes INTRODUCTION By Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee May 1993 The report I issue today culminates a three year investigation by the Judiciary Committee's majority staff concerning the causes and effects of violence against women. Women in America suffer all the crimes that plague the nation -- muggings, car thefts, and burglaries, to name a few. But there are also some crimes -- namely rape and family violence -- that disproportionately burden women. Through a series of hearings and reports, the committee has studied this violence in an effort to determine what steps we can take to make women more safe. Through this process, I have become convinced that violence against women reflects as much a failure of our nation's collective moral imagination as it does the failure of our nation's laws and regulations. We are helpless to change the course of this violence unless, and until, we achieve a national consensus that it deserves our profound public outrage. A. The Report's Findings Today, the majority staff releases findings of a six-month investigation of state rape prosecutions. These findings reveal a justice system that fails by any standard to meet its goals -- apprehending, convicting, and incarcerating violent criminals: * 98% of the victims of rape never see their attacker caught, tried and imprisoned; * Over half of all rape prosecutions are either dismissed before trial or result in an acquittal; * Almost one quarter of convicted rapists never go to prison; another quarter receive sentences in local jails where the average sentence is 11 months: This means that almost half of all convicted rapists can expect to serve an average of a year or less behind bars. No crime carries a perfect record of arrest, prosecution, and incarceration, but the pattern that emerges for rape is strikingly inferior to that of other violent crimes: * A robber is 30% more likely to be convicted than a rapist; * A rape prosecution is more than twice as likely as a murder prosecution to be dismissed, and 30% more likely to be dismissed than a robbery prosecution; and, * A convicted rapist is 50% more likely to receive probation than a convicted robber. Imagine the public outcry if we were to learn today that one quarter of convicted kidnappers or bank robbers were sentenced to probation or that 54% of arrests for these crimes never led to a conviction. We would consider such a system of justice inadequate to protect the nation's property, yet we tolerate precisely such results when the rape of women is at issue. The disparity in how our system prosecutes rape, in contrast to other violent crime, mirrors the disparity in our society's attitude towards these acts. The American legal system has always treated cases of assault by a stranger on our streets as a serious crime. But violence that primarily targets women has too often been dismissed without response. Where the victim knows the perpetrator, there is a tendency to consider the crime a product of a private relationship, not a matter of public injustice. Even where the violence comes at the hands of a stranger, the victim may be seen not as an innocent target of intolerable criminal acts, but as a participant who somehow bears shame or even some responsibility for the violence. A recent case from New Jersey vividly illustrates this attitude. A 17-year-old mentally retarded girl was raped by a group of young men she had known her entire life, who used a baseball bat, a broom handle, and a stick to abuse her. This was not the furtive act of a lone individual, it was the afternoon activity of a group of young men who engaged in the rape of a girl as nonchalantly as a pick-up game of basketball. After the crime became publicly known, members of the community, according to press accounts, defended the young men's conduct on the ground that "boys will be boys." The nonchalance displayed by the young men during and after the attack reveals the attitude that this incident does not constitute serious criminal activity. Worst of all, this same attitude is mirrored in the court's treatment of the case. Although three of the defendants were convicted of first degree aggravated sexual assault -- the most serious charge under New Jersey law -- and because of their age at the time of trial could have been sentenced as adults, the judge sentenced them as "youth offenders." As a result, they will likely serve less than two years in a youth camp. At sentencing, the judge made references to the attackers' status as successful high school athletes who presented "no threat" to society. This is but one recent example of how our system discounts the severity of rape, how it "normalizes" rape as the mistakes of errant youth or negligent men. It is repeated day-in, day-out, in case after case, shaping women's perception that the system simply does not accept that violent acts against women are serious crimes. To reshape this perception, we must begin to ask the right questions: Why do we discount violence that occurs between people who know each other? Why do we seek to blame the victim for the rape -- focusing on her behavior instead of her attacker's? Why is our system unresponsive to violence that occurs when a man terrorizes a woman through rape or other physical assault? Survivors of rape and family violence pay a double price: like other victims of violent crime, they suffer the terrible toll of physical and psychological injury. But, unlike other crime victims, they also suffer the burden of defending the legitimacy of their suffering. It is bad enough when friends or neighbors ask why a survivor "let it happen," or why the survivor was in the "wrong place at the wrong time." But, when the criminal justice system adopts these attitudes of disbelief and hostility, survivors' only recourse is to blame themselves. More than any other factor, the attitude of our society that this violence is not serious stands in the way of reducing this violence. This attitude must change. The first step in altering our attitudes toward this violence is to understand the failures of our laws and policies in this regard. Our criminal laws must be judged by their effectiveness in responding to the injustices done to victims of violence. This is the covenant of equal protection guaranteed by our Constitution -- that our criminal justice system shall not make distinctions in practice that cannot be sustained in law. To fulfill this promise, we must put ourselves in the position of those who suffer this violence; we must use their experience as a measure of justice; and we must be vigilant in judging the laws as they operate in practice, as well as in theory. The knowledge that society and its criminal justice system offer no real protection has the potential to victimize all women, forcing them to remain in abusive family situations, or to circumscribe their activities, to accept limitations on how they conduct their lives, because of fear. The stakes are high. If we do not succeed, we risk the faith of over half our citizens in the ability -- and the willingness -- of our criminal justice system to protect them. And, what is worse, we condemn future generations to accept not only the possibility of violence but the reality of lives too often limited by the fear of violence. B. Violence Against Women Act To help focus the nation's attention on this issue and to provide the help that survivors need, I first introduced the Violence Against Women Act in 1990. Since that time, I have chaired numerous hearings, heard from scores of women who have suffered violence, and released a number of reports documenting our findings. This year, I have introduced the bill for what I hope is the last time -- it is my highest legislative priority to see S. 11 become law during this Congress. The legislation is the first comprehensive approach to fighting all forms of violence against women, combining a broad array of needed reforms. These include: * New laws to reinforce the focus on the offender's conduct, rather than the victim's character; * New investments in local law enforcement efforts that treat rape and family violence as serious crime; * New evidentiary rules that extend "rape shield"-type protection to civil and criminal cases as well as sex harassment litigation; and * New education programs in our schools and in our law enforcement institutions about family violence and rape. Most importantly, in my view, the Violence Against Women Act creates, for the first time, a civil rights remedy for victims of crimes "motivated by gender." I believe this provision is the key to changing the attitudes about violence against women. This provision recognizes that violent crimes committed because of a person's gender raise issues of equality as well as issues of safety and accountability. Long ago, we recognized that an individual who is attacked because of his race is deprived of his right to be free and equal; we should guarantee the same protection for victims who are attacked because of their gender. Whether the violence is motivated by racial bias or ethnic bias or gender bias, the law's protection should be the same. I realize that this legislation will not eradicate violence against women, but I do believe that it is a step in the right direction -- in the direction of changing this nation's "false idea" that violence directed at women is "second-class" crime. Until we recognize that fact and brand the violence as brutal and wrong, we can never hope to stem the tide of violence against women in America. C. Conclusion The purpose of this report is to help us recognize that violence against women" is simply "violence." We are all responsible for the beliefs and the attitudes that allow us to apply rape laws grudgingly with suspicion rather than sympathy. As the Attorney General recently reminded us during her confirmation hearings, the doors of the Justice Department offer the following reminder to all who enter: "Justice in the Life and Conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the Heart and Souls of the Citizens." It is my hope that this report, with the others released by the committee on this subject, will move our hearts and souls and, in doing so, will help us to create a system that realizes the promise of equal justice for all. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This Report was prepared with the assistance of literally hundreds of people throughout the United States who responded to our written questionnaire and spent significant time in telephone interviews reporting and explaining the data contained within this document. A full listing of the many people who consulted with and aided my staff appears in an Appendix to this Report. I offer special acknowledgment and thanks to the members of my staff who spent so much of their time and energy on this report. In particular, Lisa Monaco and Steven Segaloff performed most of the information gathering and analysis that forms the bulk of this Report. They were ably assisted by Chris Putala, Cynthia Hogan, Don Long and Nancy Solomon. Most of all, I want to give special recognition to the efforts of one woman who has shaped this report and, indeed, much of the committee's efforts in the area of violence against women. For the past three years, Victoria Nourse has served as my chief advisor on this issue, among others. She has played a critical role in the development and drafting of the Violence Against Women Act and has worked tirelessly to promote its passage. As she now prepares to leave the committee staff, I offer her my personal thanks for her tremendous energy and intellect and for her dedication to this issue. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. May 1993