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Sexual Assault Law Research Paper

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Sexual assault is a very controversial issue in our society. The video by Mini Law, Understanding Sexual Assault Law, gives a detailed overview of Sexual Assault Law. It is presented by Professor Elaine Craig, from the Schulich School of Law. In her presentation she explains that the fundamentals of sexual assault law are the definition of sexual assault, definition of consent and rules of evidence. Overall, Sexual Assault Law in Canada is flawed and there is a lot of reform that must still be done.

To understand Sexual Assault, one must first understand how it is defined. It is a gender neutral, three tiered offense consisting of sexual assault, sexual assault causing bodily harm and aggravated sexual assault. It is defined by a concept of violation of sexual integrity, involving non-consensual sexual touching. Craig states that despite sexual assault is considered a gender …show more content…

One of these rules is that prior sexual history should not be brought up by defense counsel to discredit complainant. This helps to protect the complainant from further trauma and to insure the trial is fair and just. In trials, complainants are able to use testimonial aids. There aids help prevent further trauma from happening by aiding complainants tell their emotional stories.

There are many challenges faced in Sexual Assault Law. The attitudes of the public towards sexual violence are inaccurate in many cases. Sexual Assault Law is a legacy of legal process based on stereotypes and myths about women and sex. Many myths and stereotypes legally rejected continue to be invoked in trials today. The adversarial nature of the legal system can make people afraid of testifying. The dysfunctional attitudes about sex generally coupled with individualized rather than systematic response of the criminal justice system show us that the system is an inept tool to respond to a social

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The R.v. Ewanchuck (1999) case is a case that shook the Canadian criminal justice system and is considered by feminists a victory because the judge’s decision reflected rape myths and the case is being praised with addressing rape myths in the criminal justice system. The details of the case are; Ewanchuck invited a 17 year- old woman into his van for a job interview ( Dumont, 1999, p. 102-109). After the job interview concluded, Ewanchuck insisted that the woman see his paintings, which were in a trailer behind the van ( Dumont, 1999, p. 102-109). Ewanchuck then took the woman inside the trailer and began to make a series of sexual advances ( Dumont, 1999, p. 102-109).

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Rape myths are inaccurate believes that are widely held. They are able to provide people with a false sense of protection by undermining the severity of the action or even oppose that fact that its happened. “Rape myths underlie and fuel violence against women and inform the negative societal reactions to those who have been sexually assaulted.” (Du Mont & Parnis 102) When talking about the case of R v. Ewanchuk we can notice the use of rape myths in order to justify the act of sexual assault towards the young women. Mr. Justice McClung’s was the judge in this cases and had many myths of why this young women was assaulted.

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Policy Analysis: Megan’s Law Sexual violence, particularly against children, is a significant issue all around the world. In the early 1990’s in the United States, there were multiple well-publicized cases of sexual violence against children. From kidnappings, to rapes, and everything in between, violence was being committed against children and something needed to be done about it. In 1996, Megan’s Law was passed in response to the sexual assault and death of Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old from New Jersey (Corrigan, 2006).

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[7] In his book, “Missoula,” John Krakauer analyses the issue of rape in the college town of Missoula. Krakauer begins his work by quoting the article False Allegations of Sexual Assault: Rape is unique. No other violent crime is so fraught with controversy, so enmeshed in dispute and in the politics of gender and sexuality… And within the domain of rape, the most highly charged area of debate concerns the issue of false allegations. For centuries, it has been asserted and assumed that women “cry rape,” that a large proportion of rape allegations are maliciously concocted for purposes of revenge or other motives.

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Defense attorneys in cases of sexual assault often “attack the victim’s credibility - the time-honored rape defense that so often results in an acquittal” (Krakauer 136). Diminishing the victim’s credibly and highlighting the standing of the accused are both methods that defense attorneys, like Donaldson’s lawyer, use to win cases of sexual

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The article explains how sexual assault continues to be a problem until this very day. When someone is sexually assaulted, it is very hard for them to cope with the fact that someone has touched them in the wrong way. For the ones who commits the assault, it will only become worse for them. A National Study says, “The main source of inmates’ knowledge of prison sex appears to come from their conversations with other inmates”(Response to the Prison Rape Elimination Act). Some inmates could portray the role of acting as if they are there for the victim to talk to, but there are other things that could result from this.

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Radford had explained that Robin was afraid of what her grandmother would have thought if she knew the truth. This case made it easy for the officers to find out that her accusation was false, but it also provides an example of how easy it is to make a claim, and how hard it can be to disprove it. There is only one appropriate circumstance in which an accusation of sexual assault is appropriate, and that is when an actual case of sexual assault happened. Inappropriate circumstances would be, a way to get back at someone you're upset with for other reasons, and a way to cover up risque photos that were found by a family member like Robin did. False accusations are also demeaning to actual victims of sexual assault.

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In society and college campuses, sexual assault occurs quite frequently. According to an estimation one third of women experience a forced sexual experience at least once in their life and most of the time it occurs in colleges. Men have also been reported to be victim of sexual assaults mostly by other men. Most of the time the sexual assault is planned and perpetrated by a third person, who is known to the victim of incident. Drug and alcohol use play role in this issue and contribute to the problem as most of the time the victim and perpetrators are under the effect of alcohol or any other drug during the incident.

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“Although concerning sexual practices between adults and children have existed throughout history and across cultures, whether such behavior was conceived of and defined as ‘abuse’ has been dependent on the societal values of the particular period” (Denov, 2004). In today’s society, sex offending has become an increasingly, concerning phenomenon that individuals must become more aware of. Although generally regarded as a male phenomenon, over time, female perpetrators have become equally important as male perpetrators. Due to the lack of public awareness, female sexual predators go unreported. As a result, society must become more aware of female sexual perpetrators, as many incidents of females assaulting both young men and women have gone unreported for some time.

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Sexual assault laws have been amended and created over time to ensure the criminal justice system remains sensitive to the tribulations involved in rape trials for the victim. However, the connotative capacity of language used in evidentiary testimonies in rape trials can defeat the purpose of these reforms as ‘language is not merely a means of putting forth evidence in a case, but it in fact transforms the nature of evidence itself, thus influencing the outcome of the case’ (Maheshwari 2014:1). As theorised by Bourdieu (1982) symbolic power as ‘the power to create reality through language’ (Matoesian 1995:38) is successfully employed in rape trials to instil patriarchal and legal domination over the victim. The use of language in courtroom

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According to a study performed by the United Nations (Fulu), 70 percent of men who have sexually assaulted somebody do so because they believe that they are sexually entitled. Forty percent of those men who admitted to sexually assaulting a woman stated that they were “angry” or wanted to “punish” the victim. In this study consisting of 10,000 men from varying countries, half of them do not feel guilty. 5,000 men do not feel guilty for sexually assaulting women. 5,000 men that each felt entitled to a woman’s body and violated her privacy.

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Puryear Law also gives a few other variations of this that are also considered sexual assault under the state law, such as “an act of sexual penetration and the accused knew that the victim was unable to understand the nature of the act or was unable to give knowing consent” or “commits an act of sexual penetration with a victim who was at least 13 years of age but under 18 years of age when the act was committed and the accused was 17 years of age or over and held a position of trust, authority or supervision in relation to the victim.” These variations

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Does anyone know what is sexual violence? According to wikipedia sexual violence is any sexual act to obtain a sexual act by violence, acts to traffic a person or acts directed against a person 's sexuality, regardless of the relationship to the victim. It occurs in times of peace and armed conflict situations, is widespread and is considered to be one of the most traumatic, pervasive, and most common human rights violations. * -------> *read directly from card* From what I researched, sexual violence is a serious health problem and an aggressive act that aims to express power and dominance over the victim through sexual harassment.

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