Blaming the Victims of Sex Crimes Let's the Perpetrators Off the Hook

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**Da Boss**

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2012/1010/1224325091283.html

JENNIFER O'CONNELL

‘DEAR VICTIM,” the letter began. “To be honest I’m not bothered or sorry about the fact I burgled your house. Basicly [sic] it was your fault anyways . . . Firstly you didn’t draw your curtains . . . Secondly your [sic] dumb you live in a high risk burglary area and your [sic] thick enough to leave your downstairs kitchen window open.”

This letter, which was written by a teenage offender in Yorkshire as part of his rehabilitation programme, did the rounds on the internet last year, after it was released by police as a warning to homeowners.

The occasional self-righteousness on news and social-media sites in recent weeks, in response to the disappearances of Jill Meagher and April Jones, reminded me a bit of the warped moralising of the teenage burglar. In some ways, his version is more honest: at least he made no bones about blaming the victims for their own misfortune.

If there is one silver lining to awful, distressing events, such as the rape and murder of a young woman, or the abduction of a child, it is that they can bring communities together. And in both cases they did, with huge demonstrations of public support. But away from the physical communities, in the more extreme virtual communities of the internet, something else was happening.

While most people online rightly expressed sympathy for the victims and their families, a surprising number did not. Even on the official Facebook pages set up for Jill Meagher and April Jones, some would-be well-wishers began by expressing sympathy to Jill’s family, or stating their hope that April would be found. Then they’d get to the point.

Why was Jill out drinking without her husband? Why was she wearing those heels? Why didn’t she let a colleague walk her home? Why did she take that obviously dangerous route?

And where were April’s parents? Why did they let her out to play unsupervised at 7.30 in the evening? Why was she outside in the cold at all, if she has medical problems?

On Websleuths (yes, the warning is in the title), someone posited that since Jill Meagher “seemed like a lady who liked a drink – she is Irish”, he could safely conclude she wasn’t sober – as though her abduction, rape and murder were unfortunate by-products of her nationality.

Meanwhile, the Australian DJ Neil Mitchell said he hoped she was “off partying somewhere – judging from her Facebook page she likes a good party”.

Even when it became tragically apparent that Jill had not been off partying, and that April wasn’t coming home, the wave of victim-blaming-masquerading-as-empathy didn’t let up.

And we wonder why more people don’t come forward to report crimes. According to the Rape Crisis Network of Ireland, there are two reasons why we indulge in victim-blaming: the first is that we perceive the world as largely just, and therefore cling to the belief that bad things can’t happen to good people. The other reason is that we do it “to maintain a sense of [our] own, or [our] loved ones, invulnerability to rape” or other crimes.

By making the victim partly responsible, however, we are playing into the hands of the perpetrators. It is precisely this fear of being blamed, shamed, or ridiculed that makes victims of rape or child abuse still so reluctant to come forward.

Unfortunately, these fears are still sometimes very well grounded. Just a few days ago, in Connecticut, the conviction of a man who had been found guilty of raping a woman with severe cerebral palsy, was overturned. The victim cannot speak and has the intellectual function of a three-year-old. But the state supreme court found that, because Richard Fourtin couldn’t ask outright, and because she hadn’t kicked or bitten him, her consent was implied.

We’re dab hands at victim-blaming in this country too. The attitude to clerical sex abuse in the Catholic Church here for many years appeared to run along similar lines to that expressed last month by one Fr Benedict Groeschel, of New York.

He wrote an article for the National Catholic Register, in which he said: “Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster – 14, 16, 18 – is the seducer.”

It’s because we have been surrounded for so long by attitudes like this that the abuse allegations aired last week about Jimmy Savile – and the alleged victims’ reasons for not coming forward before now – felt so familiar. Substitute the words “the Church hierarchy” for “the BBC” and swap “Sir” for “Fr”, and you felt you’d heard it all a hundred times before.

It now seems the earliest abuse allegations against Savile emerged in 1959. The BBC – whose Panorama programme has done excellent work investigating child abuse in the Catholic Church – appears to have been turning a blind eye to the issue on its own doorstep.

And it wasn’t just in the BBC that people were overly impressed by Savile’s celebrity and reputation for good works. The day after the ITV documentary aired, Dickie Rock went on Liveline to remind us of the presenter’s charity work in Ireland and to wonder aloud “what motivated” these women to come forward now – though he was careful to stress he wasn’t accusing them of lying.

But the emphasis shouldn’t be on the good character of the alleged perpetrator, or on the behaviour of the victim.

Women shouldn’t have to worry about wearing high heels, or having a few drinks, or walking home alone. Children should be able to play on the green in front of their house. Homeowners should be able to live where they want, and leave their curtains open.

And we should all stop blaming the victims.

And that'll learn ye, Dakka.

**Frazzled**

Dear Criminal:
How's your new bunk mate Spike?

**Squigsquasher**

That would have been fantastic if the phrase "Oh, so that's how it works, BLAME THE VICTIM!" had not been made into a meme by our good friend Gailbraithe.

As such, it unfortunately loses a little impact.

**Kilkrazy**

The point of blaming the victim is to enforce a particular expected social code of behaviour by the threat of the bogeyman of crime.

The question is why such victim blaming should be directed particularly at women who get raped or murdered, rather than people who get involved in car crashes, or stabbed in fights in pubs, or victimised by credit card fraud.

**Frazzled**

Kilkrazy wrote:
The point of blaming the victim is to enforce a particular expected social code of behaviour by the threat of the bogeyman of crime.

The question is why such victim blaming should be directed particularly at women who get raped or murdered, rather than people who get involved in car crashes, or stabbed in fights in pubs, or victimised by credit card fraud.

See all this could be cleared up if we just used criminals for dog food.

**AustonT**

Frazzled wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
The point of blaming the victim is to enforce a particular expected social code of behaviour by the threat of the bogeyman of crime.

The question is why such victim blaming should be directed particularly at women who get raped or murdered, rather than people who get involved in car crashes, or stabbed in fights in pubs, or victimised by credit card fraud.

See all this could be cleared up if we just used criminals for dog food.

which kind of criminals?

**SilverMK2**

Kilkrazy wrote:
The question is why such victim blaming should be directed particularly at women who get raped or murdered, rather than people who get involved in car crashes, or stabbed in fights in pubs, or victimised by credit card fraud.

I think there is still a significant amount of the social subconscious of many people that if women were "behaving properly" they wouldn't get abused. Also, the severity of the effects of that type of crime tend to, I feel, cause people to try and deflect serious thought with the easy answer so they don't have to confront its dark nature.

Whilst the other crimes are ones that "could happen to anyone" and the victims are not quite heavily stacked towards being exclusively female.

**Frazzled**

AustonT wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
The point of blaming the victim is to enforce a particular expected social code of behaviour by the threat of the bogeyman of crime.

The question is why such victim blaming should be directed particularly at women who get raped or murdered, rather than people who get involved in car crashes, or stabbed in fights in pubs, or victimised by credit card fraud.

See all this could be cleared up if we just used criminals for dog food.

which kind of criminals?

Just the bad ones. I get to define the good ones.

**SilverMK2**

Frazzled wrote:
Just the bad ones. I get to define the good ones.

And what happens to the ugly ones?

**rubiksnoob**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Just the bad ones. I get to define the good ones.

And what happens to the ugly ones?

You know.

**Testify**

Just because someone is stupid enough to put themselves in a position where a crime could happen to them, doesn't mean they deserve it.

If I go for a stroll in an inner city park at 2am, I don't deserve to get beaten up and mugged but it's still somewhat my fault.

**SilverMK2**

Testify wrote:
Just because someone is stupid enough to put themselves in a position where a crime could happen to them, doesn't mean they deserve it.

If I go for a stroll in an inner city park at 2am, I don't deserve to get beaten up and mugged but it's still somewhat my fault.

You can do nothing wrong and still be the victim of a crime.

**Frazzled**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Just the bad ones. I get to define the good ones.

And what happens to the ugly ones?

They do not qualify under the good category.

**djones520**

So who actually does this?

I've seen some people say some stupid things, but I've never seen that. Yet I always see people saying that people say it.

**Mr. Burning**

We also live in a society where this can and often does happen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-19897898

The pensioner, who uses crutches after being injured by a landmine in the 1950s when he was an RAF medical orderly in Malaysia, said he called out for help but no-one came to help.

This happened at midday close to the store front.

I think this comes from the same thing as victim blaming. Society doesn't want confrontation when bad things happen and they rationalise their decisions and try to make a case for laying the blame at the door of the victim.

The kid who wrote the letter to their victim is probably representative of a large proportion of criminals. Seeking to blame temptation on others rather than looking at their own weakness. I suggest that this could be bravado as well, possibly because of youth or poor education as well, but I can not back that up with facts and figures. This is only what I have seen of attitudes first hand.

**SilverMK2**

Mr. Burning wrote:
I think this comes from the same thing as victim blaming. Society doesn't want confrontation when bad things happen and they rationalise their decisions and try to make a case for laying the blame at the door of the victim.

I think it might also come from people thinking (probably rightly) that they will probably be sent down for actually helping someone fight off an attacker.

**Frazzled**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Mr. Burning wrote:
I think this comes from the same thing as victim blaming. Society doesn't want confrontation when bad things happen and they rationalise their decisions and try to make a case for laying the blame at the door of the victim.

I think it might also come from people thinking (probably rightly) that they will probably be sent down for actually helping someone fight off an attacker.

Thats why posses and ropes are so superior. we don't cotton to no horsethieves around these parts! No sheep farmers neither!

**KalashnikovMarine**

Frazzled wrote:
AustonT wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
The point of blaming the victim is to enforce a particular expected social code of behaviour by the threat of the bogeyman of crime.

The question is why such victim blaming should be directed particularly at women who get raped or murdered, rather than people who get involved in car crashes, or stabbed in fights in pubs, or victimised by credit card fraud.

See all this could be cleared up if we just used criminals for dog food.

which kind of criminals?

Just the bad ones. I get to define the good ones.

I'd support this. It's 100% rehabilitation, killing someone and turning them into puppy chow makes them extremely useful to society at large and keeps jail populations down.

**Testify**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Testify wrote:
Just because someone is stupid enough to put themselves in a position where a crime could happen to them, doesn't mean they deserve it.

If I go for a stroll in an inner city park at 2am, I don't deserve to get beaten up and mugged but it's still somewhat my fault.

You can do nothing wrong and still be the victim of a crime.

...
yep.

**Albatross**

Irish Times wrote:Women shouldn’t have to worry about wearing high heels, or having a few drinks, or walking home alone. Children should be able to play on the green in front of their house. Homeowners should be able to live where they want, and leave their curtains open.

See, that's meaningless. It's about as meaningless as saying that biscuits are nice. Of course they are. And?

When my missus goes out on the pop, I don't say 'alright love, see you at 4am, get as pissed as you like. Oh, and a little handy hint - you can save a fortune on cab-fare by simply walking home on your own.' No, instead I say 'Right, be careful, don't drink too much, and make sure you get a cab home with one of the girls.'

Anyone else do this? Or do we all just go 'ah, feth it, she'll be alright'? At the end of the day, it would be nice if the world was all sunshine and lollipops, but it fething isn't. You'd better fething act accordingly if you value your safety. Rape isn't lightning. Yes, you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but getting incredibly intoxicated and putting yourself in a very vulnerable position increases the risk of that happening by a very frightening amount. It chills me to the bone when I see the state that some girls get in when they're out on the town.

Naive utopian ideals about how the world should be don't do anything to help this situation. Young women need to behave with caution if they're going out drinking. It's just a sad fact, and not one that's meant to excuse rapists. Let me be clear: Rapists are the scum of the earth, and no-one deserves to be raped. That doesn't mean you have to make rapists lives easier by behaving in a way which endangers you.

**Ensis Ferrae**

Kilkrazy wrote:
The point of blaming the victim is to enforce a particular expected social code of behaviour by the threat of the bogeyman of crime.

The question is why such victim blaming should be directed particularly at women who get raped or murdered, rather than people who get involved in car crashes, or stabbed in fights in pubs, or victimised by credit card fraud.

I honestly think that people do actually blame the victim for all of those other things you mentioned. However, rape and kidnapping cases tend to make more of the news rounds than a fender bender, or a singular person getting frauded with their credit cards. So I think that the "blame the victim" cries are in essence, louder in these more high profile instances than otherwise.

I know I am guilty... I see a car wreck, my first thought is, "musta been a woman driving"... Although, typically, if someone is stabbed at a pub, they probably did do something to deserve a reaction, whether or not that reaction was stabbing or not, of course is another thread (if you talk enough gak, you better be prepared to back it up, cause some people don't like being made a fool of)

@Albatross... I honestly thought you were quoting another Dakka user (as I skimmed the article, didn't read the entire thing), and was thinking in old Army humor, Women shouldn't have to worry about wearing high heels, because you don't wear them in the kitchen

Also, and more serious, there are stats used especially by the US military that say that the large majority of women who do get raped, are done so by a "close acquaintance", which usually means good friend, boyfriend/girlfriend, or spouse. The social idea that there's some dude running around parks at 2am in black leather jackets, with a ski mask ready for some unsuspecting woman to come briskly walking through just doesn't really exist.

**sebster**

Kilkrazy wrote:
The point of blaming the victim is to enforce a particular expected social code of behaviour by the threat of the bogeyman of crime.

A large part of it is the strange logic in which a person convinces themself that it happened to the victim because of something the victim did wrong, allowing the person to convince themselves it won't happen to them.

This is why defence teams are happy to let women of a similar age to the victim onto the jury, they're the most likely to blame the victim, to convince themselves it won't happen to them.

The question is why such victim blaming should be directed particularly at women who get raped or murdered, rather than people who get involved in car crashes, or stabbed in fights in pubs, or victimised by credit card fraud.

I've seen plenty of people say things like this, about folk getting hurt in pub fights and credit card fraud. And to some extent it is true, a lot of the people who get hurt in pub fights are willing participants who chose to go to a rough pub and get up in people's faces - it doesn't make what happened okay, but it should be thought of.

Credit card fraud is much the same, no-one deserves to have their money taken from them, but when you're responding to some Nigerian scammer's half literate message I mean come on, how sympathetic should we be?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

SilverMK2 wrote:
I think it might also come from people thinking (probably rightly) that they will probably be sent down for actually helping someone fight off an attacker.

Please list an instance in which a person was charged after coming to the aid of a victim. Not cases where people shot burglars who were running away, or beat up a thief who was already detained, but a case where simply coming to the aid of a person led to them being charged with something.

**dogma**

Women shouldn’t have to worry about wearing high heels, or having a few drinks, or walking home alone.

I have to worry about having a few drinks and walking home alone, and I'm a relatively well built guy; there's a scar on the back of my head to reinforce that notion. If women aren't worrying about that confluence of behavior, then they're not very bright.

Heels are...unfortunate. They're attractive, but they also aren't conducive to running.

**snooggums**

Albatross wrote:
When my missus goes out on the pop, I don't say 'alright love, see you at 4am, get as pissed as you like. Oh, and a little handy hint - you can save a fortune on cab-fare by simply walking home on your own.' No, instead I say 'Right, be careful, don't drink too much, and make sure you get a cab home with one of the girls.'

Anyone else do this? Or do we all just go 'ah, feth it, she'll be alright'? At the end of the day, it would be nice if the world was all sunshine and lollipops, but it fething isn't. You'd better fething act accordingly if you value your safety. Rape isn't lightning. Yes, you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but getting incredibly intoxicated and putting yourself in a very vulnerable position increases the risk of that happening by a very frightening amount. It chills me to the bone when I see the state that some girls get in when they're out on the town.

Naive utopian ideals about how the world should be don't do anything to help this situation. Young women need to behave with caution if they're going out drinking. It's just a sad fact, and not one that's meant to excuse rapists. Let me be clear: Rapists are the scum of the earth, and no-one deserves to be raped. That doesn't mean you have to make rapists lives easier by behaving in a way which endangers you.

There is a difference between suggesting that someone plan ahead for a possible conflict, and blaming them for the conflict after the fact. Giving advice ahead of time avoids a situation, blaming the victim moves the responsibility to the victim.

"You shouldn't go to the park at night, there are wolves." vs. "It's their fault they went to the park and were bitten by wolves."

**LunaHound**

This case is actually simple.
"The wolf sees in different light" think over it.

**Seaward**

I find this thread interesting, as many of the same people who were saying during the "Innocence of Muslims" threads that the filmmaker technically had a right to make the film but had a responsibility not to do so are here saying that the technical right to do something abrogates all reasonable responsibility to do otherwise.

**sebster**

Seaward wrote:
I find this thread interesting, as many of the same people who were saying during the "Innocence of Muslims" threads that the filmmaker technically had a right to make the film but had a responsibility not to do so are here saying that the technical right to do something abrogates all reasonable responsibility to do otherwise.

No, they're not. Read the actual words people are saying, please.

**Seaward**

sebster wrote:
No, they're not. Read the actual words people are saying, please.

Do they morph into other, unrelated words after a certain number of times read or something?

**sebster**

Seaward wrote:
sebster wrote:
No, they're not. Read the actual words people are saying, please.

Do they morph into other, unrelated words after a certain number of times read or something?

Not for me they don't. If that's happening to you you might want to speak to a specialist or something.

**KalashnikovMarine**

LunaHound wrote:
This case is actually simple.
"The wolf sees in different light" think over it.

Criminals and wolves are actually comparable on some level, the wolf and the criminal doesn't seek healthy, strong or dangerous prey. Not unless times have been hard and they're very hungry, they seek the weak and exposed members of the herd. Saying you have a duty to remain strong, aware and capable, or in the company of others you know you can trust, doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

Le Loup Desire, Le Loup Obtient

What the wolf wants, the wolf gets.