Posted by Jack
Rape and how it is prosecuted is a reasonable stress test for the moral standards of any modern society. In the US 15 of 16 accused rapists will walk free. Sexual assault is on the rise in the military and civilian sector. Blacks are more likely to be victimized than white and a disproportionate number of rape suspects are non-white (48%).
- 61% of rapes/sexual assaults are not reported to the police. Those rapists, of course, never serve a day in prison.
- If the rape is reported to police, there is a 50.8% chance that an arrest will be made.
- If an arrest is made, there is an 80% chance of prosecution. If there is a prosecution, there is a 58% chance of a felony conviction.
- If there is a felony conviction, there is a 69% chance the convict will spend time in jail.
- So, even in those 39% of rapes that are reported to police, there is only a 16.3% chance the rapist will end up in prison.
- Factoring in unreported rapes, about 6% – 1 out of 16 – of rapists will ever spend a day in jail. 15 out of 16 will walk free.
Source: http://www.sarsonline.org/resources-stats/reports-laws-statics and http://www.safercampus.org/blog/2009/10/race-and-rape-keeping-racism-out-of-your-campaign/
This FBI page has stats from 1960 to 2012 for rape and other violent crimes. It shows a sharp uptick beginning around 1964 that rises gradually higher after that through the early nineties. In the past two decades the rate has declined slightly but has not fallen significantly and does not come close to the much lower rates of the early sixties. The site doesn’t chart figures prior to 1960. This page allows the user to choose years, state or states, and variables to create a chart.
I’d say the pattern suggests a major change in morals and values has greatly impacted our society.
I would say we in a war for our survival. We see a strong decline in church participation, we see public schools teaching moral relativism and liberal ideology. And we see a rise in anti-social behaviors. They are all connected – it’s cause and effect.
In my life I’ve seen a sharp rise in non-traditional family units, i.e., single mothers, teen pregnancy and widespread welfare dependency. This coincides with a new wave of contempt for traditional social values, drug abuse, higher suicide rates among teens and declining work ethics. The net result has been an acclimating to a lower standard of living with reduced expectations.
We see more and more acceptance and use of illegal drugs too! According to a recent study, as much as 8% of our doctors are high while seeing patients. 14% of construction workers admit to being high on the job. Food and beverage service workers are the worst for drug abuse, almost 26%.
Then we have divorce: The median length for a marriage in the US today is 11 years! Divorce rates are at an all time high. Do you think this could be connected to a surge in a-moral behaviors, like pornography, and promiscuity? Do you think broken homes and welfare families have led us to lower productivity and falling educational scores? I do. And this has a resulted to declining wealth in the middle class.
Our role models have radically changed and this is very telling of a society that is corrupt and degenerate. Role models are no longer or greatest political leaders, spiritual leaders, inventors, philosophers, writers or scientists. These people have been replaced by comedians mocking conservative values, open disdain for white people and the Christian religion. The “wild child” image often found millionaire teenagers is another perverted role model for our youth. Then add in rappers extolling sexual assault, denigrating women, bragging about murder, advocating gangs and criminal behavior, it has a real negative effect, especially on our minority youth creating prejudice. Hollywood has had a strong influence in spreading prejudice, moral decay, minimizing the horror of extreme violence while inflaming racial tensions.
I think we are coming apart as a society. We’re fracturing along racial, political, economic and ethnic division. We are losing the war for responsible moral behavior, just look at the pervasive corruption in our politics!
We are on a trajectory to failure. Ultimately we will no longer be a just nation, we’ll be just another footnote in history about good country that couldn’t be sustained and that eventually became a victim of our own excesses, just like the Romans.
It is hard to gauge rape stats because so many go unreported. Is rape actually increasing, or is it just being reported more often? We can’t say for sure. We do know that marital rape was legal for much of our nation’s history, and we also know that victims are more likely to be raped by someone they know than a stranger. Most people view rape as a violent act committed by hardened criminals, but that’s not always the case; often times it happens because men aren’t taught what real consent is. We’ve made a lot of progress, but misogyny is still a powerful force in all walks of life, even in “liberal” Hollywood. Consent is a topic rarely touched on in sex ed classes, which typically either focus on abstinence-only or take a clinical, biology-driven approach to the topic without giving kids any tools to navigate the emotional minefield that comes with sexual activity. We still live in a society where boys are taught they gain value the more women they sleep with, while girls are taught they lose value the more men they sleep with. And we wonder why rape happens? We teach women how to protect themselves from rape instead of putting the responsibility of stopping rape on men. Of course, men can be the victims of rape, too, and women can be the perpetrators, which is why we need to do more to promote understanding of consent for both genders early on.
Chris, you make a valid point about the statistics, calling into question, are we actually seeing more rapes or simply more rapes being reported? I think both, but it’s hard to prove. However, I think most people in healthcare and law enforcement would agree that we’ve made pretty good progress educating women that society is far less likely to question the victim and what she did, than ever before. In contrast, we see Arab countries still punishing the female victim to the point where woman are wise not to report the rape. And forget a male victim reporting it, it’s even worse for them. So, it’s safe to say we are light years ahead of those countries and this includes a very modern Saudi Arabia. But, the fact that we still have so many sexual predators among us speaks to the kind of society we’ve become and how hyper-sexualized our movies and even TV programs are compared to just 20 years ago. You said, “We still live in a society where boys are taught they gain value the more women they sleep with, while girls are taught they lose value the more men they sleep with. And we wonder why rape happens?” And you have to wonder where that behavior is generated? It’s all around us and porn, and the dehumanizing women in movies as nothing more than sexual beings is a major problem.
One thing is certain, when it comes to our children the cycle of sexual violence must be broken and those predators must be dealt with in the most extreme ways, even if it means neutering them. That’s far more humane than locking them away for life and a lot cheaper too!
The Hoover Institute at Stanford published a paper about the necessity for morality in a free society. I you think about it it’s just common sense, free people must be responsible as they direct their lives if everyone is to remain free. They must also raise their children to be moral”
That was in 1997. We didn’t make the changes but the voices are getting louder and more numerous.
Women seem to think our society is risky and they are doing something about it:
Some think gay men represent the highest incidents of unreported rape.
I can’t say I know a lot about how sex is taught in our schools. I imagine it varies from school to school, district to district, and state to state. I have heard that young men are and have been inundated with warnings about no meaning no. The consequences in publicized date rape cases should act as education and a warning. If anything we send mixed messages; we can’t instruct them to abstain but we can instruct them in the application of a condom. We tell them to “be careful” and yet tolerate and fill the environment with examples of careless and even reckless behavior that we applaud and reward.
And girls today are instructed about their right to say no but are taught to send the same confusing conflicting messages…let’s face it, women are the bait in most cases when predators go fishing. They can help themselves a lot by choosing to dress and comport themselves as ladies. I’ve been told by two high school boys (sophomore-junior) that they are pushed by the girls to engage in sex…girls are the aggressors. I’ve heard conversations in fast food places at lunch time that tell me these girls are not getting a smart message.
But it isn’t just morality regarding sex. It isn’t just percentages that tell the story about rape. The problem goes to an overall acceptance of lower standards: lying, petty theft, blowing friends off, breaking agreements, sloppiness, loose language, and in some neighborhoods even murder are tolerated and accepted as “normal” behavior. Kids want and need adult guidance. Boys and girls need certainty about the boundaries and boys need to be taught what it is to be a responsible man and girls responsible women…they won’t learn it on their own.
It’s an uphill battle for those who are trying to teach good values to their own kids.
I’m encouraged by a few folks in Hollywood. Some of them having come from a past filled with bad choices themselves are beginning to put good messages in the movies. These movies seem to do much better at the box office too.
Dewey…let’s take your comments seriously this time and look at them one by one.
Dewey: Church? Really lets take a look at rape and the Catholic Church shall we? We all know why the pope really quit.
Editor: You raised a question saying lets take a look at rape and the Catholic Church and you just stopped. You didn’t offer anything. And no we don’t know why the Pope stepped down, what do you know and what’s your proof? Again, nothing of any substance offered, just blather.
Dewey: More rapes are being reported. In the 1960′s your family shunned you for reporting it. Then Conservatives would start in with the “You asked for it” blah blah
Editor: Stereotyping a political bent is absurd, it has nothing to do with politics, it is about ignorance on the part of anyone who would immediately blame the victim. But, you seem so obsessed with hate for conservative politics you try to weave them into anything that is evil or wrong.
Dewey: No liberty and freedom is not telling all females how to dress ect.
Editor: Dewey you stopped short of making a complete assessment of what liberty is all about. Liberty is not without responsibly and most adults understand what I mean by that. But, I’ll explain it in more detail for you. If you choose to bar-b-que steak near the grizzly bears in the woods that’s your free choice! But, don’t expect grizzly bears to modify their behavior – expect dinner guests. Or I could say, you have a free choice to walk through the back alleys in America’s worst cities after midnight, but it’s reasonable to expect significant consequences for your high risk behaviors.
Dewey: Conservatives seem to want to control people, really big government interfering in women’s healthcare, how they dress, what religion you worship,…..
Editor: No Dewey you have that exactly backwards, you could not be more wrong if you tried. The oddball, useless and sometimes costly laws that limit freedom and attempt to control people typically do not come from conservatives. A conservative believes in limited government, only the bare minimum of laws necessary, they abhor government intrusion and promote things that will enhance opportunity, freedom and less regulation and taxation while subscribing to personal responsibility and accountability.
Dewey: Freedom is not conservative rule
Editor: Actually it is, it’s one of their cornerstone values.
Dewey: How about hold men accountable for their actions, A man who blames how a women was dressed, or how she made him feel is a controlling coward …A Sick criminal who needs to be altered ….. this is the 21st century,
Editor: Accountability for one’s actions is reasonable. I didn’t understand what your meant after that?
Dewey: “No liberty and freedom is not telling all females how to dress ect.”
Expressing an opinion is not establishing law. Advice is not controlling and suggests support of freedom.
Creating a phony lawsuit, for which the so-called victim later recants, in order to establish the right to abortion bypasses the legislative process. If anyone has been forcing their beliefs it is the feminists who used their sex to intimidate a law into existence. Women at the time boldly stated that if given the right to take the lives of their unborn children the choice to abort would be RARE! That’s because women of the day still had a sense of right and wrong…still valued human life and the reproductive system…still had a sense of shame when they had done something irresponsible! 56.8 million abortions later, the most important moral promise for choice shows they weren’t serious. The number each year is in decline due to persuasion and not manipulation of the law and our legislative process. (This paragraph has been edited to restore the link and my original structure and intent)
Grow up Dewey and learn to read for comprehension. Your ability to tell the difference between those who want to control and will lie and manipulate to get their way and those who are willing to win the argument in a fair contest is in serious doubt.
Yes that’s criticism, not name calling, and yes it is offered with the highest of intentions.
I could not agree more…grow up Dewey and better yet…wise up. -Jack
Dewey I don’t really know why I took the trouble, but I looked up your, “Really lets take a look at rape and the Catholic Church shall we? We all know why the pope really quit.” So I took your challenge! It’s too bad you didn’t invest the time I just did or you may not have wrote something so dumb.
Here’s your answer Dewey and no where in this critique is there any mention of rape. From the liberal BBC: “Benedict XVI shocked the world in February when he became the first pope to resign in almost 600 years. But attention shifted quickly to the succession, and the election of the new Pope, Francis. Amid the drama, one question was never fully answered – why did Benedict quit?
Pope Benedict’s official resignation statement offered his waning physical and mental powers as the explanation, but it’s long been suspected there was more to it. And my inquiries have confirmed that.
I went to visit the Nigerian Cardinal, Francis Arinze at his apartment overlooking St Peter’s. He’s one of the most senior figures in the church and knows the Vatican like the back of his hand. He was even, for a short time in March of this year, mooted as a possible successor to Pope Benedict. And he was one of the select handful of senior church officials who were in the Pope’s Apostolic Palace when he broke the news to them personally.
I raised the subject of the scandals that had preceded the Pope’s bombshell decision and, in particular the Vatileaks affair in which the Pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, had leaked confidential documents exposing Vatican power struggles. Could that have been a factor in his resignation? His answer was unexpected.
Continue reading the main story
‘I have had to recognize my incapacity’
After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry… In today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.
Resignation statement, 11 February 2013
“It is legitimate for a person to speculate and say ‘Maybe,’ because some of his documents were taken secretly. It could be one of the reasons,” he told me.
“Maybe he was so pained that his own butler leaked out so many letters that a journalist was able to write a book. It can be one of the reasons. I don’t expect him to be enjoying that event.”
In the Vatican, young ambitious members of the church are advised to “hear a lot, see everything and say nothing”. That such a senior figure should essentially countenance a departure from the official line is significant.
Essentially, Pope Benedict was a teaching Pope, a theologian and intellectual. “His idea of hell would be to be sent on a one-week management training seminar,” one insider told me. His misfortune was to accede to the papacy at a time that there was a power vacuum, in which a number of middle-ranking members of the Roman curia, the Church’s civil service, had turned into “little Borgias” as another clerical official put it.
Don’t take my word for it, this assessment comes from the highest source – the current leader of the Church. And Pope Francis does not mince his words. “The court is the leprosy of the papacy,” he has said. He has described the curia as “narcissistic” and “self-referential”. This is what Joseph Ratzinger had to deal with.
Over a period of time dating back to final years of Pope John Paul II, the heart of the HQ of the Roman Church had become dominated by infighting cliques. This was what the Pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele said he wanted to expose by photocopying and leaking all those documents.
Gabriele – bottom centre – in the Popemobile with Benedict XVI Benedict XVI pardoned his former butler Paolo Gabriele (centre) But Gabriele said his relationship with Pope Benedict was like “father and son”. So why did he act in a way that was sure to embarrass a man he was clearly close to?
“He said he had seen many ugly things inside the Vatican. At a certain point he couldn’t take it any more,” says his lawyer Cristiana Arru, clutching her rosary beads, in only her second ever public interview. “And so he looked for a way out. He says he saw lies being told. He thought that the Pope was being kept in the dark regarding key events.”
Gabriele was found guilty of “aggravated theft” and spent three months in custody before being pardoned by the Pope. But that was not the end of it. The Church’s leader set up an inquiry into the whole affair.
Three Cardinals produced a 300-page report. It was meant to be kept under lock and key, but a leading Italian daily claimed it had been briefed on its contents. The result? More embarrassing leaks, this time with claims of a network of gay priests exerting “inappropriate influence” inside the Vatican.
The headaches continued to mount for the German Pope. In many journalistic endeavours, “follow the money” is good advice for getting to grips with what is really going on, and it applies to the Vatican too. One of the most eyebrow-raising stories we encountered involved an annual Nativity scene in St Peter’s Square. For years, deals were struck in which the Vatican paid several times the market rate. When a whistleblower tried to reform the system, officials in the papal court persuaded a hapless Pope Benedict to promote him to a role 4,000 miles from Rome.