Good piece on recent psychology research on rape juries and rape myths

[user1471451327]

boothybarrister.co.uk/2018/05/08/rape-cases-and-juries-the-evidence-base-suggests-that-jolyon-maugham-is-right-to-be-concerned/

Very interesting thank you

Really interesting - thx - I am pleased they proved it and great minds think alike re how they went about it. However, really none of this is new to me - I suppose we now have research to back up when many of us have been saying for eons.

I really would like to know the gender split between those who revised their opinions after deliberation and those who didn't - give psychopaths are overwhelmingly male, I assume those who changed are mostly female - but I will get hold of the research and see. Extracts from reports:

The interesting part comes in the advanced analytical scrutiny of the decision-making process. There was substantial evidence found of high levels of rape bias, strongly suggesting that preconceived prejudices surrounding the issue of rape tend to have a significantly greater influence on the fairness of the trial than had previously been thought.

The research project found that among all those individuals with the identified existing biases, 13% of them changed their mind after deliberation. Deliberation, being shown to change the minds of little more than one in 10 jurors, makes the impact of these preconceptions especially significant. While it is difficult to draw a direct link between the findings of this research and miscarriages of justice when it comes to rape cases, these results would suggest that as a result of a biased panel of jurors, there is a greater risk of a verdict being arrived at that is not in accordance with the evidence.

To reiterate, analysis revealed jurors with high scores in particular psychological traits were significantly more likely to return a Not Guilty verdict than jurors who scored low in psychopathic traits, scientific evidence in itself of how juror characteristics appear to predispose jurors towards particular verdict outcomes at trial.

The research showed clearevidence of a relationship between psychological constructs and verdict outcome. It asks some very difficult questions about how impartial jurors really are in rape cases.

tl;dr abusive men protect abusive men - how many flying monkey women are involved remains a mystery for now.

Thank you, this is fascinating. As pp said, it's something known about by many people but it's good to have a study to back it up. I also want to read the detailed research.

Thank you OP.
The northern Irish rape trial really opened my eyes to how blatant the inherent misogyny of the criminal justice system is.
It’s heartening that prominent barristers are openly questioning its fitness for purpose.

Very interesting.

The criminal justice system, built originally by men for men, and then evolving into what we have today, where crime of the type generally committed by men against women and children is not working well.

I do think we need a different approach. Other countries have counrts that are investigative (I forget the word) rather than debate/combative (also forget the word - winner / loser) and the former approach allows for more nuance and also the people making teh judgements can be more specialised.

The only option for us at the moment is to start pursuing civil cases, where the burden of proof is lower, there are many barriers to this and arguments against.

Something has to happen though, the prevalence of sexual violence is appalling.

Quarks yes

The children who were abused in rotherham I think it was, being cross examined by 12 barristers (lots anyway, forget the detail) was appalling.

Then for children with guilty verdicts to be told by the comensation people that a guilty verdict in law did not mean guilty in fact (!!!!!!!!) and that they consented so they weren't going to compensate them. This is children who had seen their rapists jailed.

Yes whole thing stinks.

Men still run everything and most are not interested in interfering in each others business when it comes to sex (inc sexual violence) - it's seen as a personal matter. They only really care when the victim is v v young, v v old, or is killed, and even then there's sometimes not the outrage you might hope for. Gay men have had this issue as well - serial murderers not getting caught because the police thought oh well promiscuous druggy lifestyle, whatever. There is also "missing white girl" syndrome where police are less fussed about other children.

The law and government need to drop the male perspective and try and understand some other people's experience of life.

I also want to read the detailed research.
I found the link with psychopathic traits interesting as I have always assumed psychopaths would be more likely to rape.

Another interesting article on jury bias in rape trials:

www.thejusticegap.com/2016/09/rape-trial-influence-jury-bias-verdict-outcome/

“Importantly, this mounting body of evidence has led some researchers to speak out against the English jury, criticising recruitment procedures as having a blind faith in random selection. One prominent law professor went as far as to say that closer inspection of decision making would likely display such an ‘intolerably high degree of irrationality, prejudice, stupidity and other forms of undesirable conduct’ that the abolishment of the jury would likely be called for. However, is there an alternative? An alternative where just within those cases most at risk of these effects, highly biased jurors are screened out of the process. An example of one such crime – is rape.”

“Should the jury system in England be overhauled and abolished? Absolutely not. Should it be modernised based upon scientific evidence? Most definitely, which in turn will address this justice gap and make for fairer verdicts not just for defendants. But for victims as well.“

Thanks for these links.

The northern Irish rape trial really opened my eyes to how blatant the inherent misogyny of the criminal justice system is.

Yes, I mean, I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was THAT bad.

tl;dr abusive men protect abusive men - how many flying monkey women are involved remains a mystery for now.

Made me laugh out loud woman.

Many women, quite obviously have absorbed the training of patriarchy, and look out for others, esp being wary of 'sending an innocent man to jail'. The other part of that, is distancing themselves from the victim (believing that only 'bad girls get raped') and believing that if they conduct themselves in a good way, they will be safe from rape.

There was a rape trial in the US not that long ago, and I think it may have ended in a mis-trial (cannot recall), but one black woman on the jury stated outright that she would NOT 'send another black man to jail', and remained firm with a Not Guilty, whereas, I think nearly all the rest of the jury found the evidence so overwhelming, they went with Guilty.

There was a rape trial in the US not that long ago, and I think it may have ended in a mis-trial (cannot recall), but one black woman on the jury stated outright that she would NOT 'send another black man to jail', and remained firm with a Not Guilty, whereas, I think nearly all the rest of the jury found the evidence so overwhelming, they went with Guilty.

In fairness that is probably more about the racism - historical and current - inherent in the US judicial system than the patriarchy. If I were a black person in the US, I think I might feel similarly - who knows. thousands of black men have been lynched for the "crime" of having sex with white women - or being suspected of having sex with white women. This verdict would have to be looked at in its context.

There was a thread on this site recently about a sexual consent issue within marriage and it was eye-opening how many women struggled to define rape correctly.

The Northern Ireland rape trial was a big moment for me too - and a real starting point for conversations with my late-teen children - particularly about the reality of how the world works as opposed to how it ought to work.