'Rape should carry a mandatory life sentence' - Herald article, Neil Mackay

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www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/23154534.rape-carry-mandatory-life-sentence/

Can't find an archived version. I am in Scotland at present, so read it in print. Strongly agree with what he says, especially these bits.

... Thirty years reporting on the cruelties humans inflict on each other has left me with a few simple beliefs: firstly, our jails are filled with the wrong people.

Get the sex workers, drug addicts and shoplifters out of prison. They're victims of circumstance - often poverty. There but for the grace of God, go I. Jail isn't were they should be. They need social workers, not turnkeys.

Another belief is this: all crimes which cause deliberate, indelible, life-altering harm to another human being should carry a mandatory life term, just like murder. ...

Those three decades as a crime reporter taught me another lesson: some offending is hardwired, particularly sexual offending.

You cannot "cure" rapists or paedophiles. You cannot "reprogramme" them. ...

... we can recognise that there are certain acts which are so beyond the boundaries of society that the offender deserves the harshest of punishment and exclusion from the society they've offended against. Rape is one of those acts, as is murder.

Attempting to attach a photo of the full article.

Thank you for sharing this excellent piece!

I've come around to this view over the last few years, too. I hope it gathers momentum in policy-making circles.

I wonder, though. Is the risk that there would be even fewer convictions with harsher sentencing?

Unfortunately this would be a likely side effect.

I agree with him, but rape convictions are low enough as it is....

I can't read that, but does he mean all rapes? Does he think that every rape should be punished in the same way? I can't agree with that. I also don't agree that no rapist can learn not to re-offend.
I don't believe that rape should be equated to murder, either. It's reminiscent of the view that a woman who has been raped is better off dead.

This. There is good evidence that harsh (I know it's not but bear with me) sentencing for offences makes conviction rates fall. Particularly with an offence like rape where there is already an issue with perception of victims.

What it needs is proper monitoring after release. And actually, it needs a really good look at whether the current system is any good for sex offences. A jury system with 'beyond a reasonable doubt' as the burden doesn't work. Specially trained, three judges, somewhere between balance of probabilities and beyond a reasonable doubt? Women being able to lodge complaints without fear and that being taken into account when men are accused? Letting juries know if there are several prior convictions. There's ways of doing it.

Yes, the focus should be on the prosecution of rape. That is the big weakness in the system currently.

My biggest concern about this is that if the penalty for rape was the same as that for murder a significant proportion of rapists would actually be encouraged to murder their victims because a) they'd be no worse off and b) given that their victim is silenced they are potentially better off.

Sorry, but I do not agree that rape should have a mandatory life sentence.

I dont think once a rapist always a rapist. That just feeds into the old trope of some men can’t control their urges.

I don’t think it should be conflated with murder, because that as a pp also said, brings up the patriarchal view of rape being a fate worse than death or as bad as death and links a woman’s value to her sexual purity.

Interesting point. A life sentence is still different from a death sentence, in that it's reversible (to some extent, I know not completely), if further evidence comes to light.

But I see MrsTerryPratchett notes there is already evidence that harsher sentences make it less likely to convict.

Yes that is my concern too.

This has always been my concern too.

It may be the case that some rapes occur because not all men understood consent but are capable of learning.
I'm not sure mandatory life sentences for rape are the right answer because of the various concerns already expressed. Longer sentences with rigorous tests before being allowed out under license might help?

There could be the option of a life licence with a recommendation of a few years actual time. Which means monitoring for the rest of their life but not being incarcerated. You can also recall someone to prison on a life licence for lesser things. For example, you could have restrictions on things like internet use (violent porn) and recall if it was broken.

I worked with a great psychologist when I worked with sex offenders and there are very clear indicators of a built up to offending. More substance use, porn use, watching very violent media etc. You could monitor these if you were inclined.

I think the actual issue is that the people with power and money don't care if women are raped.

I think the actual issue is that the people with power and money don't care if women are raped.

I don’t think that’s the issue. I think it’s a hard crime to prove and that is where most of the difficulty in securing a conviction arises.

There could be the option of a life licence with a recommendation of a few years actual time. Which means monitoring for the rest of their life but not being incarcerated. You can also recall someone to prison on a life licence for lesser things. For example, you could have restrictions on things like internet use (violent porn) and recall if it was broken.

Yes, that sounds sensible.

It might not be the whole issue but it is one of them. The conviction rates are shocking with no real political will to address even the smallest changes which could help.

They're both issues.

I think this misses a lot in its lack of nuance. And nuance is always going to be needed. Especially as other PPs have pointed out, if you raise the bar that high that jurys will hesitate to convict ever (they're nearly there as it is).

(And I agree with his point about the over representation of the highly, repeatedly disadvantaged in our incarcerated population but there is some concern that some (and not in any way all) sex offence perpetrators are themselves those who were abused and require support, therapy etc.)

I guess it really comes down to your position on prisons and punishment too. Are they for retribution, for the protection of the public, to prevent reoffending or what?

If we want to prevent rape then we need to focus on the potential perpetrators before they hurt anyone. We need to tackle the route causes of sexual violence by changing the social narrative around women, girls, sex and by tackling toxic masculinity. We need to protect safe single sex spaces, we need to encourage and enable everyone to have boundaries around their bodies and relationships. We need to work with children and young people to understand the issues around consent. We need to work with the police and probation services and with the cjs to ensure that we acknowledge and understand the likelihood of a pattern or escalation of sexual offending and that we resource adequately programmes for perpetrators at earlier stages.

Focussing on what we do after the event is largely pointless imo. (Especially given what we know about the rates of even reporting of incidents to the police, let alone prosecution, conviction and sentencing...)

Did anything suggest how to interrupt that buildup, MrsPratchett? Does it start in the teens, for instance? Do some societies manage male adolescence better?

Did anything suggest how to interrupt that buildup, MrsPratchett? Does it start in the teens, for instance? Do some societies manage male adolescence better?

This was in men who already had a conviction. It would be interesting to see if it's the case in a 'normal' population. The idea was that men who were building up to an offence were slowing giving themselves excuses (I was drunk) and reducing dissonance (look, every man is violent).

Almost always these men had violent and/or abusive childhoods. The one thing we could do to reduce male violence is reduce male violence. The second best thing to do is financially and legally empower women so they can leave earlier and protect their children better.

Yeah, not buying it. I’ve read too many cases where women have been brutally raped and the rapist still gets off, or like that case where a man’s defence was that he fucking fell and his penis accidentally went into in her vagina:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3361640/Saudi-millionaire-cleared-raping-teenager-telling-court-accidentally-penetrated-18-year-old-tripped-fell-her.html.

People don’t give a shit that women are raped.

Way to give rapists an incentive to murder victims as well, or at least threaten violence if they report.

Rape takes place in a variety of situations, it's pretty much always best to give judges discretion in sentencing, along with training to counter stereotypes about rape.

Yeah that all sounds very 'free ice cream for breakfast..' - I'd settle for something within grasp of sense and reality like 'let's try and get more than 1% of rapes successfully prosecuted' and 'let's investigate the institutional misogyny of the police and CPS AND successfully do something to change it', and 'lets not stuff serious sex offenders (those terrible men who have managed to destroy women's lives and injure their bodies seriously enough, sadistically enough and often multiply enough to get a prison sentence) in women's prisons to crack on injuring and destroying lives cos mustn't have them feeling sad and unvalidated.

And if sexual violence is 'hard wired' into some people then how can they be held culpable? If they don't have a choice then why is it a crime?

Really stupid article