Why ignoring indecent exposure is deadly

[IwantToRetire]

I haven't see a thread about this, but am really posting as I heard Lady Angiolini being interviewed after her report came out about Wayne Couzens. The interviewer, perhaps obviously asked why the police had let someone known as the rapist to continue to be in the police.

She said they had not found anyone who had said or had every heard him called that, but that everyone knew about his consistent indecent exposure. Which she felt, as others have also said, is a common indicator of a man who is likely to commit an act of sexual violence against a woman.

Lady Angiolini makes many important recommendations about police vetting, but about two thirds of her report focuses on a long-ignored issue: that masturbatory indecent exposure is both a serious offence in itself and often a gateway to even graver crimes. Four months after scaring that cyclist, Wayne Couzens abducted and murdered Sarah Everard.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-ignoring-indecent-exposure-is-deadly-mgl098582

Do the police / CPS even bother to pursue men who expose themselves or is just seen as a minor crime.

I thought it had now become well known that is was a sign of a potentially dangerous man.

Or is it just another of those issues that are ignored because only women are impacted by it? Or one of those boys will be boys responses?

Article can be read here https://archive.ph/Z6sVv

And at my all-girls' school too.

To be honest, at the time we mostly just flocked to the railings and cackled unkindly at him until one of the staff bustled over and gave him a piece of her mind. But we were kids. The adults should have been taking it more seriously.

I think the problem is that despite issues around VAW being put on the public agenda by 70s Women's Liberationists, on one level attitudes towards women haven't really changed.

Just as in 70s women experiencing violence at home would not get police help because "it was just a domestic" the same with flashing.

Men as the perpetrators are never seen as the problem and that they should change. Its always about women having to accommodate men's aggressive behaviour towards women.

And I think that "flashing" has always been treated like that.

Not sure of the statistics but suspect the level of male violence against women is just as high as it was 50 years ago.

It would be fascinating to find out how many women vs men have experienced this. And how old they were at first

Mild sexual assault, twice. At 11 a 15 year old shoved my hand down his pants and tried to make me rub his dick.

At 16 I and a friend went backpacking. One night we slept in a barn next to a pub with the landlady's permission. A pub regular joined us later and asked if he could sleep between us since it was raining outside and it was a long ride home. We assented but then both felt his hands on our buttocks...

We told him to stop, then we all fell asleep! No further outrages were perpetrated on us, as far as we know.

Every woman I know has a story to tell.

Yes, Libby's was the case that brought home to me how seriously the police need to take exhibitionism offences. In her case, the murderer had previously broken into women's houses, stealing their sex toys etc. Exhibitionism and housebreaking both involve transgressing social norms and boundaries, which can then lead to more serious crimes. There was a Canadian study which found that breaking and entering is the most common first offence for sex offenders. https://theconversation.com/how-police-underestimate-break-ins-as-gateway-crimes-for-sex-predators-95102

Paul Britton*, the forensic psychiatrist, wrote in his book Jigsaw Man that he struggled to get cops to accept that flashers and knickers pinchers should be taken much more seriously.

*He was discredited after the Colin Stagg case but according to him the police went beyond his recommendations at the time.

Happened to me in my 20s, while waiting at a bus stop in the dark. The police could not have been less interested and it was obvious that they were going to make no effort to find him, even though it was a city centre so, even back in the day, there would have been CCTV in the area.

I must have been conditioned by the 70’s a bloke did this to me and my mates on the way home from the youth club, we all fell about laughing. But there again we were in a group.

Also in the seventies i worked in a shop and allegedly a bloke put his penis on the counter top at the till and the cashier slapped it with a fly swatter (This was in canada, where fly swatters were normal things to have)

dont know what i think about what i have just said, help!!!!

First conviction for cyberflashing:

Essex man, 39, jailed for cyber-flashing in first of its kind case in England and Wales
https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2024-03-19/man-becomes-first-in-england-to-be-jailed-for-cyber-flashing

Not sure whether the impact is the sameas in real life, but glad it has been taken seriously.

Interesting the Guardian headline said "person" rather than man.