Advertisement

News

Following the money on sexual assault

During the 11 years it took for me to successfully sue the Toronto Police Service for its negligence and discrimination while investigating my rape, I often thought of myself as a cash register for the legal profession. 

Let’s all think about that. Why, we could even say rape pays. 

Personally, I believe that rape/sexual assault is a job-creation industry for too many of our institutions, including some of the feminist ones and especially the legal ones.

Certainly it has massive economic returns and spinoffs. Every 911 call, every videotaped interview, charge filed or unfounded every jury struck, translator appointed, rape kit taken, DNA specimen analyzed every stakeout, bail hearing, lockup, transcript every computer analysis, defence argued, judgment handed down, plea bargained, sentence served, parole hearing every print article, TV program, film or radio broadcast about the crime – they all result in jobs done and salaries paid. 

Then there is the collusion of the medical profession that diagnoses and treats women as if rape were an illness, like the flu. Social work and other “helping” lines of employment also get financial support to provide services to women who have been sexually assaulted. 

We know that capitalism requires crime in order to function, that the prison industrial complexes that drive the economies of entire cities require offenders, particularly those who are black or indigenous. But we seldom use that optic to appreciate the economics of sexual assault. Nor do we apply it to the economics of colonialism on which the North American and other capitalist continents are built. 

At a sexual assault conference I attended last year in Winnipeg, an indigenous elder cautioned us not to abandon ourselves to the construct of consent in legislation addressing sexual assault. 

She reminded us that ours is a country built on the lack of consent that indigenous nations did not consent to invasion and genocide or theft of their land. Nor did Africans consent to the inhumanity of slavery in Canada and the United States, just as refugees do not consent to leaving their countries but are driven out in large part by capitalist interests. Rape was and is a tool of conquest and control in those atrocities, and continues as such in the West. And it continues to pay off. 

The utter failure of current sexual assault law is best captured by its under 1 per cent conviction rate for all women who report the crime to the police. That’s about on a par with the number of police officers convicted for shooting down black citizens. 

Noted statistician Holly Johnson used Statistics Canada data to determine that in Trends In Police And Court Processing Of Sexual Assault. Her conclusion includes sexual assault reports that were not believed by police, those dropped by the complainant and those the police believed but lacked sufficient evidence to lay charges for. 

A conviction rate of less than 1 per cent should be more than enough motivation to fuel a government and legal transformation of current sexual assault law. Enough for feminists, activists, legal and other academics to revolt, but not so much.

Instead, the impetus for women to report grows the fancy that they will find justice persists. We continue to turn our heads from the crime, our attention triggered when what are supposed to be watershed cases like those involving Bill Cosby and Jian Ghomeshi are in the headlines, and for a while we are all aware and indignant. Then we move on, secure in our conviction that something is being done by someone somewhere and things are better than they were before. Then we hit repeat.

Jane Doe is a sexual assault author, educator and activist. 

news@nowtoronto.com | @nowtoronto

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted