I’ve written a (typically) long dissection of Cameron’s speech on the subject of rape, which I’ve posted over at the Ministry (under a self imposed ‘rule’ of trying to keep the really long articles and occasional forays in swearblogging on my own turf), the short version being that Cameron’s proposals are nothing like what they’ve been cracked up to be in some quarters.

The article is what it is, judge it for yourself. That’s not what this post is about, rather its starting point is a couple of the comments I’ve received on that piece over the last day or so, for example:

6% of all rapes that go for trial are successful convictions.

That means the jury reject the evidence of 94% of women who make the allegations.

Looks as if the full circle has turned and justice has finally seen through the sexual fantasies of neurotic women.

And

However you waffle and weave your tissue of monstrous injustice what is being imposed is the refusal of justice to male defendants until “justice” is ensured for the the liberal media`s disgusting little constituency of drunken tarts who career about our city centres every weekend too pissed to stand up straight but with “100% recall” of events that can see some poor man banged up for years.

Nice, eh? Not to mention ignorant, antediluvian and just plain dumb.

Yeah, dumb. Dumb as in stupid, idiotic, moronic, couldn’t get the point if you stuck a pencil up their nose and wrote it on the base of their frontal lobe-type dumb.

One of the perennial causes of dispute between the genders whenever the issue of rape and the current, depressingly low, conviction rate raises its head is the fear that some men harbour that the price of securing more convictions will be the weakening of the presumption of innocence. Depending on the proposed solutions being floated – and ignoring the neurotic views of the usual coterie of out-and-out misogynists, of which you’ve just seen a couple of prime examples – there can be some justification for such anxieties.

The fact is that we already know what’s needed to raise conviction rates, significant medium-to-long investment in specialist rape investigation and prosecution services of the kind that in some US cities have succeed in raising conviction rates above 80%.

Such investment does not, however, come cheap, which is one reason why it isn’t happening (or being promised by Cameron) nor does it provide the kind of quick-fix, sound-bite driven, novelty headlines of which our current political classes and mainstream media are too much enamoured, which is the other. Long term investment in services of the kind that will deliver, but may take 3-5 years (or more) before their impact is fully reflected in conviction rates does not an eye-catching headline make, certainly not in Daily Mail/Daily Express/Sun* (delete as applicable) country. What does grab the headlines is promises of tougher sentences, ‘re-balancing’ the criminal justice system and, in the case of rape, tinkering with the legal basis of ‘consent’, which is nightmare whichever way to come at it, the very kind of thing that’s guaranteed to stoke up male anxieties about false accusations, wrongful convictions, and a judicial system that’s loaded against them.

What no one ever seems to get around to pointing out is that there is nothing quite so damaging to the interests of men than the current state of affairs, in which a mere 5.7% of reported rapes result in convictions. That men, as much as women, have a clear and vested interest is seeing conviction rates for rape rise to levels closer to those one finds in other offences (75-80%+).

It is, I would contend, a matter of fact that there are very few more damaging allegations that any (innocent) man could face than that of having committed rape – the only accusation that most would consider to be worse would be one relating to a sex offence against a child.

For all that rape is under-reported and subject to desperately poor conviction rates, there are cases in which mistakes (usually of identity) are made and there are, sadly, occasions on which men are subjected to false allegations, with the result that an innocent man stands accused not only before a court but before his friends, family, neighbours, colleagues and, if the case in question catches the eye of the media, before the usual tabloid media circus, with all the prurient interest in the minutiae of his life and the intrusions on privacy that entails.

You would, naturally, hope never to find yourself in that situation but if, by some mischance, you did you have no option but to place your trust and faith in judge and jury and hope that justice prevails and an acquittal follows.

And there you have a problem.

What value is there is being acquitted of an offence in which convictions rates are so poor that they create the impression that a significant number of those who are accused of rape are actually guilty as charged but getting away with it because of the failings of the system?

Justice is, and can only be properly served, if its understood by all that the criminal justice system works as it should in convicting the guilty and exonerating the innocent, that people can be confident that the system gets it right if not all the time – there will always be some mistakes and errors because nothing is ever perfect – at least on the vast majority of occasions; often enough for people to believe genuinely that mistakes are rare and occur only in exceptional circumstances.

Without that confidence, what can an acquittal really mean if not that there’s a possibility if not, with rape convictions at such a low level, even a likelihood that a ‘not guilty’ verdict may be tainted to point at which its rendered near meaningless.

To read/hear what some men have to say for themselves whenever rape rises up the political agenda, even those who can (and do) articulate their concerns reasonably and without recourse of misogynistic remarks, one might think that its absolutely against the interests of men, all men, to see conviction rates for rape improved and rapists placed where they should be – behind bars.

Nothing could be further from the truth, just as nothing could be more damaging to the interests an innocent man who finds themselves wrongly or erroneous accused of rape than the current situation in which conviction rates are so low that its impossible to see how anyone could think that justice is genuinely being done, for women or for men.

About the author
'Unity' is a regular contributor to Liberal Conspiracy. He also blogs at Ministry of Truth.
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