Wishing To Not think So Alone

This blog is dedicated to the hundred of women who know the pain of rape and abuse. This is a place to begin to explore the complexities within the minds of those who have abuse. Those who are survivors trying to reframe what is left of a mind that survives the chances of being raped. The thoughts that replay and the questions all survivors have in trying to understand the mind of a rapist or pedophile, those who protect them, and those who can stand up against it. Rise above the abuse to find a solution so that future women, children, little girls never have to know the generational pain that they where saved from.

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Crime and clarity

Whether sex is rape depends partly on where it happens

Sep 1st 2012 |From the print edition

DEFINING rape, or trying to, is a sure-fire way to start a row. Does age matter? (In some countries, sex with minors is automatically rape; in others, it is not.) Must it involve violence? What kind of sex is involved? Is the victim by definition a woman and the perpetrator a man? Do time, location or the parties’ sexual histories play any role?

Views and laws vary hugely between countries and cultures. In South Africa, where four out of ten women say their first sexual experience was rape, the polygamous president, Jacob Zuma, believes “you cannot just leave a woman if she is ready.” To deny such a woman sex, would be “tantamount to rape”, he told the judge in his 2006 rape trial (he was acquitted).

In this section

Crime and clarity

Letting the baby dance

Clean plates

Reprints

Related topics

United States

England

Sweden

Crime

Julian Assange

In America, where an average of 232 rapes are reported to the police every day, such views would attract instant condemnation. But rape is controversial there too: in an argument about abortions for rape victims, Todd Akin, a Missouri Republican, spoke of “legitimate” rape (which critics took to mean that he thought some rapes were bogus). President Barack Obama countered that “rape is rape”. Political rhetoric (and gaffes) aside, the legal position is that America has no nationwide definition of rape. The federal code refers to “aggravated sexual abuse”; rape definitions vary by state, for example on whether force must have been used.

Across the Atlantic, the definition of rape is at the heart of the row about Julian Assange, the Australian founder of WikiLeaks. Swedish prosecutors want to question him regarding complaints brought by two women. He had previously had consensual sex with one of them. The other says she agreed to sex but only with a condom. One complaint is of rape, two of sexual molestation and one of coercion. Mr Assange has won asylum from Ecuador (he is holed up in its London embassy). President Rafael Correa says that Mr Assange’s alleged conduct would not count as rape in Latin America.

George Galloway, an MP for Britain’s far-left Respect Party, said that even if the Swedish women’s complaints were true they did not constitute rape. He argued: “When you go to bed with somebody, take off your clothes and have sex with them and then fall asleep, you’re already in the sex game with them.” Mr Assange’s behaviour might be “really sordid and bad sexual etiquette”, he said, but to call it rape would “bankrupt the term of all meaning.” (Many condemned his comments, including his own party leader.)

Although it usually counts as a safe country with high regard for women’s rights, Sweden has one of the highest rates of reported rape (see chart). This is bit of a puzzle: the most likely explanation is that Swedish women feel particularly confident in reporting sexual assaults, whereas women elsewhere keep quiet. Some of Mr Assange’s defenders decry the Swedish law as too sweeping. But Sweden, like many countries, counts sex with an unconsenting but sleeping woman (regardless of prior relations) as rape: that is at issue in Mr Assange’s case. The physical definition of rape varies too: English law defines it only as non-consensual penetration of any of three orifices by a penis. Elsewhere the crime includes other kinds of sexual assault.

Rape within marriage used to be an oxymoron. Now most Western countries have criminalised it (as England did in 1991). But in China and many Muslim countries, it is still not against the law. In others it is technically illegal but rarely prosecuted. Rape can even lead to wedlock in some Muslim countries, where charges are dropped if a rapist marries his victim.

Sharia law can make it hard for the victim to prove what happened. It typically demands a confession from the rapist or four male witnesses. In some Muslim countries, including Bangladesh and Somalia, rape victims may themselves end up being punished (including by flogging or stoning) for taking part in illicit sex. Some say that three-quarters of women in Pakistan’s jails are rape victims.

Rape laws also determine whether consensual sexual activity involving young people is legal. The first recorded law on this was in England in 1275, which made it an offence to have sex (with or without her consent) with a “maiden within age”. This was interpreted as meaning below the age of marriage, at that time 12 (Shakespeare’s Juliet was 13 at the time of her romance with Romeo). Most countries now set the age of consent between 15 and 18 (sometimes higher for men than women) though it is as low as 13 in Spain. In most countries, a minor cannot legally consent to sex with an adult, though laws vary. Some countries set rules about the permitted age gap in a relationship involving a young person; in others it is irrelevant.

This leads to a host of legal quirks. A 17-year-old and a 15-year-old can have legal sex in one European Union country (Denmark) but commit a crime if they canoodle in Britain (though in practice the risk of prosecution would be minimal).

Perhaps the most highly charged issue of all is the roles of men and women. Though rape is overwhelmingly (and, some would argue, intrinsically) a male-on-female crime, women may also sometimes be charged with sex-assaults on men. In Zimbabwe last year three women, said by police to be part of a nationwide syndicate, were put on trial for allegedly kidnapping and drugging men and then forcing them to have sex in order to collect their semen in condoms for use in rituals that claimed to make people wealthy. This year a woman in the Australian city of Adelaide was charged with rape after breaking into a man’s home and forcing him to perform oral sex.

More often men are the victims of attacks by other men. According to one estimate, 70,000 American male prisoners are raped each year. Male victims of rape in countries such as Congo are gaining more attention. Amid huge numbers of rapes of women there, men’s mental and physical injuries have long escaped notice (and some who fled to Uganda for treatment have faced prosecution for homosexuality). For them and countless others, wrangles about the exact definition of rape are beside the point.

From the print edition: International

http://www.economist.com/node/21561883

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#its #all #a #about #the #silver shoes

[minwagethinkingcritically]

I find it astonishing that those who claim to believe in a all Wholly Good God believe that it would destroy us or send a Anti Christ to test us… The test is trusting in above all the power of love…

There has always been evil on this planet and always will be with the greed of man! What kind of...

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States vs. Federal Laws

If the sates has the ultimate say in theory regarding state powers and regulations of its people, what do you do when the federal government begins breaking its own rules and laws for their own power and greed? Can you trust a federal government that has more interest in gaining power than abiding by its own constitution? and If you have a federal government full of people denying the states there rights in power why do they not have take social responsibility for there actions though they will make a civilian pay the price in less than two seconds? How do you correct a corrupted government? How do we the People get our freedoms back and claimed liberties found in the ideals and theories of the constitution and all that it stood for?

  Nullification (U.S. Constitution)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Nullification, in United States constitutional history, is a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law which that state has deemed unconstitutional. The theory of nullification has never been legally upheld;[1] rather, the Supreme Court has rejected it.[2]

The theory of nullification is based on a view that the States formed the Union by an agreement (or "compact") among the States, and that as creators of the federal government, the States have the final authority to determine the limits of the power of that government. Under this, the compact theory, the States and not the federal courts are the ultimate interpreters of the extent of the federal government's power. Under this theory, the States therefore may reject, or nullify, federal laws that the States believe are beyond the federal government's constitutional powers. The related idea of interposition is a theory that a state has the right and the duty to "interpose" itself when the federal government enacts laws that the state believes to be unconstitutional. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison set forth the theories of nullification and interposition in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in 1798. A more extreme assertion of state sovereignty is the related action of secession, by which a state terminates its political affiliation with the Union.

The theory of nullification has been rejected repeatedly by the courts. The courts have found that under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, federal law is superior to state law, and that under Article III of the Constitution, the federal judiciary has the final power to interpret the Constitution. Therefore, the power to make final decisions about the constitutionality of federal laws lies with the federal courts, not the states, and the states do not have the power to nullify federal laws.

Between 1798 and the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, several states threatened or attempted nullification of various federal laws, including the Supreme Court of Wisconsin's ruling in 1854 that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was unconstitutional. None of these efforts were legally upheld. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were rejected by the other states. The Supreme Court rejected nullification attempts in a series of decisions in the 19th century, including Ableman v. Booth, which found that Wisconsin did not have the power to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act. The Civil War ended most nullification efforts.

In the 1950s, southern states attempted to use nullification and interposition to prevent integration of their schools. These attempts failed when the Supreme Court again rejected nullification in Cooper v. Aaron, explicitly holding that the states may not nullify federal law.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_%28U.S._Constitution%29

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Personal boundaries Definition

Personal boundaries are guidelines, rules or limits that a person creates to identify for him- or herself what are reasonable, safe and permissible ways for other people to behave around him or her and how he or she will respond when someone steps outside those limits.[1] They are built out of a mix of beliefs, opinions, attitudes, past experiences and social learning.[2]

Personal boundaries define you as an individual, outlining your likes and dislikes, and setting the distances you allow others to approach.[3] They include physical, mental, psychological and spiritual boundaries, involving beliefs, emotions, intuitions and self-esteem.[4] Jacques Lacan considered them to be layered in a hierarchy, reflecting “all the successive envelopes of the biological and social status of the person”[5] from the most primitive to the most advanced.

Personal boundaries operate in two directions, affecting both the incoming and outgoing interactions between people.[6]

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Definition of Self Control!

Self-control is the ability to control one's emotions, behavior, and desires in order to obtain some reward, or avoid some punishment. Presumably, some (smaller) reward or punishment is operating in the short term which precludes, or reduces, the later reward or punishment. In psychology it is sometimes called self-regulation.

[falserapeculture-blog]

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A 15-year-old girl is being charged with making a false police report after claiming she was raped at a Revere High School basketball game in December.

The girl told police she was assaulted by a white male teen during a boys basketball game Dec. 7.

But Police Chief Michael McNeely said in...

How does a 15 year old lie about being raped by an adult? The adult is suppose to be thinking clearly and teaching morals and boundaries...He had sex with her he raped her! Teaching little girls that its okay for adults to take advantage of them because they have no self control....In addition what the hell do you call denial? She ruined his life, why the hell didn't he say no? Oh I'm sorry did they not teach you that?

[antifemonlineactivist]

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If a women feels raped than how is it false?

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RAINN's Probability of Arrest Analysis

If the rape is reported to police, there is a 50.8% chance that an arrest will be made.

If an arrest is made, there is an 80% chance of prosecution.

If there is a prosecution, there is a 58% chance of a felony conviction.

If there is a felony conviction, there is a 69% chance the convict will spend time in jail.

So, even in those 28% of rapes that are reported to police, there is only a 16.3% chance the rapist will end up in prison.

Factoring in unreported rapes, about 5%—one out of twenty— of rapists will ever spend a day in jail. 19 out of 20 will walk free.

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Cops held for rape

Two police constables have been detained in connection with the rape of a woman in Caroni two weeks ago. The officers, who were last assigned to the Freeport Police Station Highway Patrol Department, were arrested on Monday night by investigators from the Professional Standards Unit. The unit, which was established in 2010 by former Police Commissioner Dwayne Gibbs, is mandated to investigate criminal complaints against police officers. 

    The lawmen, both in their 20s, from Tabaquite and Enterprise, Chaguanas, remained detained separately at the Barataria and Chaguanas Police Stations up to late yesterday. Police sources said one of the officers was the father of a six-year-old boy while the other officer’s wife is pregnant. Both recently joined the T&T Police Service after serving as SRPs (Special Reserve Police) for several years, police sources said. 

  The investigations into the officers’ on-duty conduct began two weeks ago when a woman reported she had been raped by them. The woman told investigators she and her boyfriend were parked near the Caroni Bird Sanctuary around midnight when a marked police vehicle, with flashing sirens, pulled alongside them. The woman claimed the officers approached them and after a short conversation ordered her into their vehicle. 

  She said she followed their commands because she felt she was being taken to the police station to be charged. However, instead she was taken to a desolate area in Chaguanas where the officers took turns raping her. They then dropped her off in Chaguanas. The woman found her way to the Chaguanas Police Station where she made a report. The woman was then medically examined at the Chaguanas Health Facility where it was proven she had been sexually assaulted. 

  Investigators said the officers were co-operating with them and are expected to be charged with rape, after participating in identification parades later this week. Investigators yesterday visited both officers’ homes and office, where they confiscated their uniforms and other police-issued items. In a brief telephone interview yesterday evening, Supt Johnny Abraham, of the Central Division, confirmed the investigation. “I heard about it but we are not investigating. The Professional Standards Unit investigates that,” Abraham said. 

  ASP Dookie is probing the incident.

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Two New York City Police Officers Acquitted of Rape

The woman had described snippets of a harrowing night in which the officers, called to help her because she was extremely intoxicated, instead abused her. They insisted no rape occurred, with one allowing only that he snuggled with her while she wore nothing but a bra.

The verdict brings to an end a criminal case that drew outrage across the city when the officers were indicted in 2009, and provides some measure of vindication for the officers, Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata.

The officers were convicted of three counts of official misconduct for entering the woman’s apartment, but the jury found them not guilty of all other charges, including burglary and falsifying business records. The Police Department said the officers were fired Thursday.

For Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, the verdict was an unsatisfying conclusion. The decision, after a trial that lasted almost two months, also comes at a critical juncture for an office that is navigating the biggest case of Mr. Vance’s brief tenure: the sexual-assault charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

The jury’s decision also underscores the difficulty of obtaining favorable results for women who say they were sexually assaulted, and who often are subjected to scrutiny and skepticism that keep many of them from speaking out. In this case, defense lawyers pounced on the credibility of the woman because she was very drunk on the night in question and did not remember many details.

After the verdict, Officer Moreno said outside the courthouse that his accuser, who has a $57 million lawsuit pending against the city and the officers, was “mistaken and confused,” and that “she made the whole thing up.”

But the officer, who appeared tense and tight-faced, also said he was not angry.

“I’m glad it’s over,” he said. “It’s a lesson and a win.”

When a reporter asked Officer Moreno what he meant by lesson, his lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, interjected, saying, “Well, we’ll just leave it at that.”

Both officers could face up to a year in jail on each count when they are sentenced on June 28 before Justice Gregory Carro of State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

The case presented a formidable challenge for prosecutors: there was no DNA evidence suggesting that either officer had committed a sexual act.

The jurors, who reached their verdict on their seventh day of deliberations, left the courthouse without commenting, and most reached for comment later declined to do so.

One juror, Richard Schimenti, said there was not enough evidence to prove that a rape had occurred.

“I did think that they might have had sex, but that doesn’t mean that they did have sex,” he said. “There is nothing to substantiate this. There’s no DNA, there’s no proof in any way that they had sex.”

Mr. Schimenti said he believed the prosecution was hampered by the accuser’s memory loss.

“It was very hard to make a leap to charge people with rape when the principal person in the trial didn’t remember so many things,” he said.

As the verdict was read, Officer Mata looked straight ahead, while Officer Moreno cast his eyes downward, placing his fingertips on his lips.

After the verdict was delivered, Officer Moreno’s mother, Aida Moreno-Ruiz, called a relative from her cellphone. “Hey, Freddy,” she said. “It’s over. It’s over. Not guilty.”

She said in an interview that she knew her son was “not capable of doing something so ugly.”

“Thank God it’s over and the truth came out,” she said.

Mr. Tacopina, who tried the case along with Chad Seigel and Officer Mata’s lawyer, Edward J. Mandery, called it one of his biggest victories.

“These guys were publicly presumed guilty more so than any other case I’ve been involved in,” Mr. Tacopina said in an interview. “These guys were called ‘rape cops’ before the trial even started.”

While many people thought a conviction would be a formality, Mr. Tacopina added, “I believed in this guy and we believed in these guys since Day 1.”

Nonetheless, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said Thursday that the officers would be fired immediately. (They had been suspended with pay.)

“The guilty verdicts involved violations of the officers’ oaths of office and, as a result, warrant immediate termination,” Mr. Kelly said.

More than 35 witnesses testified at the trial, which was highlighted by combative, dramatic cross-examination between Coleen Balbert, an assistant district attorney, and the officers.

Prosecutors had accused Officer Mata, 29, of standing guard while Officer Moreno had sex with the woman. She was so sick that the officers should have called an ambulance, prosecutors said, while the defense argued that the woman, though drunk, was walking and talking.

After initially helping the woman into her apartment, the officers were captured by surveillance cameras as they re-entered the woman’s East Village building three times.

Officer Moreno, 43, testified that he was a recovering alcoholic and had developed a rapport with the woman that night, when she confided in him that her friends were angry at her because she drank too much. The two flirted, he sang Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” to her and she actually came onto him, wearing nothing but a bra, he said. He testified that he kissed the woman on the forehead and snuggled with her in her bed, but insisted they did not have sex.

But the woman, now 29 and living in California, told a much different story of what happened on that night in December 2008.

The woman, who was drinking heavily at a Brooklyn bar to celebrate a job promotion, conceded that she had blacked out many details of the evening, although she insisted she did not have a drinking problem. Still, she testified to vivid memories of hearing police radios crackling and Velcro tearing open, of feeling her tights being rolled down, and then of being penetrated as she lay dazed, face down on her bed.

Susan Xenarios, director of the Crime Victims Treatment Center at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, said she was unhappy but not surprised by the verdict. She said she felt that the jurors placed some responsibility for what happened on the woman, a common hurdle in rape cases.

“I know that these cases are so” complicated, said Ms. Xenarios, who has worked with rape victims for about four decades. “Because of her incapacitation, it just made everything so much more complicated.”

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When Cops Rape ... and Nothing Happens Police officers who sexually assault women rarely face the consequences of their actions. How can that be changed? By Steve Yoder

When 20-year-old Sarah Smith got into an accident with a motorcyclist in 2008, it was nothing but bad news—she was driving with a suspended license. It got worse. When police showed up, officer Adam Skweres took Smith aside and implied that he could either make it look like the accident was her fault or give the other party a ticket. It depended on whether she’d agree to perform unspecified sexual favors. Skweres also threatened that if she told anyone, he’d “make sure you never walk, talk, or speak again,” and looked at his gun. That scared her enough that she immediately reported what he’d done to the police,  according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Another four years passed before the department arrested Skweres and suspended him without pay, and then only because he tried to rape a woman while on duty. By that time, Smith had moved out of the city for fear of running into him again. Three other women told stories similar to Smith’s, and on March 11 Skewers pleaded guilty to bribery, indecent assault, and other charges.

Stories of cops propositioning, harassing, and sexually assaulting women turn up every week around the country. February 18  saw the arrest of Houston officer Victor Chris for allegedly telling two women he would tear up their traffic tickets in exchange for sexual favors, according to the Houston Chronicle. Police  chargedSergio Alvarez, an officer from West Sacramento, California, on February 25 with allegedly kidnapping and raping six women while on duty. On March 1, Denver cop Hector Paez  got eight years in prison for driving a woman he’d arrested to a secluded spot and forcing her to perform oral sex. 

“Police sexual misconduct is common, and anyone who maintains it isn’t doesn’t get it,”  says retired Seattle police chief Norm Stamper, author of the book Breaking Rank.

Since no one is investing resources in learning how many victims are out there, we’re left with estimates and news accounts. As part of a 2008 study, former police officer Tim Maher, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, asked 20 police chiefs whether police sexual misconduct was a problem; 18 responded in the affirmative. The 13 chiefs willing to offer estimates thought an average of 19 percent of cops were involved—if correct, that translates to more than 150,000 police officers nationwide. An informal effort by the Cato Institute in 2010 to track the number of police sexual-misconduct cases just in news stories counted 618 complaints nationwide that year, 354 of which involved forcible nonconsensual sexual activity like sexual assault or sexual battery.  

The news steadily filtering in from around the country has forced police leaders nationally to take notice. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women funded the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) to develop a guide for police chiefs, issued in 2011, that encourages them to adopt specific policies in their departments to prevent police sexual misconduct. The DOJ funded the report after noting “recurring accusations of sexual offenses implicating law enforcement officers.”

Two years later, the IACP can’t tell whether its recommendations are making any difference.

No one keeps data on the number of victims of police sexual abuse, and the IACP says it can’t track the number of police departments that have adopted its recommendations. “We think there’s a good-faith effort by police departments out there to be more accountable,” says the IACP’s John Firman. But how would the IACP know, given that there’s no data on the number of victims or departments with such policies? Replies Firman, “Well, we could say the opposite—we don’t see a groundswell from people who are protesting their police departments for this kind of activity.”

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Woman raped by officer during 911 response files lawsuit By Gina Barton

A woman raped by a Milwaukee police officer who responded to her 911 call in July 2010 has filed a civil suit against the former officer, the Police Department, Chief Edward Flynn and the city.

The officer, Ladmarald Cates, has since been fired from the department. In January 2012, a federal jury convicted him of violating the woman's civil rights by engaging in aggravated sexual abuse while acting under color of law. He is serving a 24-year prison term.

The woman, who was 19 when the crime occurred, testified that Cates raped her in the bathroom of her home after she called police about neighbors throwing rocks through her windows. After the officer assaulted her, she was arrested. She told numerous police officers on the scene and at the District 3 station that she had been raped, but they did not believe her.

After about 11 hours, officers from the Professional Performance Division took her to a hospital, where a nurse found physical evidence she had been sexually assaulted and strangled, the suit says. Upon leaving the hospital, the woman was taken back to jail, where she was detained for several days.

She was never charged with a crime.

Cates, 45, testified that the sex was consensual. Neither the jury nor the federal judge who presided at his trial, J.P. Stadtmueller, believed him. At Cates' sentencing hearing, the judge said the former officer's actions showed evidence of "a very depraved mind."

As a result of the assault and its aftermath, the woman "has suffered and continues to suffer great pain of mind and body, shock, emotional distress, physical manifestations of emotional distress, embarrassment, loss of self-esteem, disgrace, humiliation and loss of enjoyment of life," the suit says.

The suit also alleges that Flynn, the city and the Police Department violated the woman's civil rights in the way they dealt with Cates both before and after the rape.

"Defendant Flynn knew or should have known of the history of Cates' abuses," the suit says. "Defendant Flynn was deliberately indifferent to the safety of the public, including the Plaintiff, by failing to remedy the dangerous threat Cates posed, even though he had notice of that threat."

Cates was fired from the Police Department in December 2010 for lying and for "idling and loafing" because having sex on duty is against department rules.

Previous accusations

In 2011, a Journal Sentinel investigation revealed Cates had been accused of breaking the law five previous times. Three of the previous allegations involved sexual misconduct - two with female prisoners and one with a 16-year-old girl. The alleged incidents date to 2000, three years after he was hired by the department.

Internal investigators referred Cates to the district attorney's office for possible charges in two of the previous cases. The first was a domestic violence battery in 2000. Cates' then-girlfriend said he shoved and choked her. Prosecutors offered Cates a diversion agreement, which allowed him to avoid charges by refraining from criminal activity, avoiding violent contact with the victim and undergoing counseling.

A conviction on a domestic violence charge would have prevented Cates from carrying a gun under federal law and resulted in his removal from the force.

Police also referred Cates to the district attorney's office on allegations of having sex with the 16-year-old in 2007. He was not charged.

The city and the department tolerated such behavior by Cates and other officers, the suit says.

"As a result, police officers, including Defendant Cates, were encouraged and invited to believe that members of the public could be subjected to assaults, illegal arrests, detentions, use of force through sexual violence, and that such conduct was and would be permitted by Defendant City," the suit says.

Milwaukee City Attorney Grant Langley was out of the office and could not be reached Thursday. Sgt. Mark Stanmeyer, spokesman for the Police Department, said he could not comment.

At least 93 Milwaukee police officers on the force as of October 2011 had been disciplined for violating the laws and ordinances they were sworn to uphold, according to a Journal Sentinel investigation. Some officers suffered no legal or career consequences. Others got breaks from prosecutors that allowed them to keep their badges and guns. The most common violations were drunken driving and domestic violence.

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Woman Reporting that she was Raped is Arrested for Outstanding Warrant and then is Denied Morning After Pill

1001 Reasons LA is Better than Florida

#80 Imagine you are 21 years old, you get raped, and you have the courage to go to the police and turn to them for help.

Then imagine that the police run your record and find that you owe some money. Then imagine that the cops lock you up.

She was in Tampa on Saturday afternoon for Gasparilla, a pirate-themed parade that draws thousands each year. She said she was walking alone to her car when a man pulled her behind a building and raped her, McElroy said.

She reported the rape to police at 3:30 p.m. Responding officers took her to a rape-crisis center, where she was given the first of two doses of a morning-after pill, McElroy said. The second is supposed to be taken within 24 hours.

She was riding in a patrol car trying to locate the crime scene in the dark when a police check revealed an arrest warrant for failure to pay restitution. The warrant stemmed from a 2003 juvenile arrest for grand theft and burglary. It said she owed $4,585 in restitution, although her lawyer disputed that.

Then at your lowest, when it's time for you to take your second morning-after pill, it is refused to you because the jail employee responsible for dispersing the pill has religious beliefs that are in conflict with the pill.

Oh, Florida.

photo by fr1zz

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Denial IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM OF A RAPED VICTIM

This is the hardest thing to swallow that these police officers don't understand...Denial about a rape is one of the side effects and the biggest reason they have so much emotional problems!!! and this is how they are treated...like a criminal because they where victims of rape.

Not only that but police officers are trained to manipulate conversations. Raped victims are already confused and scared and manipulated. Though part of there tactics used when speaking to a victims is to use any word or confuse her so that if she does say something that contradicts the rape they will say that it never happened even if she is obviously suicidal and having a break down in regards to it...Though they blame her and further emotionally abuse her so they can get off he clock and go drink...

But apparently raped victims try to killed themselves for no reason.. This makes me sick and disgusted with our justice system and as I told my own judge it completely contradicts and jeopardizes the integrity and morality of the court system.

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Police: Woman arrested after lying about rape Tuesday, May 7, 2013 at 8:46 by crime.beat

A woman who police said lied about being raped was charged Monday with false reporting to law enforcement.

Raquel Maxfield, 26, told officers that two men attacked her in the back of an SUV after they left a restaurant at the corner of Greensboro Avenue and Fourth Street last Wednesday, said Tuscaloosa County Metro Homicide Unit commander Sgt. Dale Phillips. She called police and made the accusation on Thursday.

“During a follow-up interview, the victim admitted to lying about the rape and stated that it never occurred,” he said in an e-mail.

Maxfield, who has a Carrollton address, turned herself in at the Tuscaloosa County Jail Monday and was released a short time later on $1,000 bond.

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Anonymous Seeks Justice for Rape Victim After School and Police Fail To Do So by Abby Zimet

After failures on all sides from the systems meant to protect her, Anonymous has taken up the case of Rehtaeh Parsons, a 17-year-old Halifax girl who killed herself after a gang-rape by four boys, months of cyber-bullying and victim-blaming, and legal inaction. Having quickly identified at least two of the four alleged asssailants - through multiple eyewitness testimony, not hacking - Anonymous is using the information as a bargaining tool, calling for officials to re-open the case, investigate the investigators who mishandled it, and hold the school system responsible for a rape culture that allowed it. In a reversal of his earlier decision to stand by the initial findings, Nova Scotia Justice Minister Ross Landy has announced a review; there's also a Change.org petition and a protest planned. Two obvious, rhetorical, sorrowful questions:  Why does it take Anonymous to make something happen here, and why does it always happen after, not before, tragedy strikes?

Update: And another one.