Male violence and harassment of women

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bagpuss
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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by bagpuss » Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:33 am

mediocrity511 wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:25 am
bagpuss wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:13 am
Well, wow, problem solved. Police in bars, more street lighting and CCTV and just like that, women will be free to go about their lives however they wish and with no fear.

I'm still trying to work out how that will help women going for a run, or just walking down the street, in daylight. But I'm sure that's just me being stupid.
I'm struggling to know how it will even help women in bars, given how most stuff isn't totally visible to someone observing! It won't even deter offenders, because the police don't be visible. At best, it will lead to a few extra prosecutions, but it's real tip of the iceberg stuff.
It's made me quite unreasonably angry. I mean, I'm not expecting anyone to find a real solution in any kind of short term but to come out with these measures and nothing else - even a "look, we know these things are pretty useless but they're things we can do now or very soon while we talk to people who know better than us and think and work on what we can do that will make a real difference" would have been so very much better.

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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by Aoui » Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:35 am

I don't see how your anger is unreasonable..... The fact that we'll still be groped, be talked down to,threatened, not be taken seriously and be constantly gaslighted...why wouldn't you be angry?

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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by bagpuss » Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:51 am

Aoui wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:35 am
I don't see how your anger is unreasonable..... The fact that we'll still be groped, be talked down to,threatened, not be taken seriously and be constantly gaslighted...why wouldn't you be angry?
I suppose unreasonable because it's not as if it's something that's going to be fixed overnight so I shouldn't be angry that they haven't announced measures that will fix it overnight. But then I didn't and wouldn't expect them to so yeah, anger not unreasonable at all.

I just want them to take it seriously and realise themselves that the solution is not about more lights or having police officers in bars* or increasing sentences when only a tiny fraction of even rape cases, let alone more minor harassment, make it to court so how is that going to make a difference? It's a difficult problem and only difficult and complex measures are going to make any difference. And why would I ever hope** that Johnson's government would even attempt to begin to make a start on anything that might be difficult or complex?




*and let's face it, it's only going to be a very small proportion of bars or areas around bars, because they just don't have the resources - there are a lot of bars
**I didn't

(edited to add an asterisk and a question mark)

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discovolante
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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by discovolante » Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:25 am

Having police officers in bars in that way is creepy imo. And what happens if they do spot something happen? What do they do? Arrest the perpetrator in front of you, then you're effectively under pressure to give evidence? What if you're breaking the law yourself e.g. if you're underage age, or carrying drugs (you might think well tough, don't break the law, but I'm not keen on mixing up law enforcement to protect people with criminalising the people you are supposed to be protecting)? Not to mention that well, the police don't exactly have a squeaky clean record themselves, and the concept of undercover police has a fairly unsavoury history.
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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by bagpuss » Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:41 am

discovolante wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:25 am
Having police officers in bars in that way is creepy imo. And what happens if they do spot something happen? What do they do? Arrest the perpetrator in front of you, then you're effectively under pressure to give evidence? What if you're breaking the law yourself e.g. if you're underage age, or carrying drugs (you might think well tough, don't break the law, but I'm not keen on mixing up law enforcement to protect people with criminalising the people you are supposed to be protecting)? Not to mention that well, the police don't exactly have a squeaky clean record themselves, and the concept of undercover police has a fairly unsavoury history.
All of this, yes. And what's more, as medi said, if they're plain clothes they're not going to be any kind of deterrent and so much harassment is hard to spot and even if it's more obvious and is spotted, is anyone actually going to be arrested and charged? To make a significant impact on the problem, that would be so many additional criminal cases in a system that's struggling to get a rape case to court in less than 5 years right now. It's just not workable, even if it could solve anything. There'll be a few operations for PR purposes and then it'll all be quietly dropped due to lack of resources.

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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by Tessa K » Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:46 am

It's not about making the streets safer, it's about making men safer.

It would have been more helpful to talk to women and women's safety/support groups etc to find out what would really help. Money could be spent on education, getting people to go into schools and talk to boys, for example. A media campaign with footballers, musicians etc telling men what is and what is not OK, encouraging men to talk to each other. That would be a start.

And just how many bad apples are there?
A Met officer guarding the scene where Sarah Everard's body was found allegedly shared an "inappropriate" message about her death with colleagues on WhatsApp... It is believed the "inappropriate graphic" contained offensive comments about her death... The officer has been removed from front-line duties while inquiries continue.
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/ ... dy-244010/

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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by Lew Dolby » Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:53 am

and how does CCTV help ?? The fact someone twenty miles away can watch while you get raped, assaulted or murdered helps exactly how ??
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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by bagpuss » Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:58 am

Lew Dolby wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:53 am
and how does CCTV help ?? The fact someone twenty miles away can watch while you get raped, assaulted or murdered helps exactly how ??
I think it's supposed to be a deterrent but that assumes that 1) a potential rapist/assaulter/murderer has noticed the cameras 2) that the cameras haven't been vandalised and 3) that everywhere is covered by cameras. Even if CCTV is a perfect deterrent and the cameras are somehow made completely tamper-proof, there is never going to be sufficient funding to put them everywhere along every woman's possible route to anywhere. What's the use in being able to walk safely along the main road if you're attacked the moment you turn into your own quiet cul de sac?

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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by bagpuss » Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:03 am

bagpuss wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:58 am
Lew Dolby wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:53 am
and how does CCTV help ?? The fact someone twenty miles away can watch while you get raped, assaulted or murdered helps exactly how ??
I think it's supposed to be a deterrent but that assumes that 1) a potential rapist/assaulter/murderer has noticed the cameras 2) that the cameras haven't been vandalised and 3) that everywhere is covered by cameras. Even if CCTV is a perfect deterrent and the cameras are somehow made completely tamper-proof, there is never going to be sufficient funding to put them everywhere along every woman's possible route to anywhere. What's the use in being able to walk safely along the main road if you're attacked the moment you turn into your own quiet cul de sac?
Oh, and of course, I missed the most obvious assumption - that any would-be attacker is in fact deterred by CCTV. Just stick on a hoodie and keep your head down a bit and who's going to identify you from even a decent quality CCTV camera, so why worry?

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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by Tessa K » Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:06 am

bagpuss wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:58 am
Lew Dolby wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:53 am
and how does CCTV help ?? The fact someone twenty miles away can watch while you get raped, assaulted or murdered helps exactly how ??
I think it's supposed to be a deterrent but that assumes that 1) a potential rapist/assaulter/murderer has noticed the cameras 2) that the cameras haven't been vandalised and 3) that everywhere is covered by cameras. Even if CCTV is a perfect deterrent and the cameras are somehow made completely tamper-proof, there is never going to be sufficient funding to put them everywhere along every woman's possible route to anywhere. What's the use in being able to walk safely along the main road if you're attacked the moment you turn into your own quiet cul de sac?
Years ago I was living in central London (off Tottenham Court Road. Hardly the middle of nowhere) and an older woman was attacked. The police came round with a still from a CCTV image of the attacker. It was barely recognisable as human, let alone male.

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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:15 am

Aside from having useless plain clothes officers outside clubs, Johnson's other big idea is increasing the sentencing for rape and sexual assault.
Guardian wrote:Labour has said the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill being debated in parliament this afternoon does not specifically protect women. But Johnson said it would toughen sentences for rapists and end early release for sexual and violent offenders. He also said the government was introducing measures to tackle domestic violence.
However, as we know, the criminal courts are heaving, and as the Secret Barrister says, "there has never been a better time to be a criminal than under Boris Johnson's government". He has a thread here, about all the myriad problems the justice system has right now. The principal problem is funding. The police are underfunded, the courts are underfunded, legal aid is underfunded, and the prisons are underfunded.

And as we can see here, the stats around prosecution of rape are horrifying:
  • In 2016/17, 2,991 suspects were found guilty of a "rape-flagged" case, whatever that means. In 2019/20, that had fallen to 1,439, a drop of 52% in three years.
  • In 2016/17, there were 5,190 completed cases, and 2,102 in 2019/20 - a drop of nearly 60%
  • In 2016/17, police referred around 4,580 cases to the CPS. In 2019/20, it was 2,747 - a drop of 40%
  • In 2015/16, the average duration from referral to the CPS to deciding to charge was 53 days. In 2019/20, it was 145 days (almost five months)
And, just to really ram the point home,
  • Over the period 2012-18, 562 police officers were accused of sexual assault, and only 43 faced proceedings. [1]
There's no point in making sentences tougher for rapists when so few rapists are convicted of rape.
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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by discovolante » Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:22 am

El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:15 am
Aside from having useless plain clothes officers outside clubs, Johnson's other big idea is increasing the sentencing for rape and sexual assault.
Guardian wrote:Labour has said the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill being debated in parliament this afternoon does not specifically protect women. But Johnson said it would toughen sentences for rapists and end early release for sexual and violent offenders. He also said the government was introducing measures to tackle domestic violence.
However, as we know, the criminal courts are heaving, and as the Secret Barrister says, "there has never been a better time to be a criminal than under Boris Johnson's government". He has a thread here, about all the myriad problems the justice system has right now. The principal problem is funding. The police are underfunded, the courts are underfunded, legal aid is underfunded, and the prisons are underfunded.

And as we can see here, the stats around prosecution of rape are horrifying:
  • In 2016/17, 2,991 suspects were found guilty of a "rape-flagged" case, whatever that means. In 2019/20, that had fallen to 1,439, a drop of 52% in three years.
  • In 2016/17, there were 5,190 completed cases, and 2,102 in 2019/20 - a drop of nearly 60%
  • In 2016/17, police referred around 4,580 cases to the CPS. In 2019/20, it was 2,747 - a drop of 40%
  • In 2015/16, the average duration from referral to the CPS to deciding to charge was 53 days. In 2019/20, it was 145 days (almost five months)
And, just to really ram the point home,
  • Over the period 2012-18, 562 police officers were accused of sexual assault, and only 43 faced proceedings. [1]
There's no point in making sentences tougher for rapists when so few rapists are convicted of rape.
Just as an aside, I'm not sure if there should be a separate thread for this bill as there is a LOT going on in it, as well as the rape stuff (which was quite nicely countered by Anne McLaughlin of the SNP yesterday). Dunno though, what do you reckon?
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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by Fishnut » Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:50 am

Separate thread for the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill sounds like a good idea.
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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by jimbob » Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:53 am

bagpuss wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:33 am
mediocrity511 wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:25 am
bagpuss wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:13 am
Well, wow, problem solved. Police in bars, more street lighting and CCTV and just like that, women will be free to go about their lives however they wish and with no fear.

I'm still trying to work out how that will help women going for a run, or just walking down the street, in daylight. But I'm sure that's just me being stupid.
I'm struggling to know how it will even help women in bars, given how most stuff isn't totally visible to someone observing! It won't even deter offenders, because the police don't be visible. At best, it will lead to a few extra prosecutions, but it's real tip of the iceberg stuff.
It's made me quite unreasonably angry. I mean, I'm not expecting anyone to find a real solution in any kind of short term but to come out with these measures and nothing else - even a "look, we know these things are pretty useless but they're things we can do now or very soon while we talk to people who know better than us and think and work on what we can do that will make a real difference" would have been so very much better.
Meanwhile:

https://twitter.com/MrMichaelSpicer/sta ... 70179?s=20

With reference to this:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/poli ... 24133.html
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by bagpuss » Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:23 am

jimbob wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:53 am
bagpuss wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:33 am
mediocrity511 wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:25 am


I'm struggling to know how it will even help women in bars, given how most stuff isn't totally visible to someone observing! It won't even deter offenders, because the police don't be visible. At best, it will lead to a few extra prosecutions, but it's real tip of the iceberg stuff.
It's made me quite unreasonably angry. I mean, I'm not expecting anyone to find a real solution in any kind of short term but to come out with these measures and nothing else - even a "look, we know these things are pretty useless but they're things we can do now or very soon while we talk to people who know better than us and think and work on what we can do that will make a real difference" would have been so very much better.
Meanwhile:

https://twitter.com/MrMichaelSpicer/sta ... 70179?s=20

With reference to this:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/poli ... 24133.html
Are the police deliberately trolling now?

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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by JQH » Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:51 am

bagpuss wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:13 am
Well, wow, problem solved. Police in bars, more street lighting and CCTV and just like that, women will be free to go about their lives however they wish and with no fear.

I'm still trying to work out how that will help women going for a run, or just walking down the street, in daylight. But I'm sure that's just me being stupid.
I was wondering that too. And in any event it's a cast iron certainty that the cops in bars will be dropped after a few months and there'll be no-one looking at the cctv because austerity.
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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by Fishnut » Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:13 pm

On the "police in bars" story, I thought I'd try and write a list of all the things wrong with it. This is based on my own thoughts and comments I've seen on Twitter, here and in private chats with friends. They are in no particular order and I'm sure it's not exhaustive.

1) Bars and pubs are closed right now, yet sexual assault, domestic abuse and murder of women by men continues unabated. How does putting police in pubs help?

2) Many bars and pubs are already part of the Ask for Angela scheme which allows women to notify bar staff discretely that they need help. Police would be much better supporting and helping to expand this scheme.

3) The intentions of the scheme are unclear. Is it to make men think they're being watched so they'll behave, or to give women someone to get help from should things turn bad? If the former, assault and harassment is often difficult or impossible to see from a distance, and can be easily explained away. If the latter, how does the woman know who to turn to if the officers are plain-clothes?

4) Having plain-clothes officers opens up the system to abuse - anyone can pretend to be a plain-clothes officer in order to gain the trust of a woman, only to abuse it.

5) Police officers commit sexual assault! This article from 2019 revealed that almost 1,500 cases of sexual misconduct had been reported against police officers in the previous six years. This article from around the same time found that only 1 in 18 Metropolitan Police officers reported for sexual misconduct were formally sanctioned. And this piece from yesterday found that 26 members of the Metropolitan Police were arrested for sexual offences between January 2018 and August 2020.

6) Police officers do not protect women. This story is from Australia but there's nothing to stop it from happening here either. The officer claimed the woman assaulted him, when in fact he assaulted her when she didn't smile at him and avoided eye contact. Closer to home, and more recently, a woman walking home from the Sarah Everard vigil on Saturday was flashed by a man. When she tried to report it to police they dismissed her. If police are unwilling to take seriously allegations of sexual harassment in the immediate aftermath of a vigil for a woman murdered by a known sexual harasser, then how on earth are we supposed to be believe they'll take seriously an allegation made in a pub?

7) The police don't take sexual crimes seriously. In the year to the end of March 2020 58,856 cases of rape were recorded by police in England and Wales. Only 2,102, or 3.6%, were prosecuted. Victims' commissioner Dame Vera Baird said in her annual report that the level of prosecutions has got so low that "what we are witnessing is the de-criminalisation of rape". Putting police in pubs isn't going to help.

8) This feels like a stealth way of getting police into pubs in the name of "women's safety" where they can then identify other illegal activity such as drug dealing.

9) Strangers are not the people who are most dangerous to women. Of the 1,425 women and girls killed by men between 2009 and 2018, only 10% were killed by strangers according to the Femicide Report. Most of these killings (78%) occurred "at home". While the scheme is aimed at tackling lower level crimes against women, these statistics reinforce the fact that pubs and bars are not hotbeds of sexual assaults, and focusing on them will do little to protect women.

10) The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated that less than one in five victims of rape or assault by penetration reported their experience to the police in 2018. These statistics show that victims do not trust the police to take their claims seriously. Victims are regularly traumatised by their treatment by the police and face further trauma during cross-examination if they are one of the few victims to get their day in court. Putting police in pubs does nothing to fix these systemic issues.

If police were serious about tackling sexual crimes then there is much they can do, starting with treating the crimes that are reported to them seriously and treating victims with respect and decency. This scheme is nothing but an ill-conceived PR stunt and one that fortunately seems to be backfiring already.
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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by Tessa K » Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:50 pm

I just remembered, I wrote this just over a year ago about three incidents, one of which happened to me. Small stuff compared with many women's experiences and I could have written a lot more but it was the fact they happened so close together that prompted me.

https://tessera2009.blogspot.com/2019/1 ... d-man.html

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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by bagpuss » Tue Mar 16, 2021 1:47 pm

I was sexually assaulted on a commuter train on the way home from work. In daylight - before 6pm. CCTV present (the camera in my carriage was broken though, wouldn't you just know it?). Lots of other people. No-one noticed. A plain clothes police officer could have been sitting across the aisle and looking right at me and they wouldn't have noticed a thing. f.cks' sake, I didn't notice it at first - I thought it was just a normal "man takes up more than his share of the seat and gets in my personal space because he just doesn't think about anyone else" type thing. Turns out his fingertips (his arms were folded) were brushing against my breast deliberately and his thigh was pressing against mine deliberately. How do I know? Because he held out his mobile phone where I could see it. "You're beautiful" was written on the screen. I did nothing, said nothing, I was trapped against the window, had no way out, couldn't get out without either squeezing past him or climbing over the seat in front of me onto someone's head. I was like a rabbit in the headlights, didn't know what to do or say. I just ignored him, curled up more into the corner away from him. When it was nearly my stop I stood up to get off. He didn't move except to move his legs slightly sideways so that I would have to squeeze past him to get off. At that point I finally found my voice and my anger. I told him to get up and move so that I could get out without having to pass him and before I turned to walk towards the door, I turned to him and said "You're disgusting. How dare you". A few other people on the train vaguely glanced my way. Not a look of sympathy or "sh.t, what did I miss, hope she's OK" but looks of irritation at my having the cheek to create a mild disturbance. That was it, I just got off the train.

I did nothing about it that night, never even occurred to me to report it to the police until I mentioned it on a forum the next day and I was urged to do so. I reported it to the British Transport Police and I have to say that my experience of the police was not a bad one. I was treated with kindness and respect and taken seriously. They checked the CCTV from the train but found the camera in that carriage was out. And that was that.

Obviously, I was asking for it. Dressed in trousers and a non revealing top. Sitting quietly in a corner on a train reading a book. In my late 30s, overweight, no make up. Positively flaunting myself, I was. Really should change my behaviour to make sure it doesn't happen again.

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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by jimbob » Tue Mar 16, 2021 2:25 pm

Tessa K wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:50 pm
I just remembered, I wrote this just over a year ago about three incidents, one of which happened to me. Small stuff compared with many women's experiences and I could have written a lot more but it was the fact they happened so close together that prompted me.

https://tessera2009.blogspot.com/2019/1 ... d-man.html
Mind if I tweet a link to that?
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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by jimbob » Tue Mar 16, 2021 2:25 pm

Fishnut wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:13 pm
On the "police in bars" story, I thought I'd try and write a list of all the things wrong with it. This is based on my own thoughts and comments I've seen on Twitter, here and in private chats with friends. They are in no particular order and I'm sure it's not exhaustive.

1) Bars and pubs are closed right now, yet sexual assault, domestic abuse and murder of women by men continues unabated. How does putting police in pubs help?

2) Many bars and pubs are already part of the Ask for Angela scheme which allows women to notify bar staff discretely that they need help. Police would be much better supporting and helping to expand this scheme.

3) The intentions of the scheme are unclear. Is it to make men think they're being watched so they'll behave, or to give women someone to get help from should things turn bad? If the former, assault and harassment is often difficult or impossible to see from a distance, and can be easily explained away. If the latter, how does the woman know who to turn to if the officers are plain-clothes?

4) Having plain-clothes officers opens up the system to abuse - anyone can pretend to be a plain-clothes officer in order to gain the trust of a woman, only to abuse it.

5) Police officers commit sexual assault! This article from 2019 revealed that almost 1,500 cases of sexual misconduct had been reported against police officers in the previous six years. This article from around the same time found that only 1 in 18 Metropolitan Police officers reported for sexual misconduct were formally sanctioned. And this piece from yesterday found that 26 members of the Metropolitan Police were arrested for sexual offences between January 2018 and August 2020.

6) Police officers do not protect women. This story is from Australia but there's nothing to stop it from happening here either. The officer claimed the woman assaulted him, when in fact he assaulted her when she didn't smile at him and avoided eye contact. Closer to home, and more recently, a woman walking home from the Sarah Everard vigil on Saturday was flashed by a man. When she tried to report it to police they dismissed her. If police are unwilling to take seriously allegations of sexual harassment in the immediate aftermath of a vigil for a woman murdered by a known sexual harasser, then how on earth are we supposed to be believe they'll take seriously an allegation made in a pub?

7) The police don't take sexual crimes seriously. In the year to the end of March 2020 58,856 cases of rape were recorded by police in England and Wales. Only 2,102, or 3.6%, were prosecuted. Victims' commissioner Dame Vera Baird said in her annual report that the level of prosecutions has got so low that "what we are witnessing is the de-criminalisation of rape". Putting police in pubs isn't going to help.

8) This feels like a stealth way of getting police into pubs in the name of "women's safety" where they can then identify other illegal activity such as drug dealing.

9) Strangers are not the people who are most dangerous to women. Of the 1,425 women and girls killed by men between 2009 and 2018, only 10% were killed by strangers according to the Femicide Report. Most of these killings (78%) occurred "at home". While the scheme is aimed at tackling lower level crimes against women, these statistics reinforce the fact that pubs and bars are not hotbeds of sexual assaults, and focusing on them will do little to protect women.

10) The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated that less than one in five victims of rape or assault by penetration reported their experience to the police in 2018. These statistics show that victims do not trust the police to take their claims seriously. Victims are regularly traumatised by their treatment by the police and face further trauma during cross-examination if they are one of the few victims to get their day in court. Putting police in pubs does nothing to fix these systemic issues.

If police were serious about tackling sexual crimes then there is much they can do, starting with treating the crimes that are reported to them seriously and treating victims with respect and decency. This scheme is nothing but an ill-conceived PR stunt and one that fortunately seems to be backfiring already.
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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by Fishnut » Tue Mar 16, 2021 2:36 pm

Tessa K wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:50 pm
I just remembered, I wrote this just over a year ago about three incidents, one of which happened to me. Small stuff compared with many women's experiences and I could have written a lot more but it was the fact they happened so close together that prompted me.

https://tessera2009.blogspot.com/2019/1 ... d-man.html
Great, if depressing, piece. The comment is enraging though. What is it with men who read this stuff and their first response is "I don't do that"? They're not outraged at what you've experienced, they're not frustrated or shocked by the everyday sexism. No, they just want us to know that they're like that. So f.cking self-centred. So totally missing the point.
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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by Cardinal Fang » Tue Mar 16, 2021 3:35 pm

The other thing about the police in bars story is that a lot of the harassment we have to deal with isn't illegal. The guy who corners you and keeps on trying to chat you up even though you've made it clear you're not interested (he's "just being friendly" after all). The guy who catcalls you in the street (he's "just paying you a compliment" obviously). The collegue who stands over you way too close, and is obviously trying to look down your top, and who tells you you smell nice - but if you say anything to your manager you're just being "oversensitive" or "hormonal". Walking down the road behind someone isn't illegal, even if it's making them uncomfortable (unless you do it maliciously and repeatedly to the same person and then maybe, just maybe it might be considered stalking).

I suppose calling someone a "b*tch" or a "c**t" because they've refused to give you their phone number might be considered a potential breach of the peace, but someone's got to actually be there to witness it, because when it's your word against theirs nothing will get done.

And that's the problem. Killers, rapists and those who assault people don't normally start off with that as the first thing they jump to. It's likely a lot of them were harasser before they were abusers. And I suspect that if it became absolutely morally and socially unacceptable for men to harass women and girls in any form, whether it's catcalling, or persistently demanding a phone number or lifting girls' skirts so you could see their pants (this happens in primary schools all the time, and is shrugged off as "boys being boys") or whatever, because every time someone did it their teachers, friends, colleagues, brothers, fathers, or sons were going "mate - that's just wrong" and there were actual social consequences to you being a d*ck, then some (not all because some people are wired wrong) would never progress to being an abuser. But because they've got away with low level harassment, some people get the message that it's okay to treat women as an object, or impose yourself on her, so you harass a bit more, and then you maybe tough someone's bum, and no-one says anything, and you learn that society (or at least the male social society you move in) seems to thing that that's okay, so you do something a bit more.... and so on. If the line is drawn so clearly that any form of harassment is not on. By the time it's got as far as a policeman in a bar seeing something happen that is prosecutable, it's already too late.

CF
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Fishnut
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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by Fishnut » Tue Mar 16, 2021 3:43 pm

Excellent point
it's okay to say "I don't know"

FlammableFlower
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Re: Male violence and harassment of women

Post by FlammableFlower » Tue Mar 16, 2021 4:12 pm

Cardinal Fang wrote:
Tue Mar 16, 2021 3:35 pm
The other thing about the police in bars story is that a lot of the harassment we have to deal with isn't illegal. The guy who corners you and keeps on trying to chat you up even though you've made it clear you're not interested (he's "just being friendly" after all). The guy who catcalls you in the street (he's "just paying you a compliment" obviously). The collegue who stands over you way too close, and is obviously trying to look down your top, and who tells you you smell nice - but if you say anything to your manager you're just being "oversensitive" or "hormonal". Walking down the road behind someone isn't illegal, even if it's making them uncomfortable (unless you do it maliciously and repeatedly to the same person and then maybe, just maybe it might be considered stalking).

I suppose calling someone a "b*tch" or a "c**t" because they've refused to give you their phone number might be considered a potential breach of the peace, but someone's got to actually be there to witness it, because when it's your word against theirs nothing will get done.

And that's the problem. Killers, rapists and those who assault people don't normally start off with that as the first thing they jump to. It's likely a lot of them were harasser before they were abusers. And I suspect that if it became absolutely morally and socially unacceptable for men to harass women and girls in any form, whether it's catcalling, or persistently demanding a phone number or lifting girls' skirts so you could see their pants (this happens in primary schools all the time, and is shrugged off as "boys being boys") or whatever, because every time someone did it their teachers, friends, colleagues, brothers, fathers, or sons were going "mate - that's just wrong" and there were actual social consequences to you being a d*ck, then some (not all because some people are wired wrong) would never progress to being an abuser. But because they've got away with low level harassment, some people get the message that it's okay to treat women as an object, or impose yourself on her, so you harass a bit more, and then you maybe tough someone's bum, and no-one says anything, and you learn that society (or at least the male social society you move in) seems to thing that that's okay, so you do something a bit more.... and so on. If the line is drawn so clearly that any form of harassment is not on. By the time it's got as far as a policeman in a bar seeing something happen that is prosecutable, it's already too late.

CF
This was very much what Jack Munroe tweeted the other day - years of stalking and abuse that the abuser was able to shrug off, explain away or even reflect back. I can't imagine police lodged in bars being remotely useful.

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