Project Summary

Male sexual violence has remained outside the effective jurisdiction of the law despite over three decades of law reform and public education. The problems encountered by victim-witnesses result from the myths, stereotypes and misconception of sexual assault being confounded with the criterion for leniency, resulting in “discounting” the seriousness of male sexual violence. This reality not only continues to deny social justice to women who are victims of sexual assault, but also diminishes the institution of law. It is time for social actions that pursue a new strategy to change public policy to achieve greater social justice.

Background

Sergeant Joanne Archambault (retired) worked for the San Diego Police Department for 23 years, the last 10 years of which she supervised the Sex Crimes Unit. She retired in 2002 to provide training in organizing Sexual Assault Response Teams to hold sex offenders accountable through a coordinated, competent, and effective community response. Through her organization, SATI (Sexual Assault Training and Investigation at www.mysati.com), police, judges, prosecutors and other front line workers have attended her workshops. This training provides an essential “front end” strategy for increasing the willingness of victims to rely on the institution of law as a response to sexual assaults, particularly ones that do not fit the stereotype of a legitimate rape, i.e. violent stranger rape by a dangerous man.
 
Professor Edward Renner has conducted research for 20 years on the response of the legal system to male sexual violence. His findings indicate the legal system fails most victims of sexual assault by “discounting” the severity of these offenses through failures to charge and convict, and by lenient sentences when convictions do occur. These outcomes deny victims of sexual assault the equal protection of the law and may be constitutionally challenged. He has given workshops on sexual assault at conferences and for the Department of Justice (Canada), as well as established the National Action Plans Against Sexual Assault. This plan provides an essential “back end” strategy for challenging the legal system to prosecute sexual crimes more fairly. Successful challenges will permit victims to rely on the institution of law as a response to sexual assault, particularly the ones that do not fit the stereotype of a legitimate rape.
 
Joanne Archambault and Edward Renner have combined their expertise by connecting their separate programs into a coordinated comprehensive strategy to create social change by challenging the legal system to be more responsive to the needs and rights of women.

Effective and competent responses at the front end of the system, which encourage victims to report the offenses against them, are currently compromised through the “discounting” at the back end of the system. As a result, the majority of instances of male sexual violence are left outside the effective jurisdiction of the law. Most often, these are the typical sexual assaults in which women have behaved in normatively expected ways: Specifically, they associate with men who are known to them, they choose not to be physically harmed in addition to being raped, and the offender is a man with an otherwise respectable reputation.
 
Police and other front line workers are frustrated when they see these women re-victimized by the criminal justice process. In turn, typical victims of sexual assault, with justification, are reluctant to make use of the legal process, completing the breakdown in the institution of law.

This reality for victims is at the local level; thus, this is where there is direct leverage for social change. It will take a coordinated effort that starts at the front end with police and victim service workers and is continuous to the back end with effective prosecutions. Successfully challenging the current legal process as both procedurally unfair and unconstitutional will address the threat to the institution of law and the need to empower front line workers to help sexual assault victims experience the criminal justice process as serving just ends

The project has received one-time funding to start a social movement without copyright and therefore without boundaries or profit. The project will promote an integrated community response to male sexual violence by selecting communities, not individuals, as the “participants” through a competitive selection process to attend separate conferences in both the US and Canada. Full support will be provided to teams from jurisdictions where representatives from the police, medical services, prosecution and sexual assault services demonstrate they are prepared to learn the skills to implement the programs developed by SATI and NAPASA:

• Teams from the participant communities will receive training at a national conference by Joanne Archambault for developing an Integrated Community Sexual Response Team and by Edward Renner in the strategy and methods for challenging the legal system to more effectively prosecute sexual assaults.
   

• Teams from the participant communities will become international partners in a US/Canada effort to set new national standards for effectively prosecuting sexual offenders, particularly ones whose crimes do not fit the stereotype of legitimate rape. The activities of the participant communities will be coordinated through a dedicated website.
   

• Teams from the participant communities will receive follow-up support through on-site and on-line consultations, evaluation, and through joint publications and presentations to academic, professional and applied journals and conferences.

Change is not a theoretical exercise. Change must exist in actual practice in a physical location. Providing independent training to police, forensic examiners, prosecutors, judges, and victim support workers who are geographically and organizationally separated has had little impact on our communities. The challenge is to bring together these groups -- who ordinarily do not work together on social action -- to become partners for change in their local community. There is now a social climate for them to do so:

• The police and prosecutors are frustrated,
   

• More than 20 years of women and children coming forward with accounts of sexual assaults has resulted in greater public acceptance of the need for change, and
   

• the public is cynical over seeing sexual offenders and the seriousness of their offenses “discounted” by the criminal justice process.

The separate expertise of Joanne Archambault and Edward Renner, and the materials available through SATI and NAPASA, presents a unique opportunity to capitalize on the current social climate by combining their unique contributions of training and scholarship into an effective social action program. The “Making a Difference” Project provides a practical basis for partnership among the police, forensic examiners, prosecutors, and advocates.

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