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NZ Herald
April 19, 2004
Police attitudes to rape attacked
by Martin Johnston
Police attitudes to rape stymie the investigation of many women's sexual
assault complaints, a researcher says.
Victoria University
criminologist Dr Jan Jordan, who addressed a sexual abuse treatment
conference which ended in Auckland
at the weekend, wants specialist police trained to investigate all sexual
assault complaints.
She said such specialists now investigated sexual abuse against children but
not adults.
Her comments follow rape or sexual assault allegations by Louise Nicholas and
several other women against police officers. The Government has appointed a
commission of inquiry to look into the allegations.
A police national headquarters spokeswoman indicated last night that the
police hierarchy were unlikely to comment on Dr Jordan's research and if they did
it would not be until today.
"We've got a commission of inquiry into police attitudes to rape anyway.
There's some sensitivity about what we would say," the spokeswoman said.
Dr Jordan has interviewed
many rape complainants and checked all rape files from Auckland,
Wellington and Christchurch for 1997. "The attitudes
and way in which some police talk about rape suggests a confusion in their
mind," Dr Jordan
said.
Some made a distinction between "real rape" and what they called
non-consensual sex. "I would argue that non-consensual sex is by
definition rape."
Dr Jordan
said an experienced officer had distinguished between stranger rape and rape
by someone known to the victim.
The latter and those raped in marriage were seen as victims of non-consensual
sex rather than of rape, she said.
"That suggests a prioritising. Rape is what people like [convicted
serial rapists] Malcolm Rewa and Joseph Thompson do. It's what men who are
animals - and some police talk of rapists as animals - do, but it's not what
the guy next door does ...
"It's a distancing mechanism. Men who really rape are seen as something
'other' than most police officers."
Some victims of rape felt that police officers, by their language and
behaviour, were endorsing "an offender's perspective more than a
victim's perspective".
She said women with intellectual disabilities or a history of psychiatric
problems who made rape complaints had particular difficulty persuading police
to believe them because they were considered unreliable witnesses. They were
also a group that was vulnerable to sexual assault.
Dr Jordan hoped that one outcome of the commission of inquiry would be for
all police to realise that rapists could come from any background and that
rape was just as serious if the offender was married to the victim.
"The fundamental culture of the New Zealand police does need to
change and I think it is changing."
The police had become more sympathetic to the needs of rape complainants, for
instance by waiting until the morning after to take a statement rather than
demanding one in the middle of the night.
Dr Jordan acknowledged
that some of the police attitudes she criticised reflected common New Zealand
attitudes.
Track
record
Of 164 rape files from 1997:
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Police indicated on 21 per cent
that they considered the complaints genuine.
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They were unsure about 38 per
cent.
§
33 per cent of complaints were
considered false.
§
8 per cent were withdrawn by the
complainants.
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