Unfortunately, rape is a reality for too many women and young girls in this country. Oftentimes the atrocity goes unreported, and understandably so. The Jamaican rape victim is more often than not raped repeatedly by those uninformed persons with whom the victim is required to interact, having made a report.
POLICE
Starting with the police. It is said that rape is often committed between 9 pm and 5 am. Yet the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse is closed during those hours. The result is that victims are made to rely on the police officer in the guardroom ... their first point of contact with the system.
I recall one mother from a ghetto community testifying that she took her eleven-year-old daughter who had been raped directly to the hospital. She was told by the hospital staff she has to report the matter to the police station with jurisdiction over her community. She got the police station at 9 pm and the police offer said, "Come back tomorrow cause station lock!" It is noteworthy that there exists a Force Order which prohibits this conduct.
Most police officers fail to realise that a rape victim's body is a crime scene and should be treated with the same sense of urgency as they would a murder scene.
Whether you regard it as being absent minded, uninformed or simply insensitive, I found it appalling that police officers would have a rape victim sit down to record a lengthy statement before having her medically examined after collecting a description of her assailant and the location where the incident occurred.
DOCTORS AND NURSES
Victims have related their experiences with doctors and nurses whose insensitivity left them feeling further violated. Reports of police officers having to chase down some doctors to examine victims abound. Why is this so? Those doctors do not want to attend court.
In addition, Jamaica has only one doctor who is qualified to examine rape victims she is Dr Rhonda Hutson at the University Hospital of the West Indies. Thankfully, Dr Rhonda Hutson is so passionate about this she has taken it upon herself to impart her knowledge to the doctors at the University Hospital of the West Indies. I hope that in time the police officers in the Kingston Area will rely on the expertise of Dr Hutson as opposed to that doctor who repeatedly endorses medical certificates "rape not verified" as if to say that is the function of a doctor. For the non-lawyers, only a jury can determine whether rape has been committed. A doctor can only testify as to whether or not there is evidence of penetration and, depending on a multiplicity of factors, there may be none.
VICTIM SUPPORT UNIT
The Victim Support Unit in Jamaica is a wonderful idea in theory but ineffective in practice due to lack of resources and inadequate staffing. In certain parishes, the unit seems to be comfortable with their "one counselling session policy." I recall having to enter a nolle prosequi in a matter because three years after the incident the victim, who was allegedly raped by an in law, was so traumatised she just sat on the floor in the witness box crying. When I questioned her mother she said since the incident, the once brilliant teenager had reverted to sucking her finger and stroking her dog instead of communicating with her relatives. She received one counselling session in totality.
WHO ARE THE VICTIMS
Whilst engaged in prosecuting cases in thirteen of the fourteen parishes of Jamaica I have interacted with victims as young as four years old and as old as seventy-five years old. Females at the younger and older end of the spectrum are few. Many teenaged girls are being raped and most of the victims are the shy, introverted girls who are not assertive.
What is the attitude of the some Jamaicans?
"It's just a lickle sex"
"After nobody nuh dead"
"Lickle sex never kill nobody"
"Serve her right she too bad"
"A so school girl love taxi man. A that them must get"
We have heard them all. Rape is never to be viewed as appropriate punishment for improper or indecent attire, bad behaviour, display of rebellion or disrespect by a woman or young girl. The Jamaican male must be socialised to respect women. He must be made to understand that "no" at all times means "no". Parents, and in particular mothers, of male offspring have their role to play in instilling respect for women in their sons.
IMPACT OF JURORS ON RAPE CASES
It used to amaze me as I prosecuted rape cases in rural parishes how jurors were quick to find a man accused of rape not guilty in the face of overwhelming evidence of guilt. At the end of these trials, we always got the feedback as to why? Despite the directions of the judges, many decisions by jurors were borne out of a desire to "give the boy a chance" ... and those who have daughters forget how that girl begged for a chance.
An even bigger irony was the social class from which victim, accused and juror came. I have never had an uptown rape victim in all my years in the criminal courts. That does not mean they do not exist. I strongly believe incidents of rape involving women from the upper class are not being reported. Outside of the Corporate Area, it is rear to find educated persons sitting on a jury panel. Outside the corporate area rest assured that if there happens to be an educated juror on the jury panel chances are he or she will not be allowed to try any case for the entire circuit.
So we have mainly uneducated, lower class jurors trying rape cases involving persons from their own strata and these jurors are not intelligent enough to realise that when the evidence satisfies them so that they feel sure of the guilt of the accused by giving him that chance they are releasing a rapist unto their own daughters or themselves!
In one of my trials which ended with an acquittal, the accused confessed to me as he was being escorted out of court by the police. The facts were overwhelming. The accused was known to the complainant. He abducted and brutally raped her and the jury released a guilty man.
An anomaly in our jurisprudence is the fact that a man accused of committing rape by using a firearm or imitation firearm is tried in the Gun Court before a judge alone. While in circumstances where no firearm or imitation is used the trial is conducted by a jury which almost invariably returns not guilty verdicts.
No-one is asking a jury to find a man guilty of rape just because it is a brutal act of violence that scars a woman for life! All that is being asked is that jurors return a true verdict according to the evidence! THAT, MY FELLOW JAMAICANS, IS JUSTICE!!
POLICE
Starting with the police. It is said that rape is often committed between 9 pm and 5 am. Yet the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse is closed during those hours. The result is that victims are made to rely on the police officer in the guardroom ... their first point of contact with the system.
I recall one mother from a ghetto community testifying that she took her eleven-year-old daughter who had been raped directly to the hospital. She was told by the hospital staff she has to report the matter to the police station with jurisdiction over her community. She got the police station at 9 pm and the police offer said, "Come back tomorrow cause station lock!" It is noteworthy that there exists a Force Order which prohibits this conduct.
Most police officers fail to realise that a rape victim's body is a crime scene and should be treated with the same sense of urgency as they would a murder scene.
Whether you regard it as being absent minded, uninformed or simply insensitive, I found it appalling that police officers would have a rape victim sit down to record a lengthy statement before having her medically examined after collecting a description of her assailant and the location where the incident occurred.
DOCTORS AND NURSES
Victims have related their experiences with doctors and nurses whose insensitivity left them feeling further violated. Reports of police officers having to chase down some doctors to examine victims abound. Why is this so? Those doctors do not want to attend court.
In addition, Jamaica has only one doctor who is qualified to examine rape victims she is Dr Rhonda Hutson at the University Hospital of the West Indies. Thankfully, Dr Rhonda Hutson is so passionate about this she has taken it upon herself to impart her knowledge to the doctors at the University Hospital of the West Indies. I hope that in time the police officers in the Kingston Area will rely on the expertise of Dr Hutson as opposed to that doctor who repeatedly endorses medical certificates "rape not verified" as if to say that is the function of a doctor. For the non-lawyers, only a jury can determine whether rape has been committed. A doctor can only testify as to whether or not there is evidence of penetration and, depending on a multiplicity of factors, there may be none.
VICTIM SUPPORT UNIT
The Victim Support Unit in Jamaica is a wonderful idea in theory but ineffective in practice due to lack of resources and inadequate staffing. In certain parishes, the unit seems to be comfortable with their "one counselling session policy." I recall having to enter a nolle prosequi in a matter because three years after the incident the victim, who was allegedly raped by an in law, was so traumatised she just sat on the floor in the witness box crying. When I questioned her mother she said since the incident, the once brilliant teenager had reverted to sucking her finger and stroking her dog instead of communicating with her relatives. She received one counselling session in totality.
WHO ARE THE VICTIMS
Whilst engaged in prosecuting cases in thirteen of the fourteen parishes of Jamaica I have interacted with victims as young as four years old and as old as seventy-five years old. Females at the younger and older end of the spectrum are few. Many teenaged girls are being raped and most of the victims are the shy, introverted girls who are not assertive.
What is the attitude of the some Jamaicans?
"It's just a lickle sex"
"After nobody nuh dead"
"Lickle sex never kill nobody"
"Serve her right she too bad"
"A so school girl love taxi man. A that them must get"
We have heard them all. Rape is never to be viewed as appropriate punishment for improper or indecent attire, bad behaviour, display of rebellion or disrespect by a woman or young girl. The Jamaican male must be socialised to respect women. He must be made to understand that "no" at all times means "no". Parents, and in particular mothers, of male offspring have their role to play in instilling respect for women in their sons.
IMPACT OF JURORS ON RAPE CASES
It used to amaze me as I prosecuted rape cases in rural parishes how jurors were quick to find a man accused of rape not guilty in the face of overwhelming evidence of guilt. At the end of these trials, we always got the feedback as to why? Despite the directions of the judges, many decisions by jurors were borne out of a desire to "give the boy a chance" ... and those who have daughters forget how that girl begged for a chance.
An even bigger irony was the social class from which victim, accused and juror came. I have never had an uptown rape victim in all my years in the criminal courts. That does not mean they do not exist. I strongly believe incidents of rape involving women from the upper class are not being reported. Outside of the Corporate Area, it is rear to find educated persons sitting on a jury panel. Outside the corporate area rest assured that if there happens to be an educated juror on the jury panel chances are he or she will not be allowed to try any case for the entire circuit.
So we have mainly uneducated, lower class jurors trying rape cases involving persons from their own strata and these jurors are not intelligent enough to realise that when the evidence satisfies them so that they feel sure of the guilt of the accused by giving him that chance they are releasing a rapist unto their own daughters or themselves!
In one of my trials which ended with an acquittal, the accused confessed to me as he was being escorted out of court by the police. The facts were overwhelming. The accused was known to the complainant. He abducted and brutally raped her and the jury released a guilty man.
An anomaly in our jurisprudence is the fact that a man accused of committing rape by using a firearm or imitation firearm is tried in the Gun Court before a judge alone. While in circumstances where no firearm or imitation is used the trial is conducted by a jury which almost invariably returns not guilty verdicts.
No-one is asking a jury to find a man guilty of rape just because it is a brutal act of violence that scars a woman for life! All that is being asked is that jurors return a true verdict according to the evidence! THAT, MY FELLOW JAMAICANS, IS JUSTICE!!
Very informative, instructive. Some time ago, a Bill was before Parliament to broaden the definition of rape and to make it gender neutral. Following howls from the Christian Lawyers Fellowship, the previous government decided against any amplification of the definition of rape. The LCF feared that male-male anal sex would be decriminalized through the back door, so to speak (since male on male forced anal sex was included in the Bill as a species of rape).
ReplyDeleteTell me, are judges still required to give special directions on the uncorroborated evidence of complainants? I am a little out of touch with the criminal side of things.
Hilaire
Unfortunately they are still required so to do in this day age! It embarasses me each time I heard it.
ReplyDeleteIt is atypical of our government, parliamentarians are too busy walking out and majoring in the minor resulting in the smaller islands of the Caribbean being more advanced than we are in legislative advances.