This is a very thoughtful account from a trauma victim that echoes much of my own analysis from personal experience. There is a real disconnect between the views of those who have been traumatized...
This is a very thoughtful account from a trauma victim that echoes much of my own analysis from personal experience. There is a real disconnect between the views of those who have been traumatized by sexual crimes and the public sphere of opinion regarding offenders. Until society is ready to reject wholly punitive approaches in favor of more restorative measures, we will continue to suffer a high incidence of these crimes coupled not only with low conviction rates, but also low reporting rates, exacerbating the problems we claim to be concerned about.
Our adversarial system of justice is a looming factor in this equation; truth is not sought by pitting two polarized extremes against each other and then simply selecting a victor. That exercise most often eschews truth in favor of one or another greatly exaggerated falsehoods, because human beings only very rarely exhibit the kind of raw, malevolent evil that the prosecution portrays on the one hand, or the hapless innocence portrayed by the defense on the other hand. Restorative justice would allow for the offender and victim both to come to terms with the actual crime, and for both to feel human again after the accounting.
This is a very thoughtful account from a trauma victim that echoes much of my own analysis from personal experience. There is a real disconnect between the views of those who have been traumatized by sexual crimes and the public sphere of opinion regarding offenders. Until society is ready to reject wholly punitive approaches in favor of more restorative measures, we will continue to suffer a high incidence of these crimes coupled not only with low conviction rates, but also low reporting rates, exacerbating the problems we claim to be concerned about.
Our adversarial system of justice is a looming factor in this equation; truth is not sought by pitting two polarized extremes against each other and then simply selecting a victor. That exercise most often eschews truth in favor of one or another greatly exaggerated falsehoods, because human beings only very rarely exhibit the kind of raw, malevolent evil that the prosecution portrays on the one hand, or the hapless innocence portrayed by the defense on the other hand. Restorative justice would allow for the offender and victim both to come to terms with the actual crime, and for both to feel human again after the accounting.