I was looking at the Adam Smith Institute’s website recently and they pointed me at a document which shows that the government doesn’t like violence against women and girls. Good neither do I. I don’t bomb people (including women and girls) or impose embargoes on countries denying the people medicine or supply weapons and logistic support to any manner of lunatic, but that’s another story.
Specifically the government doesn’t like violence against its own women and girls, (again unless it is the aggressor of course). And to that end they have a strategy. Here it is if you can stand it.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/crime/vawg-action-summary?view=Binary
It’s pretty much top-down, spend a load of money nonsense. On rape for example, they’ve run adverts to tell potential rapists not to rape, sic. Really, running adverts to tell rapists not to rape. There’s also a sexual violence advisers training package (who knows?), sex offender management and a campaign to warn hookers of violent johns.
So what might be missing from such a strategy? Well some grass roots approaches, common sense, international comparisons and what are other countries doing right. Can we mimic them in some way to reduce the amount of violence?
Since the Home Office isn’t keen to do so, allow me. There are 80,000 rapes in the UK each year whereas in say Switzerland there are 150. That’s not a misprint. Adjusted for population women are 84 times more likely to be raped in the UK than in Switzerland. Consider the enormity of that. Eighty-four times more likely to be raped in the UK.
So what lessons can we draw?
Well, Swiss women like Swiss men can be armed. If you were a potential rapist would you prefer your victim to be defenceless as UK law currently requires or would you rather her to have a Glock-22 about her person? But this is not a call for the arming of the population, just a call to allow women to be allowed minimal self-defence in the form of pepper spray. Currently it’s prohibited as a fire arm (sic). Of course rapists and other criminals don’t worry about the law so they can obtain some easily enough. Don’t believe me? Try a five minute google search for a Chinese supplier and the world is your oyster. It’s just giving women a chance to defend themselves. Pointlessly calling for more rape convictions is missing the point; the rapes have allegedly taken place. Giving women the right to protect themselves is not. The right of self-defence is absolute. Let’s make it meaningful by giving women the means to actually do so. Let’s stop helping rapists. Legalise pepper spray.
Inspiration for this post was here:
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/liberty-justice/legalize-pepper-spray
First order of business is to establish where the 80000 figure comes from. The Home Office, the British crime survey? And what is the definition of rape employed?. Actual penetration or forced sexual acts involving genital contact?. Or are we on the femminist definition?–where they send out surveys saying “have you ever been pressured to have sex when you didn’t want to?” and wifey remembers hubby pestering in the middle of the night “go on, go on, go on etc”, ticks the box and its another rape recorded–because all we men are rapists.
Work it out–UK 70,000,000–half are men approx=35,000.000 males
SW 8,000,000–Ditto—————– =4,000,000 males
Therefore 8.75 x as many UK males as Swiss.
80000 Divided by 50=1600 x as many rapes in the UK as in SW– So divide 1600 by 8.75=182
So even after compensating for numbers, British males are supposedly 182 times nastier than Swiss males–ie 182x more likely to commit rape. So if the UK was repopulated with 35 million Swiss males instead of natives, there would only be 8.75 x50 rapes(per every 4 million Swiss immigrants) =437 rapes here every year instead of 80000. I call bullshit.
BTW I am totally in favour of us getting back our guns as per pre-1925. But lets make sure of the figures we are talking about before we start .
I’ve misread it–its 150 not 50–indignation does that–however –even out by a factor of 3– that would still make UK males approx 60 x more likely to be a rapist than a Swiss male–I still call bullshit.
I have not the will to wander to Switzerland for the definition of rape, however since 2004 it has been defined pretty well in the UK:
“Under section 1(1) SOA 2003 a defendant, A, is guilty of rape if:
_ A intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of B (the complainant) with his penis;
_ B does not consent to the penetration; and,
_ A does not reasonably believe that B consents.
The new offence of rape in section 1(1) SOA 2003 includes oral and anal penetration with a penis. This is a change from the previous law which was only concerned with vaginal penetration and used other offences to criminalise these forms of sexual violence (such as indecent assault). The person who commits the offence of rape must be a man (as the penetration has to be with a penis). However, both women and men may experience rape. If the penetration is with something other than a penis then the offence is assault by penetration
For the offence of rape to have been committed the defendant must have penetrated you without your consent, or continued to penetrate you after you withdrew your consent, and the defendant must not have reasonably believed that you were consenting”
Not forgetting that at least as many males as females are raped.
We’ll assume, well I shall, that the crime of rape is as above. So it encompasses things like unwilling oral sex. In fact it would be hard for “rape” to be anything except a crime of sexual penetration.
So it depends upon what the definition is in other countries.
And some 80% of those crimes are committed by persons known to the victim.
So the pepper spray would also have to be available to males, since they are as likely to be raped as females.
Or am I missing something ?
Firstly, it is very difficult to compare crime figures between countries and especially so for something like rape. I would be stunned if there were 80,000 rape convictions in the UK so that is allegations, right? What are the figures for Switzerland referring to? Are they allegations or convictions or what? Considering the notoriously low conviction rate for rape (here - don’t even talk about India) this matters even more in terms of the numbers. Some women (and men) will not report a rape on the basis of the chance of getting a conviction. Is the cost of going through all that worth a miniscule chance of getting the perp nailed?
Secondly, you assume weapons laws are the difference. Huge numbers of factors come into play. Considering the fact (everyone seems to agree with this) that the “dragged into a back alley and assaulted” is a minority and most rapes are carried out by known and trusted people (including boyfriends/husbands with whom consent has previously been given) then the pepper spray idea is ludicrous by your own (probably) trumped-up metric. I have gone to bed with a fair few girls wearing stockings for example. Sometimes after very spicy food but never with her with a pepper spray in her stocking-top. A stiletto might be cool mind - but that’s a totally different thing. Call it my “Éowyn complex”. But when it comes to bed the weapons are all hung-up and even the stockings usually come off then…
I’d like to write more but I simply can’t without concrete examples. And I am not prepared to divulge those.
[Edit]
Mr Ecks, this has nothing to do with feminism. But yeah, you’re right on the idea of 60x. That is ludicrous.
Nick M: Crawl back under your rock…OK?
No–not fucking OK.
The Home Office’s own site says in 2011 2900 defendents were prosecuted for rape. It is somewhat coy about the exact number convicted (it alludes to 1200 but makes no definate statement–not in the page I found anyway)but no less than the Guardian confirms that 58% of said rapists were found guilty in court–therefore 2900x 58%=1682–say 1700.
So Mr Astrophysics grad, Mr Frank Whittle, Mr Barnes Wallace of bullshit–lets do the maths–80000-1700=78300 “rapes” unaccounted for. So I ask again–where did the 80000 figure come from?. What evidence is there that it represents any sort of reality?.Only 53000+ sexual offences in total were reported to the police in 2011. Thats all offences so where does this 80000 rapes alone appear from?. Beyond doubt some unfortunate women will have suffered real rape and the hands of real evildoers who will not be going before the courts . Is it to be believed that there 78000+ such victims and thus there tens of thousands of wicked, unpunished rapists walking about?. That is certainly what the Harriet Harmans and other haters want us to believe.The same Harman who, while boss at the Home Office, was warned several times by a Judge about her deceitful use of the “only 6% of rape cases lead to a conviction” con(only 6% of accusations supposedly lead to a conviction –and as per the Guardian the real figure is 12%–Harman was comparing the rate of accusations that lead to a court conviction in rape cases with the rate of convictions in court cases for other crimes. This lead to the false comparison that 50+ % of other crimes lead to a conviction but only 6% of rape cases do).
After all its not as if there are any women who would tell lies about something as dire and awful as rape. Said the same week a bug-eyed female finally gets 16 months for making her 11th totally false allegation of rape. Nor is she the only serial false accuser–there are lots of them. But of course we don’t need to worry about that. White knight and defender of women NickM, like the Shadow, knows the evil that lurks (only) in the hearts of men. He needs no evidence, no trial, no proof or justification of cobbled up massive figures of supposed rapes–if you are a man, he knows you did it and anyone who does not buy it can crawl back under their rock.
Nor does Nicky boy give a shit about men whose lives have been fucked-up by such bogus allegations. Lose your job, lose your wife/family, friends spit in your face or don’t want to know you, assaulted on the street by more white-knight “heros” and friends of women everywhere–old Nick doesn’t care– you should just suck it up and take it like a man. Lets hope for his sake that he is able to remain complacent and never himself runs into a vicious female liar and gets a first hand experience of being a despised minority of one.
False accusations are not extremely rare events.(Anybody reading this–search for false rape–there is plenty of material–judge for yourself–but if you have sons or husbands or Fathers you care about, judge carefully). Prior to 1985 the police ended up putting 45% of rape allegations into their “No Crime” catagory–that is to say the file for accusations where they considered there was no case to answer–ie no crime had been commited–they had another file for “No Further Action” cases where they considered a crime may have been committed but they couldn’t prove it. After 1985 the increasingly PC Home Office insisted that only cases where the woman admitted telling lies could be put in the “No Crime” catagory.
The fact is that there are just as many rotten, scummy, evil and worthless women as there are rotten etc, men. Large numbers of such women WILL tell lies about being raped or sexually assaulted, for reasons of revenge/financial gain/the desire for attention or just plain mental abberation and some times for reasons so trival as to be truly horrifying. Of course the number of bad people is a small % of humanity–I think Doug Caseys figure of 20% of 20%–4% of all human beings is about right. But 4% (or less) of the 30 million+ women in the UK is still a lot of liars and potential liars out there. More than enough to look a lot more carefully into claims of 80000 unpunished rapes a year in the UK
What are you playing at?–you insult me, I get mad as hell and then you fucking edit the piece so my blazing reply makes me look like the villian of the piece?.
If I’d known you were going to have second thoughts I would not have been as rude or agressive. My apologies–I was fired up.
Mr Ecks ~ I can assure you I have not edited your reply in any way. Nor would I ever.
I’ve never met Nick M, but I doubt he would have either. Computer glitch most likely.
Nick M, you are right, many factors come into play, Switzerland is more culturally if not wholly ethnically homogenous, and the culture tends towards being more law abiding. There is less welfare and one or two cantons aside, the protestant work ethic is alive and well. But the central point was about the right to self-defence.
Any aggressor would think twice if the girl has a Glock and a probably sympathetic jury, much less all the male relatives with assault rifles in their safes. Whereas in the UK, the women are forced by law to be defenceless. This also must surely be a factor.
Nick edited his own first comment, which is what Mr Ecks is referring to. Not anyone editing one by Mr Ecks.
@ RAB ~ Cheers, I get it now.
You moved from ‘violence aginst women’ to ‘rape’. Why?
I watched some TV in which it was claimed that a man with a scratched face was displaying defence wounds and so was guilty of assault.
If you want to make a man so automatically guilty - dont be surprised when a male gang culture evolves. Even your police are wary of gangs
There were 543 recorded rapes in Switzerland in 2010. There were 17,500 recorded rapes in the UK in 2010. Relative to population, that puts the UK rate about 4x higher than the Swiss rate (data from here).
The 80,000 is based on surveys asking women whether they’ve been raped. Anonymous surveys, so the incentive to lie is, at best, not obvious. Not quite sure why Mr Ecks decided that this was the right moment to go off on a crazy rant. I’ve no idea whether Switzerland has an equivalent crime survey, nor what it has concluded if so, nor where the “150″ is sourced from.
Seriously, SAoT, did you not read the “80,000 vs 150″ statistic and immediately know it was false? Doesn’t everyone have that gut “data that is obviously wrong” instinct?
So. It’s possible, I suppose, that the 4x difference in recorded rape is because Swiss women go Uma Thurman on rapists’ arses. It’s possible that in a highly conservative country, the cops take a UK-in-1970s approach to recording acquaintance and marital rape as crimes (ie they don’t). It’s possible that the Swiss are better behaved. It’s possible that it’s some combination of all three.
But given that more than 90% of rapes are committed by a partner or somebody the victim trusts, I can’t see how guns would help much - unless a sizeable proportion of Swiss women keep a Glock within drawing reach at all times when they invite a dude in for coffee.
“given that more than 90% of rapes are committed by a partner or somebody the victim trusts, I can’t see how guns would help much”
Were I so motivated to rape a woman the possibility of immediate lethal revenge might cool my passion significantly.
I am sure that Nick would not have started a fight with anyone on purpose (he is not in the mood for it at the moment, he really is not). The fat bald man (me) is available for a slangning match - if anyone feels they really have to have a slanging match.
As for modern Britain - it is a odd place, the young (and the not so young) regard it as NORMAL to get blind drunk (or out of their minds on drugs).
I am not surprised they attack women a lot (although I would not put my faith in any exact figures), I am only surprised they are physically capable of intercourse - I suppose the sexual urge overcomes the drink and drugs.
I believe that humans are beings (agents - have free will). but modern culture appears to be Rousseau on steriods (in more ways than one) “feel” rather than think - reject civilisation and traditional conduct, and act on the lowest urges (including sexual ones).
Fraud attacked self “repression” (self control) even while he said it was needed to preserve civilisation (civil society) surely some mistake?
The denial of the sexual instinct (and the instinct for violence - and the joy of dominating someone, and destroying them) is folly - such instincts exist in each person and someone who pretends to everyone that they do not exist in him (like a post Vatican II Catholic Priest?) and that he and the world is a just a nice fun place, is likely to fall into …….., but such instincts can be controlled, can be prevented from taking over. IF one chooses to do so - and follows various traditional practices and customs that help reason control these instincts.
I know the destructive instincts can be controlled - as they are strong in me, and I did not kill yesterday and (with the help of reason and tradition) I will not kill today.
As for whether women should be armed?
OF COURSE THEY SHOULD.
A nation that says a women can not even carry a pepper spray for self defence is (at best) mad - “as mad as the mist and snow”.
Women certainly can not rely on the police to protect them - for various reasons that just is not a practical suggestion.
Mr Ecks,
I edited it because I re-read your comment and I’d initially taken what you said out of context. I didn’t know you’d commented at the time but then the Cats server is a law to itself. I’m sorry I was needlessly offensive - which is why I changed it. You do have a hell of a point as to the 70-odd thousand phantom rapes. Is this another example of the Dept of Made-up Statistics - like the childhood obesity figures?
Nick: no, they’re actual examples of women saying when surveyed (anonymously, so for no personal gain) that they were raped but didn’t report it to the cops at the time. Which isn’t particularly DoMUS-y.
What is it with the UK Gov, anyway? They bitch about the risks people are exposed to then have laws specifically preventing the potential victims from countering the risks.
The pepper spray thing. There’s hardly a country in Europe apart from the UK makes them illegal. As far as I’m aware, only the UK goes as far as to class them as a firearm & threaten mandatory imprisonment.
(And thanks for reminding me. The canister lives in the door pocket of the car is French & is CS. I always forget to take it out before I visit. It’s been in & out about 6 times. I’ll tuck a note to myself in my passport.)
And warnings to hookers? There’s a roadside brothel up on the A92 Granada/Almeria highway’s good place to get a drink in the early hours. Woman who runs it’s notorious for laying a baseball bat upside the head of troublesome punters. Meanwhile, UK’s determined to make the lives of working girls as dangerous as it possibly can. Even two girls sharing an apartment’s a nick. The ‘kerbcrawling’ prohibition. Actually, it’s worth going having a look at the CPS page on that:
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/prostitution_and_exploitation_of_prostitution/#a16
If there’s a lawyer, about I’d love to know how it’s possible to get a conviction. There’s no law against women walking the streets looking ‘up for it’ or towns centers would be either very dowdy or very quiet Saturday nights. There’s no law against asking them if they’re ‘up for it’ unless the attention’s unwelcome. Apart from entrapment, neither the punter nor the tart are going to volunteer there’s a monetary arrangement being made, are they? And under the latest amendment there’s no requirement to prove the offense is persistent. So what’s the evidence? Essentially the courts are convicting on suspicion.
Wandered a bit away from the OP, but.
Paul Marks, above:
“The denial of the sexual instinct …… is folly - such instincts exist in each person and someone who pretends to everyone that they do not exist in him …. and that he and the world is a just a nice fun place, is likely to fall into …….., but such instincts can be controlled, can be prevented from taking over. IF one chooses to do so - and follows various traditional practices and customs that help reason control these instincts” (Cut a little for brevity)
Well, maybe there wouldn’t be such a rape problem in the UK if some of those instincts could be discharged. SAoT made much of Switzerland’s firearm laws. There’s another difference. Like a lot of Europe, soliciting’s legal. Licensed brothels. So how many rapes would not occur if the solution to one of life’s pressing problems was in one’s wallet or on a credit card? Maybe there’d be less date rapes of pissed up girls after clubs. (Although, no doubt some complaints from thirsty girls that blokes are conserving their money.) Few less ‘marital rapes’ if hubby could get it elsewhere. less rape in general. And less assaults by frustrated young men taking their frustrations out on each other. Much less inclination to get totally ratarsed if your intending to pay a call on the way home.
The difference between estimated rapes and recorded rapes is worrying: 78,000:15,760.
Precisely how so they get the 78,000 figure ?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjI0Eo6IUSaHdEVTMDRrSmpGV0t5cVhQY1paUlNfbnc#gid=1
And look at the conviction rate differences, male versus female.
I think BiS has it right here. The issue isn’t really about allowing people to get their Uma on, it’s about creating a culture where consenting adults are treated like, well, adults.
John: by surveying a representative sample of British people on their exposure to various different crimes over the previous year (in what used to be called the British Crime Survey, although I think the current lot have changed its name)
Of course, having sex with anyone “the worse for drink” now falls into the rape category.
IE: If drunk they cannot give consent to sex (unable because the law considers a drunk person not capable of giving consent)
And people wonder why I just won’t talk to anyone who is obviously drunk, apart from not wanting to get involved in physical violence !