Feminism And Women In Criminal Justice

On the other hand, feminism criticises the preceding ideologies as females and males experience and report rape differently, and also challenges the notion of homogenous gender in crime (Pino and Mier, 1999). The ideology of intersectionality suggests elements of an individual’s social identity (for example gender, social class and ethnicity) intersect with each other to form a person’s social identity which can affect an individual’s experience of victimization. Valentine (2007) stated gender is an extremely important element of a person’s identity especially in regards to rape and this is a gap in positivist’s workings. In favour of this Pain (2001) illustrates the importance of gender when Pain suggests women are more likely to fear public

Over the years there has been a recognition by the government of how important the victim is to the criminal justice system. In January 2012 the government published the consultation document ‘Getting it right for victims and witnesses’ (Ministry of Justice, 2012). The document was published to mark out improvements in the treatment of victims (and witnesses) during the criminal justice system process. It further states that those who become victims of “serious” crimes such as murder or rape then victim services such as Victim Support should be contacted to help individuals through the criminal justice process. Victim Support (2015) state that victims of rape find it difficult to deal with certain aspects of their victimization and therefore the referrals they receive from the different departments of the criminal justice system such as the police or probation, is important to helping the victim, which in turn can be beneficial to investigations. In addition to the consultation document, the government released The Code of Practice for Victims of Crime 2013 (Domestic violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004) which enforced the importance of treatment of victims within the Criminal Justice System, by proposing special measures should be taken and victims should be kept informed throughout the investigation and also supports the referrals to Victim

This notion was accepted by society as well as within the criminal justice system until the House of Lords case in 1991 dismissed the exemption and deemed it outdated as a result of the feminist campaigns (The Law Commission, 1991). Sadly, it is still evident today that cases of “relationship rape” remain more difficult to prosecute than those of stranger rapes despite the change in legislations (Harris and Grace, 1999). Cultural differences are evident between countries concerning rape within marriages and also the debate of whether a woman can be convicted of rape. In South Korea, a woman was convicted of raping her husband, this is the first conviction of its kind; before 2013 marital rape was legal in Korea (Independent, 2015). Convicting a woman in the UK of rape is extremely difficult, there are only a small number of exceptions due to the legislation stating a penis is required for it to be classified as rape. Another issue that is raised in modern research is the treatment of rape victims throughout the court procedures. Upon many occasions it has been evident that the defence target the victim and through the use of positivist ideologies such as victim precipitation and victim proneness, blame the victim for the