Rape Law Reform In Canada

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victims in Canada. The research is based on literature from high quality sources such as academic journals, books and the Canadian government reports.
The rape law reform The legislation became applicable in the county in 1983. The Canadian criminal code underwent several changes to see that justice to the rape victims was realized. The main reason of the reform was to enhance justice to the rape victims through increased reports of the rape cases. The other reason was to reduce the number of unsolved cases by the police concerning rape and other sexual assaults. The reform also aimed at increasing the number of rape cases that were charged. There are various that were declared wrong by the reform and anyone found guilty of the …show more content…

This was a positive impact of the legislation but it did not last long. The trend changed and the number of rape cases that were reported reduced. The number of reports classified as founded also increased and there were fewer cases where charge was made. This implies that the reform failed to meet its primary objectives. The reform was pushed by the actions of the scholars, advocacy organizations, politicians and researchers. The groups identified the major drawbacks that the earlier law had, necessitating the push for reforms. Previously, the law did not grant justice to the rape victims as it had various deficiencies. Some of the deficiencies included negative attitude of the criminal justice personnel towards the rape victims and the end result was a few convictions to the perpetrators. This definitely denied the victims justice and most of them resorted to suffering in silence. The reform focused on the violence committed rather than the nature of the act. This implies that the issue of the perpetrator’s gender was not as important as the bodily harm they caused the victims in deciding on the charges that they would face. In the reforms, rape was no longer classified as rape but a sexual assault and this gave hope to the …show more content…

The country’s criminal code defined the actions that constituted sexual offences differently for the male and female victims (Frank, Hardinge & Correa, 2009). When a male perpetrated an indecent action of sexual nature, they would serve a maximum of ten years imprisonment. Interestingly, when the perpetrators were female, they would serve half the sentence of their male counterparts. The reforms changed this and in the current system of justice, all the criminals are charged with the same sentence regardless of their gender. The duration of the sentence in the post-reform era is determined by the level of seriousness of the crime. Committing the act without causing physical harm to the victims attracts a maximum of ten years imprisonment. When one uses crude or any other forms of weapon to carry out the act, they face a more serious charge of a term that does not exceed fourteen years. The last level involves wounding or disfiguring the victims and it may lead to life

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