Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
StumbleRape still a crime where victim can share blame
State ‘contributory conduct’ rule used to deny financial assistance
An anonymous rape victim sits in the Rape Crisis Center at the College of Southern Nevada’s Charleston campus Aug. 8. She is backed by a quilt made by other rape victims.
Sunday, Aug. 17, 2008 | 2 a.m.
Reader poll
Susan woke up with this guy all over her like an animal. By the time she realized what was happening, he had stopped. He let go of her shorts, looked at her and said, “I messed up real bad, didn’t I?” Then he told her to make him breakfast.
Susan has no idea what she cooked. She had no idea what to tell the officer who said, “But you don’t look like someone that’s been raped.” She had no idea what to say when, several weeks later, she got a letter from a state program that helps victims of crime pay medical bills stating she’d been denied funding because of “contributory conduct.”
Susan was denied, the logic goes, because she was partly responsible for her own rape. She’d used methamphetamine 30 hours before the attack — this was her “contributory conduct.” She is one of nine sexual assault victims confirmed to have been denied assistance from Nevada’s Victims of Crime Compensation Program because of contributory conduct. Eight of the nine were teens.
Many advocates for victims think there have been more than nine such denials. They say records do not reveal the true extent of the problem. But in any case, they say, denying assistance to even one rape victim on these grounds would be an outrage.
For many, it cuts too close to antiquated notions that women can invite or encourage rape, and are therefore responsible if it occurs. And, advocates for victims emphasize, alcohol and drugs are often instruments of sexual assault. “No” means “no,” they say, no matter what.
The “no” that victims are hearing from the compensation program officials may be driven as much by fiscal concerns as by philosophy, however. Ever-growing numbers of victims are asking for assistance from a program that doesn’t have enough money to help them all, asking for help from a program that may be looking for reasons to deny them so that it can stretch its budget.
That’s how Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto sees it. She leads a committee that in January began a careful survey of the victim compensation program and its policies.
Last month, percolating concerns about contributory conduct boiled over. At a July 7 meeting of the committee that oversees Masto’s smaller group, several attendees sat in quiet shock as Bryan Nix, coordinator of the compensation program, explained the contributory conduct policy.
Speaking of intoxicated sexual assault victims, Nix told commission members, “You know, their behavior alone oftentimes excludes them from participation in this program because they’re not, under our guidelines, innocent victims of crime. They participated in the crime on some level.”
Since that July meeting, the compensation program has come under fire from victim and civil rights advocates who feel the troubles run deeper than poorly written policy. The real issue here is the fundamental differences of opinion about whether a rape or sexual assault victim should ever share the burden of blame. Nevada’s contributory conduct clause is a small step, many fear, into a dark hole where women in short skirts or low-cut blouses are blamed for attracting negative attention, for “asking for it.”
Of the criticism, Nix says, “I think it’s a little misguided. Someone goes to a bar, slams down numerous cocktails, ends up with someone in the bar, goes to their hotel room to ‘watch TV’ in a very drunken, intoxicated state and ends up ‘waking up raped.’ ”
The rationale behind Nevada’s contributory conduct policy is simple — prevent drunken people who pick bar fights from getting compensation, keep burglars who break their ankles kicking in a door from having their medical bills paid with state money. These matters are pretty black and white. It’s when contributory conduct falls into the gray area of sexual assault and rape that the problems start.
Statewide, 2,017, or 27 percent, of the 7,357 compensation claims accepted from January 2005 to January 2007 were submitted by victims of rape and sexual assault who, in turn, had more than $1.28 million in medical or counseling expenses paid by the program. It’s a considerable sum, but less than the $34 million paid for 2,750 general assault victims, or the $5.5 million in compensation allocated to 1,065 domestic violence victims.
In the past four years, 592 rape and sexual assault victims have been denied compensation program funding for a variety of reasons. The vast majority of these victims, 494, were denied for “failure to cooperate,” meaning the victim didn’t complete required paperwork, follow up with compensation officers or keep appointments. For at least 12 rape and sexual assault victims, the reason for denial is unknown. Program records are incomplete. The records also do not indicate how many victims appealed their denials and were awarded funding after a fight.
Most victims don’t challenge the rejection. This has more to do with emotional exhaustion than laziness: Some victims would rather forget than put themselves through a detailed application process, let alone argue over the outcome, according to Rape Crisis Center Executive Director Louise Torres. The average victim gives her account of the crime 57 times to various officials before the case even lands in court, Torres says.
The nine victims who were denied for contributory conduct, which Nix says doesn’t necessarily mean intoxication, represent such a small percentage of all denials that “it’s hardly worth a lot of discussion,” he said. Nix is quick to insist that the disqualifying factor is not the presence of drugs or alcohol, but the resulting behavior; not merely being intoxicated, but being intoxicated and making a bad decision as a result.
Some scoff at this distinction.
“Being violently assaulted by someone, inebriated or not, is a violation of your personhood,” said Andrea Sundburg, director of the Nevada Coalition Against Sexual Violence. Whether the victim had been drinking is irrelevant, she added.
Those who question the policy also note that it is not applied consistently, so while one intoxicated victim gets funding, another does not. Nix points to this case-by-case approach as an example of the program’s success. Compensation officers consider the nuances of each case, interview victims and read police reports before reaching determinations. In fact, Nix noted, a considerable number of sexual assault and rape victims applying for compensation report being intoxicated at the time of the crime, and the program regularly provides them assistance regardless of the fact.
In some cases, Nix noted, the compensation officer thinks a line has been crossed. Where that line lies, however, is unclear. For some, this is extremely problematic.
“The idea that you are going to sit around and figure out what percentage of the blame you are going to ascribe to the victim themselves is just completely misguided and improper,” said Gary Peck, executive director of the Nevada American Civil Liberties Union.
Lee Rowland, Nevada ACLU northern coordinator, added: “A case-by-case review is only as good as the rules that govern that review. Discretion vested in officials should not turn into a character assassination of the victim, or be used to play out archaic gender stereotypes.”
Masto’s committee is studying whether changes must be made to compensation program policy. The contributory conduct rules were adopted years ago by the state Board of Examiners, composed of the governor, the attorney general and the secretary of state. The rules mandate that claims for compensation must be denied if the victim “used poor judgment because of intoxication or drugs.”
Whether compensation officers should be determining what is and isn’t poor judgment, Masto said, is also up for consideration. Masto’s committee has been asked to provide Supreme Court Justice James Hardesty, chairman of the Advisory Commission on the Administration of Justice, with recommendations for changes to the program, legislative or otherwise.
If the committee looks to neighboring states, it will find that compensation officers in Utah, California and New Mexico, among others, do not consider intoxication a contributory factor in sexual assault or rape cases. Members of New Mexico’s Crime Victims Reparation Commission decided 10 years ago that they “just would not look at drugs and alcohol on sexual assault cases,” according to current Commission Director Larry Tackman. Victims who undergo a sexual assault forensic exam from the hospital — like every Nevada victim must to be eligible for assistance — demonstrate by action alone that no matter how inebriated they were, something serious enough to warrant assistance likely occurred, Tackman said.
If the committee looks around the globe, it will see that England’s Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority has been under fire for cutting the standard $20,516 crime compensation payment for 14 rape victims by as much as 25 percent in the past year alone. All of these victims were told the deduction was because of contributory conduct — alcohol consumption. This revelation sparked furious condemnation from citizens and politicians.
The British compensation authority has since issued a statement acknowledging the deductions should not have been made. A 25-year-old victim who challenged the reduced compensation recently got the full award, and the government has called the compensation authority to review the other cases in question.
Many of the best arguments against contributory conduct flip the policy on its head. If victims can be penalized for becoming intoxicated before they were raped, does that mean the rapist on trial should have his sentence mitigated because he had a partner in crime?
Justice Hardesty extends the argument: Does this mean someone under the influence of alcohol who is shot by a robber cannot qualify for assistance? There is a disconnect between the criminal law that makes a perpetrator guilty and the policies of the victims compensation program, Hardesty says.
At least part of the problem with the compensation program can be traced back to financial strain. Despite laws indicating it is the policy of Nevada to provide care to victims of crime, the program does not receive any money from the state’s general fund. Instead, the program gets its money from criminal fines, restitution paid by convicts, government grants and a handful of other sources. The result: The compensation program received more than $8.8 million in funding during the 2006-07 fiscal year, the most recent data available.
The income is hard to reconcile with the costs. From January 2005 through January 2008, the compensation program was billed almost $50 million on behalf of victims.
In a presentation to Hardesty and the advisory committee of which he is chairman, Masto said, “due to limited crime compensation funding, it appears that (compensation officers) are forced to look for reasons not to provide funds rather than reasons to provide funds.”
Nevada has three compensation officers. A fourth position is open, but because of a government hiring freeze, it has gone unfilled for three months. The program has a backlog of roughly 1,000 cases, applications on hold because additional information is needed. Nix thinks he can solve the problem by handing much of the paperwork back to victims’ advocates, such as counselors at rape crisis centers. To achieve this goal, he is revamping the application process. Traditionally, victims have been asked to submit one sheet of information to state compensation officers, who would seek out additional information on their behalf. Now Nix wants victims to fill out an 11-page application, full of information compensation officers will no longer have to get on their own. This will speed up the process, Nix says.
But the new application is still just a proposal, and not every victim’s advocate is excited at the prospect of more work.
This is where things would get nasty, if things weren’t so politely political.
Delicately, Nix notes that his nine denials for contributory conduct are nothing compared with the almost 500 sexual assault and rape victims who were denied for failure to cooperate. These people have slipped through the cracks, Nix subtly suggested in an e-mail to the Sun, because advocates didn’t take enough time to help victims through the process. “The elephant in the room is not the issue of denial because of contributory conduct,” Nix wrote.
This implication, not surprisingly, makes victim’s advocates a little angry.
“When you start putting blame on other people, without looking at your own internal procedures, there is a problem,” Sundburg said. “Advocates are just as busy as victims of crime compensation. We all need to work together to make sure victims are getting the help they need.”
Susan had to be persuaded to file for victim’s assistance, convinced that revisiting the crime in interviews and applications was worth the stress. After the rape, scared to stay at her home, she landed in a series of women’s shelters. She had nightmares, was always looking over her shoulder, and suffered from that free-floating, endless and almost sourceless anxiety that haunts some victims. Susan was raped by a man she thought she knew. He invited her and some other friends over to do meth. She crashed at his house, in a guest bedroom.
Later, in a hospital gown, naked from the waist down, she told police the whole story, even admitting she had been an addict off and on for about two years. When she left the hospital, she drove around for hours in a daze, and finally, at the age of 39, called her parents and asked if she could go stay with them.
So when the rejection letter came, Susan was furious. “’Cause I used meth, it’s OK for someone to rape me,” she said. “That’s how I felt.”
Susan decided she would fight the rejection. In May, she appealed the decision. The denial was upheld, so she took it to the next level. In June, Susan made her case before an appeals officer, an attorney appointed by the governor.
Eleven months after she got her first letter of rejection, Susan’s application for assistance was approved. She was awarded $3,000 for counseling, so now therapists and psychiatrists — the people writing Susan’s new prescriptions for depression and anxiety — can bill their services directly to the compensation program.
In light of everything that led up to this, its hard to know whether Susan should celebrate.
Discussion: comments so far…
Comments are moderated by Las Vegas Sun editors. Our goal is not to limit the discussion, but rather to elevate it. Comments should be relevant and contain no abusive language. Comments that are off-topic, vulgar, profane or include personal attacks will be removed. Full comments policy. Additionally, we now display comments from trusted commenters by default. Those wishing to become a trusted commenter need to verify their identity or sign in with Facebook Connect to tie their Facebook account to their Las Vegas Sun account. For more on this change, read our story about how it works and why we did it.
Only trusted comments are displayed on this page. Untrusted comments have expired from this story.
No trusted comments have been posted.
Post a comment
Most Popular
- Viewed
- Discussed
- E-mailed
- Superstar Whitney Houston dies at 48
- Two dead after accident in downtown Las Vegas
- Instant Analysis: Debating whether UNLV should continue series with San Diego State
- Police looking for man in white Ford Explorer
- Dining Guide: 2012 Valentine’s Day options in Las Vegas
- Color from the scene at Thomas & Mack Center: We have a wire job! Rebels win, and Louie Armstrong sings!
- Four people injured in car accident
- UNLV can move forward without the burden of losing streak to San Diego State
- Blog: Justin Hawkins’ steal seals UNLV’s thrilling 65-63 victory against San Diego State
- UNLV makes key plays down stretch to hold off San Diego State 65-63
Blogs
The Kats Report
Color from scene at Thomas & Mack: We have a wire job! Rebels win, and Louie Armstrong sings!
South Point owner Michael Gaughan's take on 'Vegas Stripped': 'I'll give it an 8' (4 Comments)
Author relishes writing the life story of ‘larger-than-life’ Oscar Goodman (3 Comments)
Elsewhere
Landowner: All roads could lead to Uxbridge casino
Revel reveals smoke-free casino opening
Cirque du Soleil show in Sands China casino to close this month
Meet the woman behind Sheldon Adelson
The Sun
Locally owned and independent for more than 50 years.
The alleged victim should be denied financial assistance, if his or her actions contributed to their injury. A person who becomes intoxicated and puts him or her self in harms way is no different from the jaywalker who steps into the path of a moving vehicle. No one wants to be injured, no one deserves to be injured, but one must be responsible and accountable for one's actions. That does not absolve the alleged perpetrator. To use the same analogy, if a pedestrian steps into the path of a moving vehicle, and the driver has the ability to stop or avoid the pedestrian but speeds up instead, the driver may share responsibility for the outcome. If the activity truly was not consensual, and the perpetrator had the capacity to know that it was not consensual, the perpetrator should face prosecution. The alleged victim should still bear responsibility for his or her actions, and not be financially compensated or rewarded.
ChrisC is a moron. This is a great article. I believe victims of sexual assault and rape should not be denied compensation just because they were intoxicated by alcohol, prescription drugs or illegal drugs. Nice work, Abigail.
The notion that stepping out in traffic is somehow akin to being raped while drunk is one of the stupidest things I think I've ever read...
Getting raped, whether you're attacked, drinking, or drugged is not okay and not your fault. To think otherwise is foolish and dangerous.
And they wonder why these women don't report being raped.
She should not be denied assistance because she used drugs. She SHOULD BE DENIED because she did not take responsibly for her actions. The guy should be charged for rape because he raped her! However, if it were murder and she aggravated it, it might be self defense...so although I don't think its right that men rape women, I do think women can't put themselves in positions that are just stupid and then put all the blame on others and then also ask for financial help. I also think we could use more help for men to teach them to respect women more.
A crime is a crime.
Like the song says - "It's a Man's World"
Need I say more..........
Just catch the bastards and neuter them. Money is not the 'real' root of all evil - it's SEX!
A crime is a crime, but a person involved is not necessarily a victim.
I'm sorry. Rape is a non-consensual act. I've been very, very drunk and been in the position with a woman in which she was also drunk and came back to my house. But in the throes, she very politely said, "I'm sorry I don't think I want to do this." I stopped. That's it. It didn't matter what she was wearing, or how drunk she was. I've tried just about every drug imaginable, and I've never done one in which I didn't realize something bad was happening when it was happening. Women(and men) put themselves in stupid positions. That's true. But it does not change the meaning of rape or the trauma. It's not nearly the gray area people want it to be. Are there women who use it as a tool to "get even" with a guy? Sure. Does that mean that the vast group of women who have been legitimately raped (many of whom do not even report it) do not deserve compensation? No. They do. As men we need to stop scapegoating women and stand up for human rights to live a life without fear of not only being raped but then blamed for it. Absurd and inhumane! Like all crime all it takes is having it happen to you or a loved one and your opinion changes forever.
It is not the job of an officer to make a visual judgement and an opinion of what a woman looks like after she'd been raped. How does he know? Has he ever raped a woman, so that he has first hand qualifications to make that statement?
Cook the sob breakfast? I would! And then I'd have left the flame on under that pan, while he is eating? then I would have smacked him in the damned face with that hot pan, while he was eating!
I's have said to officers when discribing him to them. He'd be that guy at the burn unit.
http://nevadacorruptions.proboards83.com...
http://noelwaters.blogspot.com - maybe aid in finding more guys like the one here.
"Speaking of intoxicated sexual assault victims, Nix told commission members, “You know, their behavior alone oftentimes excludes them from participation in this program because they’re not, under our guidelines, innocent victims of crime. They participated in the crime on some level.”
This guy needs to get into the 21st century. A friend of mine was sexually assulted in Vegas and the cops did not do nothing.
I'm a Male. If I ever get raped, it would be MY FAULT. Can't you see that? Take responsibility for your own safety, your own situational awareness, and most importantly, your own self-defense. NONE of those are anybody else's responsibility, especially the State. I'm locked in a secure house armed with a Full-Size .45. I CANNOT POSSIBLY be raped, because I have taken the necessary measures to prevent that from happening. I make sure I live every single moment of my lifestyle in a way which prevents there ever being a possibility of being raped. That is everyone's responsibility. It is the duty of every reasonable person to know that if they choose to live a helpless, defenseless, lifestyle, than they are allowing with 100% conscious consent to be victimized. You have to prevent it, or you allowed it period. Sorry, but that's the rules I must follow in order to maintain my NON-victim status. Any female that chooses get intoxicated when helpless, defenseless, and unarmed to the point where they can no longer defend their person, is a danger to themselves- PERIOD!. They didn't care enough to prevent it. One is ONLY a truly innocent victim if they had absolutely no options or measures to prevent it themselves. PERIOD! Trust me, I've never been raped, but If I get raped, it WILL be MY FAULT, because that would mean I was unarmed, helpless, defenseless, and in a dangerous environment, with out my situational awareness. I couldn't ever do that to myself, that would be like raping myself.
That is so ridiculously reckless, careless, and irresponsible. Anybody who was raped, didn't take ANY actions prevent it, when they SHOULD have taken ALL possible measures to prevent it to PROVE they are TRULY an innocent victim. You didn't protect yourself. You gave it away. Even if you fought back, it wasn't enough, you didn't do enough for yourself. That was your duty. You failed the mission. You didn't prevent it. That's called allowing it. Thats called consent, period. If a bubba rapes me in jail, the second I give up, I am consenting. If I allow it at all, that's consenting. It must make things easier for the females emotionally to block out any means they could have taken to prevent it. We ALL know, if it happened, it was allowed, or else it never even could have possibly happened. You've had 200+ years for your family, parents, and yourself to get a firearm and defend yourself. But rape didn't seem bad enough to protect yourself from the following lifetime of trauma. That was your choice whether you made it unconsciously or not. Being unconscious its also your fault.
WAKE UP. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN lifestyle, behavior, decision making, situational awareness, capabilities of self defense, and prevent your rape. Stop it if you want to. Make it not happen if you want to. Make it impossible if you want to. It's up to you.
ONLY careless, helpless, defenseless, unprepared, uninformed,cowardly, self hurting, low life would set up their environment where a rape is even scientifically possible. Just because you didn't realize it, know it, is not an excuse. Stupid is not an excuse. This is the real world. YOU GONNA GET RAPED!
I really need to add, that as a Man, future Father and Protector of my future children, I could never marry a victim of rape let alone any other crime. How could she protect my children properly if she can't even prevent her own rape? That person wouldn't prevent harm to my children, they just aren't conscious enough to take on that huge responsibility of protecting yourself and your children. I need a wife that CAN'T be raped. Then she would be capable of protecting our children.
Getting raped is like getting a kick-me sign on your back. It will only happen to a certain type of person/personality. And they LET it happen.
They didn't prevent it did they?
SEE.
As one of the most paranoid people to walk the earth from the time I was old enough to understand that you can trust NO ONE, I'm still a rape victim. I have taken ALL opportunities to protect myself, I have a lady smith, I don't park next to vans, I don't party/do drugs, I stay occupied with productive activities, I don't walk at night alone, I dress conservative (by choice, not for "protection") and I try to surround myself with good people.
However, I'm ONLY human. A CAUTIOUS one, to the point that I annoy my friends and my family with my paranoia. However, I always felt it was necessary with the horrifying tales of Natalie Holloway that my dad would constantly remind me of.
So, if someone could explain to me how to protect myself when a group of friends leave my house and ONE returns for his jacket and decides that's not ALL he wants? I wasn't going to pull out a gun on a childhood friend that I've known for years, and by the time I realized his intentions I was in no position to get ahold of it. Also, no matter HOW MUCH I fought the 70 pounds of extra weight he had on me wasn't going to somehow work in my favor.
I'm not a trusting person. I had JUST ONE lapse of judgement (if you can even consider it that, since it was more like I was TRICKED) at a point in my life where I was very vulnerable and someone took advantage of it. Which can always be expected of people. However, when larger things are on your mind than your constant obsession with safety that everyone claims is ridiculous in the first place, then it's a tad harder to keep up with.
People react differently to vulnerability, some through drinking/drugs. That's their choice, and a poor one. However, if this is someone's reaction, I can tell you what they DON'T need, that is denial of assistance if they have been raped. Isn't that working against the point of the program in the first place? A victim of rape is a victim of rape. NO ONE ASKS TO GET RAPED. If you could ask to get raped, then the term "rape" wouldn't even exist under its definition. Overall, these people need help, and in my opinion especially the addicts. It took me a long time to even begin to understand the power of addiction. Yes, it is a choice, but it is also a disease! If your disease effects your ability to consent to sex then why are you somehow not eligible for assistance?