In another thread, cmkeller made the following statement concerning women who are raped and do not report the crime:
I saw this and I thought this was a topic unto itself.
Does a victim of a crime - whether it’s rape or some other less emotionally charged crime - have an obligation to society at large to report this crime?
Or Does a victim have the right in a free society to be selfish and not report this crime?
Yer pal,
Satan
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I think we do have an obligation to society to report crimes that we witness or are the victims of. But I do not think that a free society should force somebody to do so.
I agree with Glitch. Both statements are true…a victim is free to not report the crime if he or she wishes not to.
However, if someone expects a special treatment in society due to a crime that he or she was a victim of, then it is not unreasonable for society to demand that the crime be reported so the perpetrator doesn’t further menace society.
And, before we get inundated with people saying “Abortion is not special treatment, it’s a right, it’s the woman’s body,” let me point out the context of the earlier statement: there was a post asking why anti-abortionists would make an exception for rape and incest. That led to a question of how, if the general right to abortion were taken away, they would determine if a woman meets that exception, the obvious answer being reporting the crime. In that context, aborting the pregnancy is special treatment.
Yes, the victim has an obligation to report the crime. We (Society, that is, I have no pretensions to royalty… yet. ) have a right to know what kind of scum may be lurking in our midst undetected. If the crime goes unreported and unpunished, it may be repeated, and the victim has just contributed through inaction to the creation of more victims.
Does the victim have a right to leave the crime unreported? I’m gonna sound a little like our Prez here and say: That depends on your definition of “right.”
If there is no law against it, the victim has a legal right not to report the crime. That’s fine with me; I have no problem with many moral obligations remaining unlegislated.
Incidentally, is there a law against failing to report a crime? I wouldn't know.
If you’re talking about right as something to which one is justly entitled, then I’d have to say there’s nothing just about doing so. It may buy the victim peace of mind, but I would think it buys less peace than resolution through actual investigation, trial, and conviction of the offender.
“Every person who, after a felony has been committed, harbors, conceals or aids a principal in such felony, with the intent that said principal may avoid or escape from arrest, trial, conviction or punishment, having knowledge that said principal has committed such felony or has been charged with such felony or convicted thereof, is an accessory to such felony.”
When I was raped two days after my 16th birthday, I never reported it. What good would it have done? He and I were the only two people there, and he was a trusted friend of mine, so I would have been blown out of the water if I’d charged him with the crime. Looking back, I can see how stupid I was to have trusted him. I would not have been a credible witness. In the end, I would have been made to look the fool- and given the circumstances, I couldn’t have survived such a thing. I had enough problems of my own. It was hard enough to face my parents; I could never have survived the scrutiny of a jury.
Besides my own selfish motives, I also didn’t tell anyone my pregnancy was the result of a rape because I didn’t think my dad could handle it. He had a bad heart; my mom was always telling me to be careful not to upset him. I couldn’t hide my pregnancy from him (I was barfing approximately 10 times a day, all day long) but I could hide the fact that I’d been raped. Let my dad think I was simply a slut… of course, this infuriated him, (he hardly spoke to me in the ensuing years before his death) but if he’d known the truth, I have no doubt that he’d have either keeled right over or else killed the guy with his bare hands.
So, in a sense, my failure to report the rape was selfish. I didn’t consider that the guy might do it again, to someone else. (As far as I know, he has not; he married a high school friend of mine.) On the other hand, I didn’t want to risk killing my dad.
Morgan, how far does that extend? Does that apply to merely knowing the existence of a crime but not knowing the perpetrator? And would that be applied against the victim of the crime, if for some reason it came to light later?
Here is an interesting “hypothetical”. A teenage boy is shot and killed. He was a good student, and not involved in any gang activities. However, it is rumored in the high school that he crossed some gang member, perhaps by showing an interest in the wrong girl. The police are unaware of where to start. Another teenage boy has some “friends” who claim to know who did it, but are afraid to go forward, for fear of the retaliation. They are afraid that for whatever reason, the perpetrators or their associates will come after him - presumably he would be the likely person to have informed.
I assume this law would apply to the scared teen who is afraid to come forward. He is holding back information. But what about the boy who just heard that the scared teen may know what happened? Is he able to be prosecuted as an accessory, just because he heard some second-hand rumors? What is his obligation, legally and morally? Should he contact the police, and let them know his friend may know something, or respect his friend’s fear and not say anything?
What about someone who hears this story third-hand? What if this third-hand person has the name of the boy that knows the boy who is afraid to tell the cops anything? Is this person liable for anything?
In the real world, it extends as far as a prosecutor is willing to push it. The fact of the matter is that prosecutors have an immense amount of discretion and routinely choose to go after certain classes of people differently.
It would be hard to imagine a prosecutor who regularly brings charges against witnesses and even harder to imagine one who brings charges against victims. The law is a constantly changing animal, and you can be sure that if prosecutors decided to start charging rape victims as accessories, the law would be quickly changed.
Before I answer you hypothetical, let me say that in the real world there are anonymous tip lines for just that purpose.
If I were defending the boy, I would argue that there is no harboring, concealment or aid given to the perpetrator. There was no harboring because no shelter or refuge was given, no concealment because evidence was not altered or tampered with, and no aid because no assistance was given.
Hiding such a criminal act is illegal and immoral, even if you’re the victim. It places every other potential victim at a higher risk without their knowledge; if a guy rapes once and the girl completely “forgets” it happened, that’s hardly discouraging such behavior.
A recent case who wasn’t “forgotten”: http://www.amw.com/site/archives/19990130/rabbitt.html
Dennis was a particularly unique sort in that there was never any pattern to his victims: no height/weight, no age, no particular hair color or nationality, no profession or location, only that they were alone. Enough people reported his crimes that he eventualy got caught: http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/1999/03/01/rabbitt0301_01.html
If nobody had reported their attacks, he’d still be out there somewhere. - MC
Coincidentally, I had a meeting at the Bureau of Justice Statistics last week and this topic came up. In the United States, victims of crime do not have any legal obligation to report the crime. Aware of this, the National Crime Victimization Survey was instituted in 1972. It is a household survey conducted by the Census on behalf of the Dept of Justice. It is purely voluntary and details of individual incidents are not given to the police. Until recently there was a large gap between the NCVS and the Uniform Crime Report, which is an index of reported crimes, indicating a large number of serious crimes that were not reported to the police. Nowadays there is not much difference between the two. Actually, much of the problem in recent years was not with the victims, but with the police either “losing” files to avoid reporting them for the UCR, or downgrading crimes (aggravated assault to simple assault) to put it at a low enough level to avoid reporting. They would do this to show low crime statistics for their areas, an important factor for police chiefs and even more so for elected law enforcement officers.
As for the portion of the CA penal code quoted by Morgan, I talked to another contact at Justice (not a lawyer, but M.A. in Criminal Justice) who informed me that
refers only to active assistance, aid or specific knowledge of the perpetrator. For knowledge of a crime, it becomes a gray area…if you have definite knowledge in that you know the perpetrator and know that s/he committed a crime, withholding that information can be considered “aiding and abetting.” But simple knowledge that a crime has occurred, even for a description of the perpetrator, is not considered aiding and abetting. Second or third hand “knowledge” doesn’t even count as evidence. Hearsay is not admittable evidence, so you can’t be convicted of not saying something that couldn’t be used in court anyway.
Is there a moral obligation to report crime? Most certainly. But their is no legal requirement to do so. And do we actually want a society of Orwellian “child-heroes?” How far would we take it? Reporting husband or wife for cheating on taxes? Do we really want to make doing the right thing mandatory? I, for one, am opposed.
What a fascinating question. Social responsibility v individual freedom. Certainly there is a case for simply agreeing that both are valid.
A thought though: if an individual fails to report a crime and the perpetrator goes on to commit another crime, is the initial victim/individual responsible in any way for the second crime?
Maybe not legally, but what about morally?
Hey back off - I’ve still got more posts than Cecil!!!
I would hesitate to use words such as ‘obligated’ and ‘duty’ when it comes to victims reporting crimes against them, especially of the sexual/aggrevated assault veriety. These people have just gone through an ordeal which has basically completely disempowered them and being forced to report this crime either directly or indirectly (i.e. any doctor/social worker they see about it is obligated to report it) does nothing in terms of empowering them again. I imagine it would be very intimidating and scarey.
Possibly a system whereby victims are encouraged on an official level to report the crime might be more constructive. Doctors, nurses, Police, paramedics, teachers, volunteers at emergency counselling lines/battered women’s refuges etc could all be given training about the best way to talk to the victim if they are the first on the scene (whether the actual crime scene, or being the first person the victim talks to). If these professionals and volunteers are able to properly inform the victim of the processes and proceedures that go with reporting such a crime then the victim may be more capable of making an informed choice and be less likly to fear the unknowns in the system. By being given the choice they are being shown that they do have the power to control themselves. Those trained should also be able to refer the victim to support that is available in the local area.
Also, while I think that the adverserial legal system is reasonably effictive when dealing with property crimes, from what I’ve seen I believe greatly stacked against victims of violent crime, as it is up to them to prove the guilt of the offending party. Rather, I would suggest more of the inquisitorial approach where the judge finds out the facts and then uses his/her discretion in allocating guilt might be more victim friendly.
You bring up an interesting criticism of our current legal system. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a system that advocated looking for the truth, from all parties, rather than trying to win at all costs. Of course that somehow seems rather “unfair” to the defendant in a way. I mean if he’s guilty, he really doesn’t have much recourse other than lying to his own counsel, does he? I think that’s part of the point of our current system. We let the defense attorney have privilege so he can know all the intimate details and not be obliged to give up on his client, but do the best job he can to make the prosecution prove the case.
But isn’t that a different debate?
Let’s go back to the moral obligation to report knowledge of a crime, and look at my hypothetical again. What am “I” supposed to do, morally? Call the cops and tell them I know a guy who says he knows someone who claims to know the perpetrator, but is afraid to come forward, even anonymously, because of retribution - thinking that he would be the only candidate for reporting, so even an anonymous tip would be attributed to him?
) have a right to know what kind of scum may be lurking in our midst undetected. If the crime goes unreported and unpunished, it may be repeated, and the victim has just contributed through inaction to the creation of more victims.