That was my first reaction to this whole thing. Why was rape and sexual assault singled out as a crime for which the complainant/victim had to pay for the standard investigative procedures to be carried out?
And it also leads me to question proposals like this:
If i understand this correctly, you would require the victim/complainant to repay the loan if there were no conviction in the case. Do i have it right?
Because if so, i could not disagree more. When someone makes an allegation of rape, or any other serious crime, the state’s responsibility is to investigate the allegations. Should we also ask the families of murder victims to pay for the fingerprinting at the scene, or the autopsy to determine cause of death, or the ballistic matching done on the bullets? Hell, perhaps we could go the full user-pays route, and bill each complainant for the number of hours of police work that it takes to investigate each crime, and the resources used in the investigation.
But seriously, why should rape victims have to pay for one of the investigative tools central to solving their cases?
Of course, i would make exceptions for the (very rare) cases where a person makes a bad-faith, false accusation of rape. If someone has consensual sex, and then decides to allege rape, and the deception is later discovered, i would have no problem making the person in question cover the cost of the rape exam.
But these cases need a high threshold. There needs to be conclusive evidence of fraud or chicanery, and the simple lack of a rape conviction should not be sufficient to require the complainant to pay up.
I apologize if I was unclear. I was being facetious. I was hoping that a facile proposal would show how trivial the restitution argument is. Apparently I failed.
For what it’s worth, my hypothetical loan would not be forgiven if there were no conviction.
Indeed. Even if the victim isn’t actually a taxpayer, the whole concept of state-administered criminal justice is that the victim has delegated the right to retaliate. Ergo, the state assumes responibility.
I would very much like to know if a victim of assault and battery or a mugging is also required to foot the bill of his medical costs, or is this reserved only for rape cases.
It begs the question–what on earth does this police dept do for domestic violence reports and child abuse?
It also makes me wonder if this practice is more widespread than any of us realize.
I feel I should point out that the evidence collection in rape cases is not done by police or any law enforcement agent (in North Carolina anyway). It is done by either a physician or a specially trained Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner and almost always in the Emergency Department.
If a patient is seen in the ED by a physician and/or a nurse, we’re going to bill someone (we have to). The choices are to bill the patient or bill the police department.And what about patients who come in on their own and haven’t spoken to law enforcement?
So it’s not fair to compare this evidence collection with evidence collection for other crimes.
So a guy shows up in your ED, covered in blood and obviously hurt. He says two guys jumped in an alley a few blocks away and his head hurts and he’s seeing double.
He gets medical care for sure (or he sues your ED for malpractice), but doesn’t the nurse offer to call the cops? Someone at some point in the ED calls the cops re rape or assault with injuries. So, the cases can be compared–does assault victim have to pay up or is it just the rapes?
No-one’s saying the hospital and/or the people performing the exam shouldn’t be paid. But a rape exam is, i believe, required in basically any incident where sexual assault is alleged. Law enforcement then uses the evidence gathered in the exam in its pursuit of the case. It is used as evidence. For this reason, the state should pay the cost, and should also have in place a system whereby the medical facilities can bill the state/city directly for the exam.
Police departments, with reasonable frequency, “outsource” certain aspects of their investigations. In towns that don’t have sophisticated forensic capabilities, they will often get certain tests and analysis done in larger towns, or by other agencies at the state or even federal level. In many cases, this sort of help requires payment. The only substantial difference in this case is that it’s a hospital, not another law enforcement agency, that is acting as the agent of the local police.
Wait wait wait… you’re talking about two different things here. In the case of evidence collection for rapes, we’re not providing medical care, we’re collecting evidence. The treatment of injuries, possible pregnancy or STD and long term couselling are all part of her medical care. In your hypothetical, yes we would treat him without concern for his ability to pay (as required by EMTALA), and we would likely offer to call the cops or call them ourselves. But again, treatment of his medical issues doesn’t have anything to do with investigating the crime.
No, it isn’t. In other crimes, the people collecting the evidence are goverment employees and are doing their job and getting paid for it.
I’m not trying to argue that rape victims should be charged for their evidence collection. But someone is going to have to pay the bill. You also have to separate their medical care from their forensic care.
Well, i think the issue here is what type of exam and/or treatment we’re talking about here.
If we’re simply talking about treatment for injuries (of whatever kind), then the victim probably has to pay for that in pretty much all cases. As far as the hospital is concerned, the manner in which you received your injuries isn’t especially relevant to the question of payment for treatment. If you’re insured, then most of your treatment (apart from deductibles, co-pays, etc.) will probably be covered by your insurance. If you’re not insured, then the hospital will either go after you for the money, or will write it off as unrecoverable.
The reason (for me at least) that the whole rape exam issue described in the OP was so outrageous is that a rape exam is not done so much for the purpose of treatment as for investigative and evidentiary reasons. Treatment is generally separate from the exam, or rape kit. The results of the rape exam constitute a central and essential tool for law enforcement in their pursuit of the case, and so the exam/kit should be paid for by the state.
Obviously, if you’re the victim of a crime and the person is brought to justice, you might have some redress against the perpetrator. Some jurisdictions also have victims compensation funds to help in cases like this.
Many police departments also use outside contractors. Hell, some even pay psychics, if CourtTV is any indication.
Read what i wrote, ferchissakes.
I explicitly stated that the bill should be paid, and i even gave an example of how it should happen. There should be a mechanism in place whereby the medical facility can bill the government.
Show me where i suggested otherwise. Every post i’ve made about the state paying for rape exams has been predicated on the use of those exams for forensic and evidentiary purposes.
Unless the court orders restitution, correct? I would think that the court would do so in rape cases as well.
I understand that with a rape in the ED one must collect evidence, but aren’t pictures taken of assault injuries or abuse injuries? Those are evidence as well (and so are the CT report and the physical exam notes).
I get that the care must be paid for–I am wondering about the source of payment and really, really hoping that it’s an across the board kind of thing and not a double victimizing of just rape victims. (and why wouldn’t a judge, if the accused is found guilty make the payment of same automatic in the ruling?)
Or, what Maeglin said.
Victims of assault of all varieties are also routinely billed for ambulatory services. I personally billed for ambulance runs when I worked as the City Clerk for a small municipality in SW Ohio. (I worked for a Republican Mayor, then was later hired by the Democrat Mayor, if that’s important to anyone.)
FWIW, the city I worked for (under both a democrat and republican mayor) would automatically forgive any unpaid bills for ambulatory services. We billed exactly twice and then it was forgiven. All we asked for was that the patient submit the invoice to his insurance company and then turn that check over to us.
Of course, rape victims are also routinely billed by the doctors and hospitals who service them. It doesn’t matter that she’s blameless. She is the patient and it is she who gets the bills.
Sucks but there it is.
Of course, she can turn all invoices into his/her insurance company for reimbursement which will mitigate her out of pocket expenses. Assault victims can also request reimbursement from the state’s victim compensation fund, if one exists, which is usually funded by convicted felons.
How many appointments does a POTUS make? How many appointments does the mayor of a town of 7000 make? Wasilla is listed with a total of 69 city employees for 2002, her last year as mayor. If Wasilla is anything like my town of 5,000, I doubt more than 5-6 of those city positions are appointed by the mayor.
At the moment I can only think of one comment to add.
That stat of 1-3 rapes per year doesn’t necessarily correlate one-to-one with the needed number of rape kits. How many false charges are made? How many real charges where evidence was gathered but there was no conviction for one reason or another? It’s not out of the realm of plausibility that a dozen or two dozen tests might be performed in a given year. Or more, I really don’t have any idea of what the rate of accusations to convictions are for any crimes.
So a guy shows up in your ED, covered in blood and obviously hurt. He says two guys jumped in an alley a few blocks away and his head hurts and he’s seeing double.