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Extended Title: Collateral Damage - How certain members of society are disadvantaged and/or criminalised by laws intended to protect. - Part 1. How being assaulted can make you a criminal.
I had been planning to present an essay on this topic later on, after I'd put up OpenCon follow-ups (they're coming!) and I still intend to. At the rate I am coming up with new examples, it may turn out to be several, possibly even a book, chaos save us. However, an article on the BBC News site was brought to my attention this afternoon that literally made me feel nauseous.
( Long, ranty and potentially triggering for some (for reasons that should be clear from the above title). )
I'm not a lawyer. I don't have the legal language to name whatever system we should be using, but this isn't it. Victims of any kind of assault need to be able to choose, at any point in the process, to back out without fear of censure. To demand otherwise is inhumane. If we want to take crimes against the person seriously, then lets do that, but not at the expense of criminalising the very people who need the protection of the law.
Edit:
Another similar article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/09/woman-jailed-dropping-rape-charges
Extended Title: Collateral Damage - How certain members of society are disadvantaged and/or criminalised by laws intended to protect. - Part 1. How being assaulted can make you a criminal.
I had been planning to present an essay on this topic later on, after I'd put up OpenCon follow-ups (they're coming!) and I still intend to. At the rate I am coming up with new examples, it may turn out to be several, possibly even a book, chaos save us. However, an article on the BBC News site was brought to my attention this afternoon that literally made me feel nauseous.
( Long, ranty and potentially triggering for some (for reasons that should be clear from the above title). )
I'm not a lawyer. I don't have the legal language to name whatever system we should be using, but this isn't it. Victims of any kind of assault need to be able to choose, at any point in the process, to back out without fear of censure. To demand otherwise is inhumane. If we want to take crimes against the person seriously, then lets do that, but not at the expense of criminalising the very people who need the protection of the law.
Edit:
Another similar article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/09/woman-jailed-dropping-rape-charges
