Public Order and Private Lives (Routledge Revivals) by Michael Brake Chris Hale

Author:Michael Brake, Chris Hale [Michael Brake, Chris Hale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Criminology, Political Science, American Government, General
ISBN: 9781134077915
Google: dapEAQAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-10-08T00:50:09+00:00

OFFENCES AGAINST WOMEN

We argued earlier that the crime surveys commissioned by Labour Local Authorities in areas such as Islington, Merseyside, and Hammersmith and Fulham attempted to put the findings of the BCS into an inner city context. One aspect of this was to focus on the experiences of particular groups: the poor, women and ethnic minorities. In the words of Kinsey et al. (1986) ‘It needs emphasizing that crime and fear of crime hit working class women more than any other major section of society.’ In particular, these local surveys suggested that the fear that young women had concerning sexual assault was quite justified. Jones, et al. (1986) found that in Islington during the period covered there were about 1200 cases of sexual assault. Of these only 21 per cent were reported to the police and only an estimated 9 per cent were recorded in the criminal statistics. Young females are 18 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than those over 45. Class shows itself in the fact that women who are council tenants are three times more likely to be sexually assaulted, than those who are owner-occupiers. The 1982 and 1984 BCS between them only uncovered two cases of attempted rape and 17 and 18 sexual assaults respectively (Jones et al. 1986, p.69). R. Hall (1985) suggested this under-reporting is perhaps partly because the BCS used some male interviewers. This was not supported by the results of the ICS, whose authors claim that their male interviewers actually uncovered more cases of sexual assault than did female interviewers. What was undoubtedly important, however, was that the ICS briefed and trained its interviewers to deal with the part of the questionnaire which dealt with sexual offences, and indeed when a case was uncovered by a male interviewer he always offered a follow-up interview conducted by a woman. These were usually declined (Jones et al. 1985, p.71).

A survey by Living Magazine (14.8.89) which questioned 1,000 women, found that one-third had received obscene phone calls in the last year, 20 per cent of this group more than once, yet only 26 per cent had told the police, 13 per cent had been interfered with and 87 per cent of these kept silent; 9 per cent had suffered indecent exposure and 92 per cent failed to report this. Of the sample 49 per cent felt that being pestered by men was inevitable.

The rise in recorded sexual offences (Criminal Statistics 1988) is usually explained as an artefact of more sensitive and sophisticated police recording procedures and improved victim treatment, rather than a real underlying change, but hard evidence to support this is not clear. A major problem is still undoubtedly womens’ negative attitudes towards the police stemming from their historically well-founded fears that the police do little in cases of domestic violence, and are unsympathetic to sexual offences.

The local surveys have also emphasised the impact of domestic violence on women. As Walklate points out:

incorporating an understanding of domestic violence, in particular, begins to alter

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