Yesterday, an independent review was
released detailing how Halifax police and Crown prosecutors handled the 2011
sexual assault case of then 15 year-old Rehtaeh Parsons. The report concluded
that the legal system ultimately “failed on all levels”, and made 17 recommendations
to the government, police force and judicial system for how to respond to
similar cases of sexual assault in the “future”. Rehtaeh Parsons doesn’t have a
future- she attempted suicide in 2013 and died several days later before her
case was ever given the attention it deserved. In response to her death, the
case was re-opened, an investigation review commenced and charges were laid.
The two teenage male perpetrators were charged with child pornography offences,
not sexual assault. It took a 17 year-old's life and years of continued bullying
and abuse before “justice” was served.
The report recommendations released by
Murray Segal (Ontario’s former deputy attorney general) criticizes several
aspects of the investigation, the first being the initial interview that was
conducted with the victim after she reported it to the police. Parsons
disclosed details of the sexual assault after finding out that a photo of the
assault was being circulated among peers. The RCMP officer that conducted the
initial interview failed to follow proper protocol: the victim was
“unnecessarily interviewed at length”, the interview was not recorded
(resulting in the victim having to participate in a second interview with
another officer) and the presence of a social worker was not required (despite
the victim being a minor), the report states. It documents how the Halifax and
RCMP police departments do not have a policy for interviewing underage victims,
and insists that investigators from the sexual assault team and the child
exploitation unit should be dealing with sexual assault cases, not officers.
After interviewing several students at the
victim’s school and identifying the two suspects involved, the officer who was
going to make the arrests was advised by Crown attorneys that there was “no
realistic prospect that sexual assault charges would result in convictions” and
child pornography charges couldn’t be pursued because it was “impossible” to
tell if the suspects and victim in the photo were “underage”. The investigation
went on for a year before any charges were laid, and this was only after -and
in response to- Rehtaeh Parsons' death.
The report criticizes the advising Crown prosecutors’ decision to
declare insufficient evidence to arrest the suspects on either sexual assault
or child pornography charges. The report also recommends that all investigators
involved in sexual assault cases receive “more training”.
The judicial scrutiny in the investigative
reports that followed the Jane Doe
case called for similar recommendations: more training, more consistent
protocols, better case classification. As Teresa DuBois highlights, sexual
assault cases are “unfounded” at higher rates than any other crime, not because
they are false allegations, but because police protocol is often based on false
assumptions (194). Her findings point to the wide variations among
jurisdictions, depending on the police investigative practices, classification
procedures, as well as the police culture’s ideas and attitudes about sexual
assault (198).
These case reviews and their
recommendations obviously result in little reform, and this is incredibly
disheartening. As long as our approach to sexual assault as a society is
structured around a “prevailing mindset of suspicion and disbelief” (199), it
will be continue to be reflected in our police forces and our judicial systems.
In January 2015, the second perpetrator involved in Rehtaeh Parsons' assault
was convicted. Again, he was not charged with sexual assault, but found guilty
of distributing child pornography and was sentenced to a mere 12 months of probation.
The worst part? In recounting his story, the perpetrator testified to the
court: “obviously, if I felt like if she didn’t want it, it wouldn’t have
happened”. So how far have we come since Jane
Doe? Not very far at all…
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Rehtaeh Parsons’ October 8th 2015 case review release:
Rehtaeh Parsons’ October 8th 2015 case review release:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/rehtaeh-parsons-case-review-1.3262111
Perpetrator sentencing and testimony (please be warned that this contains graphic details and the perpetrator's complete disregard for the sexual assault crime committed):
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/christie-blatchford-boy-in-notorious-rehtaeh-parsons-photo-talks-for-first-time-about-what-happened
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/christie-blatchford-boy-in-notorious-rehtaeh-parsons-photo-talks-for-first-time-about-what-happened
Hi Lauren - I definitely agree with you in that alone, reports making recommendations are not enough to affect any sort of systemic change. As DuBois notes, there is no evidence that the recommendations made in the report that followed the Jane Doe judgment had any impact on the conduct of the Toronto Police Department, or were even fully implemented.
ReplyDeleteHowever I personally feel that while it is disheartening that they lead to little immediate reform or justice, reports or Royal Commission and recommendations made still hold some value. To me, I feel like they begin, or involve a larger amount of people in, a conversation. Generally, if a report is written, it means an actor (whether it is the government, a NGO or lobby-group) is invested in looking further into the problem at hand. I feel even the current campaign attempting to get Harper and the current government to instigate a report on Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women has brought greater public attention to the issue. Though it is frustrating to see no change in pervasive and damaging social structures that are at play in the state’s handling of sexual assault, I think reports have value by involving the public – society – in the conversation. At the end of the day, if the change that report recommendations rely on are based around combating problematic social norms, would it not be important to converse with society, not just a particular sector of government?