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Obstruction of Justice
Why the criminal justice system is ill-equipped to prosecute rape charges

Shane, Charlotte
http://harpers.org/archive/2018/08/i-am-evidence-review-not-that-bad-rape-culture-querying-consent/

Publisher:  Harper's Magazine
Year Published:  2018  
Resource Type:  Article

Author Charlotte Shane examines why the U.S. justice sytem is incapable of effectively adjudicating rape, moreover the profound psychological and societal issues inborn in our culture that produces rapists. Shane takes a look at the film "I Am Evidence", directed by Trish Adlesic and Geeta Gandbhir, as a starting point for discussion.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

Though feminist activism has led to some changes - for instance, marital rape is no longer precluded from prosecution - I Am Evidence makes clear that law enforcement is still saturated with misogyny. Los Angeles County, for instance, wouldn't prioritize the testing of an estimated 12,000 unprocessed rape kits, but by 2002 law enforcement had managed to find the time and resources to destroy more than 1,000 kits alleged to be beyond the statute of limitations. (The district attorney's office did not agree that the kits were necessarily beyond the statute of limitations.) In Cleveland, where tested rape kits yielded a total of 1,935 potential matches in the FBI’s DNA database, prosecutors obtained only 284 convictions. In Detroit, where 2,616 hits came up, a mere 101 convictions followed. And in Los Angeles, an astonishing six convictions were secured from 1,684 DNA leads: roughly one conviction for every 280 kits tested.

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