Jackson Free Press

When The Clarion-Ledger recently published Jackson crime figures for 2004, numbers showed drops in most categories, including burglary, assault, robbery and larceny. The years 2002, 2003 and 2004 also saw reports of rape slide from 182, to 179, to 165, respectively. A more recent report, however, showed that both arson and rape saw a rise during the first few months of 2005, compared to last year.

The JPD's 2005 January-March Crime Classification Summary logged incidents of arson at 24 reports, a 14-incident rise over 2004 figures during those same months. Rape, with 44 reported incidents, was an eight-incident rise over January-March numbers from last year.

By March of this year, rape did not approach the numbers of other forms of crime, such as larceny-theft's 1,529 numbers. Property offenses such as car theft and burglary are readily reported because of the influence of insurance companies, which do not reimburse for loss without a police report—making recent accusations that police numbers on property crimes are artificially low seem unlikely. Rape, however, can go unreported for a number of reasons, and people who work with rape victims insist that only a fraction of violations are getting to the police.

Rita Royals, who worked with the Coalition Against Sexual Assault from 1996 to 2000, said many of the cases aren't reported because they "depend on what the police officer calls 'rape.'"

"So many of the times the crimes aren't reported, but secondly, if they are reported and the woman has been in a man's apartment or has been drinking, then they'll disregard it as rape. There are so many victims who are told they don't have a case."

Forensic consultant Ann Williams said that police may even have incentive to purposefully report down the incidence of rape.

"From what I've heard, the majority of rape crimes are dropped by policemen as unfounded, especially if the woman was drinking alcohol or in a man's residence," said Williams. "If you want your crime statistics to drop, rape is the crime to drop because no one will ever know you did it."

However, Williams did not offer evidence that the police are under-reporting rapes in Jackson. Police Chief Robert Moore did not immediately return calls for comment.

Chief Assistant District Attorney Robert Taylor did say that rape crimes often came with built-in problems for the prosecution, however.

"Seldom is there any witness to the crime," said Taylor, who believes that the rise in rape crimes is more closely linked to the increased number of victims reporting them than a rise in the crime itself. "About 90 percent of the time, there's no witness other than the suspect and the victim. Now and then you've got a look-out involved, and he sometimes can be flipped, but basically that's a one-on-one crime. Also, there are several defenses available to a rapist. No. 1: 'It wasn't me. She's got the wrong person.' If we've got good forensic evidence, we can break that down. If the rapist used a condom, that becomes problematic. Fortunately, most of the idiots don't."

The next defense that routinely clicks into place after forensics have incriminated the suspect is the "she consented" argument.

"If the victim and the suspect had a prior relationship, that becomes dicey. It might be conceivable that the jury might have doubts there. But it's a strange occasion. By and large, the consent argument doesn't work very much," Taylor said, pointing out that prosecution really gets complicated when the rape is premeditated.

"Where we've got trouble is when there's a break-in in the woman's apartment at night, the lights are out, he uses a condom, and she can't really identify him well. All she can say is he's a man about so many pounds, so many feet tall and in the dark they often don't get a very good look at their assailant," Taylor said.

Testimony from the Hinds County D.A.'s office says that if a man is convicted of rape and the jury unanimously agrees, the offender can face a life sentence. If it's a capitol rape—a rape of a female under the age of 14—it's an automatic life. Sexual battery ups the sentence to 30 years. Taylor says Hinds County has judges that are "light hitters, some are heavy hitters and one's a medium hitter," but declined to say which judge is which.

A "heavy-hitting judge," as Taylor describes him, is going to look at the offender's life expectancy, knock off two to three years, and make it a sentence. A "light-hitting judge" tends to hand most offenders 10 to 20 years, according to Taylor.

Rape is a crime of violence so it falls under the 85 percent rule, meaning that the majority of the time sentenced cannot be amended and must be served.

However tough, the punishment means little to nothing if the prosecution never gets underway, says Lillie Young, director of Catholic Charities' Rape Crisis Center, which offers free counseling to rape victims.

"We have the punishment, but there isn't enough prosecution to serve as a deterrent. I don't have a number, but a lot of our clients have not yet seen a courtroom," said Young, whose organization saw about 365 victims, both women and men, last year.

"Date rape is the most unreported crime because victims feel that people won't believe them or that it's their fault because they made the mistake of going out with the attacker. It's the myths that are out there that hinder a lot of victims from telling their stories," she said.

Young said society "still doesn't see rape as a big issue," nor as a "credible accusation," despite survey conclusions that only 2 percent to 5 percent of women actually lie about being sexually assaulted. Federal dollars, Young said, pour into domestic-violence shelters and other programs, while rape crisis centers are barely on the map.

"If you look at our churches, our churches are not really dealing with the subject. Rape is still a taboo topic. It's just something that people don't want to talk about. Even in the new millennium, we're still making people feel like it's their fault," Young said.

Young said, however, that society was getting more educated on preventive measures, thanks to a creeping sense of social openness, particularly regarding family members. She points to research that shows that 85 percent to 90 percent of victims know their attackers. "Only 15 percent is stranger rape," she said.

With children, Young said, "a great number"—more than 50 percent—of their rapists are the people they trust the most: their own family. "We're telling our children to be mindful of the shady-looking stranger when, in fact, an individual is more likely to be violated by someone they know or a family member," Young said.

"I tell people to trust their instincts," she added. "With parents, be honest with your children. Don't just tell them about strangers, but tell them about family members as well. Teach their children that if it don't feel good then it ain't good, no matter who it is doing it. Everybody has to be in the equation—family members and friends. That way, children are more comfortable talking about it. Because we exclude close relatives, children don't know how to handle it."