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A Letter to Our Criminal Justice System

Dear Criminal Justice System,

By Hannah BlairPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
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You have failed us.

The manipulation of the criminal justice system and more to objectify and subjugate is beyond the pale. You, as a fragmented system, ostensibly show the ways you fail to appropriately punish sexual violence. This is truly a man's world. The archaic laws for defining consent - if she doesn't refuse or resist, then go right ahead - underline this. Sexual violence is a crime built on the shame of women.

Which is worse - trafficking innumerable women or selling weed? The answer is so obviously trafficking, but in the courts in the US, drug dealers often get much harsher punishments than traffickers and rapists. The perceived value, or glaring lack thereof, of women's lives in this country is deplorable at levels I can't even begin to comprehend.

A woman had trouble breathing and made the decision to go to the hospital for treatment. She was asked to stay overnight and was then sedated. During this time, a doctor entered her room under the premise of treatment but raped her instead. He was taken to court, and found guilty, but served no jail time.

A 16-year-old girl is raped by two older boys from her school. Her blood alcohol levels were past the legal limit for consent, and injuries to her genitals and other bodily injuries corroborated the claims of nonconsensual sex. Semen from the rape kit matched one of the accused boys. Neither boys were ever questioned by police and the grand jury decided not to indict.

A former frat president from Baylor University raped a young woman at a party. He escaped jail time and wasn't required to register as a sex offender. He was given a $400 fine and required to go to counseling. The judge who was in charge of the case approved probation for other men who were accused of sexually assaulting young women from Baylor twice before this case.

The grandson of a former Virginia governor was accused of raping a fellow student. He was sentenced to five years of supervised probation. This plea agreement was viewed as a fair compromise because "neither party was happy."

A multimillionaire abused countless underage girls, including trafficking them out to wealthy buyers. Not only did it take seven months after minors were coming forward to report the abuse just to issue a search warrant, there was a fifty-three-page indictment and innumerable condemning evidence that was disregarded by the government. He pled guilty, but still received a laughable sentence. He was housed in a private wing of the jail and was allowed to leave the jail six days a week for 12 hours on "work order."

When these stories are threaded together, they present a string of narratives that define an America disinclined and unwilling to punish crimes of sexual violence. These cases are not outliers. They are not exceptions. Rather, they are proof of the broken path to justice that survivors must slug through after they are assaulted, raped, or trafficked.

Instead of focusing on due process through fair trial, it appears that those in power have done everything they can to divert our attention from the truth in order to repudiate survivors' access to justice. These strategies and manipulative diplomacies are methodical attempts to refute the evidence, delegitimize court proceedings, and dismiss proof.

Not only do we face the injustice of sexual violence, we face injustice at the hands of the criminal justice system. You - law enforcement, lawyers, judges - govern without the slightest understanding of the realities surrounding sexual violence. You discount our trauma, deciding that it isn't enough to warrant appropriate criminal action.

Law enforcement decides not to pursue action, judges issue forbearing sentences, school proprietors promise to look into accusations and never do - this is a society that teaches victims of sexual violence that they are on their own.

We are dismissed by law enforcement when our "recipe" for sexual violence doesn't check all the boxes. We are shunned by our communities and accused of lying. We carry a fear of bearing the punishment of our perpetrators. We are supposed to remain anonymous, but in a world run by the media, our names are leaked. There's no such thing as anonymous in a world that thrives on the next "big story" - and that's all we boil down to.

We sit in a courtroom while a lawyer ruthlessly weaves a false tale that diminishes the gravity and validity of our suffering. Our character is questioned by a with no compassion and a relentless desire to find flaws in our story. All the while, our attackers sit in their seat, silent - implementing his legal right to remain silent.

We are grilled on why we didn't scream, suggesting the possibility that we pursed the men who violated us. We are asked to recount each and every detail, berated for all the inconsistencies that don't matter in the long run, while our bloody underwear is passed around the courtroom. Our statements are slimmed down, distorted, and taken out of context.

We relive the details, our personal life and aspect of our sexual assault dissected for the world to see. We put our lives on hold until a jury determines whether our story holds value and we are left to wonder if they will validate the wrongs we endured. 

You are failing us, one by one, and simultaneously protecting those who hurt us.

I am shocked that every 98 seconds, another person in our country falls victim to sexual violence. I am appalled that only 6% of assaults reported will end with the perpetrator spending a single day in jail.

The shame and humiliation blanketing sexual violence is suffocating. We live in a society that teaches that women are the ones to be held accountable for men raping them. Not a single inch of our lives are unmarked by those who stole what wasn't theirs to take, and yet their potential sentence, if we even make it to that point, could amount to nothing but a slap on the wrist. We share our trauma, whispering the names of our assailants and trying to find some resolution by calling ourselves survivors.

What do we do while we wait for justice? We survive. We isolate, become irritable, and turn into someone we don't even recognize. We place refrigerated spoons over our puffy eyes in a sad attempt to lessen the swelling and hide our suffering from those closest to us. We show up late to work because it takes much more time to work ourselves up to getting out of the car. We shower in our clothes, sleep with the light on, and can't fathom how life could ever return to normal.

Our perpetrators are the cause and we are the effect.

We are adamant that we are seen as survivors and not as victims, in a desperate attempt to take back a little power. But perhaps if our perpetrators were held accountable for their actions, and punished accordingly, we wouldn't feel the need to relabel ourselves. Unfortunately, most of us may never get justice, and in its deficiency, this fragmented structure forces us to unearth our own resolve. We will forever feel the sting of justice lost.

There doesn't seem to be a one-size-fits-all solution, but I believe tackling the issue starts with implementing well-drafted criminal laws and not only policies that better address the proper punishments for traffickers but we also need prosecutors who are trauma-informed, judges who are trained to be mindful and sensitive to the needs of survivors, and law enforcement who can appropriately collect needed evidence.

We demand accountability and are calling you to shift the narrative. It's time for sexual violence survivors to receive the justice they rightly deserve. You need to step up and realize that there is no "recipe" for sexual violence. You need to dissipate your system of laws that allow defendants to denote women as property. You must step up and recognize how your procedures and practices subsidize sexual violence.

What is holding you back? What is preventing you from moving forward to a true representation of community standards that sexual violence is not okay? Assault is not an accident.

Enough is enough. Women deserve better.

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About the Creator

Hannah Blair

Sex trafficking survivor who is finding her voice again.

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