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Another Problem With The Idea Of Sexual Offences Being Caused By Biology Or ...


Another problem with the idea of sexual offences being caused by biology or learned behavior is that it does not account for the emergence of sexual offences perpetrated between lesbian couples. Barbara Hart, in her study about violence in lesbian relationships, records that the violence follows the same patterns as male domestic violence, which suggests that gender is not the main cause of sexual and domestic violence. Anne Campbell agrees with her, from her studies of young girls, she concludes that increasingly they act in the same aggressive manner as men. She suggests that feminists became blind to their idea of women being victims of men, rather than people being victims of an economic system; she explains, ‘without more radical change in the status quo, we shall succeed only in liberating women into poverty, alienation, despair and crime along with the men who are already there.' (Segal, 2003, p219).
In light of the constant change in peoples perception of the level and causes of sexual offences against women there have been considerable changes made in the law and in the way women victims are treated by the police and the court system. In this section we will first consider changes in the law, we will then look at the way these offences are treated by the police and other agencies funded by the states in order to help the victim on her way through the criminal justice system.
A major change in recent years has been in two major pieces of legislation: the Sexual Offences Act (SOA) of 2003 and the Domestic and Violent Crime Act (DVCA) of 2004. The SOA was intended to provide a great deal of clarification to a number of issues. One of these issues was the definition of various crimes; another was the recognition of the significance of gender and age to these issues. The DVCA also clarifies many issues, such as the definition of sexual abuse in the home as being not just physical but also mental and psychological.
The SOA is also important in that it classifies offences by gender and age, which ensures that all categories of sexual crime are covered and legislated for. We mentioned in the introduction that in this essay we would be considering sexual offences against women, not children as there are differences between the offences in each group. This difference has been recognized in the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which requires the recording of rape and other sexual offences to be separated out into bands defined by gender and age (SOA, 2003). There are further issues that need clarification, such as a more exact understanding of the situation of consent while intoxicated, but it has gone a long way to ensuring this precision.
The better understanding of women as victims of sexual crime has also led to a radical change in how they are treated when they report the crime to the police.


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