Ken, rape sentences aren’t large enough to salami slice
Posted on May 5, 2011Ken Clarke could probably have got better publicity today by touring the TV and radio studios with a sack full of kittens and strangling them to death, one by one, whilst singing the soundtrack of Cats. A lot of attention has been focused on his sickening and frankly incomprehensible comments about the supposed difference between date rape and “serious, proper rape”.
Those comments are important and serious, but verbal idiocy should not divert attention away from the true problem here – these woeful proposals themselves. To my knowledge, no-one has done an opinion poll on whether sentences for rapists should be increased, but that’s because the answer the public would overwhelmingly give is “Yes”. Opinion testing on the subject would be a waste of money because the outcome is obvious.
Instead of realising that he was speeding, (allegedly) Chris Huhne-like, to disaster Ken Clarke seems to have just focused on process and ignore the outcomes. A Minister who is about to go public with a proposal to let convicted rapists out after 15 months should surely realise that however logical the process might be, the place it has led them to is utterly wrong.
Clarke’s rationale for considering these massive cuts in prison time is that offering a sentencing incentive to rapists will encourage them to plead guilty and thus reduce the trauma for victims. There’s a debate to be had about whether that will work, but in a situation where the standard tarriff for rape is a measly five years (English translation: 2.5 years) there simply isn’t any room to further reduce the sentence.
Until that is fixed, this should be off the table entirely – no tinkering around the edges could or should be done until the central problem of weak sentencing is fixed.
If Ken Clarke really wants to introduce a system where rapists get to barter about their prison time, then he can only do it – morally and politically – by starting from a higher sentencing base in the first place. Radically increase the basic sentence for rapists – something which the public and the media would support – and then start asking whether there should be a discount for confessing early on.
Tags: Coalition, Conservatives, Freedom, Guido Fawkes, Ken Clarke, Media, opinion, Parliament, Politics, Rape, Sentencing, Westminster
Even as his words fell out of the radio I could not believe I was hearing this nonsense from a so called Conservative.
There are many reasons for Conservatives such as myself to shun this neo liberal cabal currently running the party into the ground, this is the final nail for me – & many other Conservative voting women as well.
Rape sentences in England are a joke – but no women are laughing.
18.05.2011 12:58
There are two issues, easily resolved:
(1) Ken Clarke isn’t a Conservative, he’s a Lib Dem, although he wears Hush Puppies rather than sandals. As such, he’s an unrepresentative idiot.
(2) Fairly transparently, he wants to save money. There is a way of having a highly effective justice system based upon deterrence which does not cost a lot because it saves the cost of prison places. What could it be? In the absence of a referendum on this (or our EU membership), answers on a postcard, please, c/o Ken Clarke… .
18.05.2011 13:05
Ken Clarke – the rapist’s friend!
18.05.2011 13:14
Clarke is an arse.
18.05.2011 13:31
Leave Ken alone. He’s doing a brilliant job! Meanwhile here’s a poem
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Does this here cloth,
smell of chloroform to you?
Oh yeah, romantic bastard I am and Ken’s a top bloke. He’ll be helping the violently repulsive to have sex for years to come. It’s their human rights don’t ya know.
/sarc.
Back in the real world Ken Clarke should have been sacked as soon as he went soft on knife crime. He should be sacked NOW. No excuses, no waiting. NOW. DONE. Get rid of the bumbling old fool ASAP!
18.05.2011 13:39
I’m sorry, I meant to say that Clarke is a complete arse with infected haemorrhoids, anal warts and a prolapse.
18.05.2011 13:40
Your last para was exactly what I was, ahem, suggesting to the radio when I heard this guff.
18.05.2011 17:57
There’s already a discount for confessing earlier, this whole issue was about semantics and what was said and how Labour & the BBC (Mouthpiece of Labour) twisted his words to make it sound.
I’m no fan of Clarke for his stance on the European Union, but having listened to what he said live and listening back I cannot see a problem in what he said, rape is rape yes, but sex with a consenting minor between a 15 & 16 year old is not the same as being jumped from the bushes and forcibly raped. That was the point he was making.
19.05.2011 09:12
Clearly an emotive subject this but Clarke does actually know what he’s talking about here. The law has a broad definition of rape, i.e. someone forcibly raping a stranger is rape, as is a 16 year old having consensual sex with his 15 year old girlfriend. Clearly, while both defined as rape they are hardly the same crime.
Not that difficult to follow. Just surprised this website went the same way as Labour on this.
20.05.2011 09:06
In response the comments by James and Sres:
I don’t think Ken’s comments about the consensual-sex-with-minors issue was the one that caused controversy. I think it was actually these comments:
“Serious rape, I don’t think many judges give five years for a forcible rape — frankly, the tariff is longer than that. A serious rape with violence and an unwilling woman — the tariff is longer than that,” he told BBC radio.
When the interviewer interjected, saying “Rape is rape, with respect,” he said: “No, it’s not.”
He went on to say that “date rape can be as serious as the worst rapes but date rapes … in my very old experience of being in trials … they do vary extraordinarily one from another, and in the end the judge has to decide on the circumstances.”
I think the problem is, at least for people who have experienced it, rape is always rape and it is always “serious” and “forcible”. Contrary to the stranger-coming-out-of-the-bushes model, most rape victims are raped by people they know, and it doesn’t necessarily involve the kind of violence that leaves bruises and blood.
I think Ken’s comments left many women that have experienced rape feeling like their experiences of sexual violence don’t matter because they weren’t “violent” or “forcible” enough. What does “forcible rape” even mean anyway??? Surely all rape is forcible (apart from the consensual but underage thing, yes yes, I think we can all agree that there is a problem with semantics there, but that isn’t what this argument was about) by definition.
Rape crisis centres estimate that over 90% of rape victims never report their experiences to the police, probably because of fear of attitudes like Ken’s. And what’s the conviction rate of those who are reported? 6% was it? I wonder if women (who form the vast majority of victims of rape) will actually ever be treated as humans in this country.
Mark, I enjoyed your article, but I wish some of your readers could get past the tribal political party battles and channel their passion into the issue at hand here. I wish gendered violence was everyone’s priority.
20.08.2011 21:11
[...] at the Cabinet Of The Living Dead.4. Thomas Sowell provides us with his usual economic wisdom.5. Mark Wallace isn’t pleased with Ken Clarke’s attitude to rapists.6. Harry Cole insists that Chris [...]
21.09.2011 11:25