Rehabilitation subjects offenders to abuse and financial exploitation – denies

them their fundamental human rights.

Grasso, 23 (Dr. Benjamin Grasso, Criminologist, PHD in Criminal Justice, The University of Law - BA
Criminology & Phycology, Studied Prisons and rehabilitative approaches for 25 years, 1/4/23,
https://medium.com/@BeniaminoGrassoPHD/prioritizing-rehabilitation-for-inmates-the-good-the-bad-
and-the-ugly-e6d4c4734ae6#:~:text=It%20is%20difficult%20to%20predict,risk%20of%20harm%20to
%20society.//RM)

The ethical issues of rehabilitation also include

the potential for abuse. Rehabilitation programs may be subject to
inadequate supervision and may be used as a means of punishment rather than rehabilitation. This can lead to a lack of human
rights for individuals within the program as well as a lack of accountability for those in charge. It is also important to
consider the potential for financial exploitation within such programs, as those in charge may be able to take
advantage of vulnerable individuals and make a profit.

Rehabilitation programs drain offenders of the very resources they need to

successfully re-integrate, making re-offending more likely, not less.
Grasso, 23 (Dr. Benjamin Grasso, Criminologist, PHD in Criminal Justice, The University of Law - BA
Criminology & Phycology, Studied Prisons and rehabilitative approaches for 25 years, 1/12/23, “The
Unseen Consequences of Rehabilitation” https://medium.com/@BeniaminoGrassoPHD/the-unseen-
consequences-of-rehabilitation-3b5f8b910630 //RM)

Finally, rehabilitative
measures can have a negative effect on the criminal’s personal and social life. Many of
these measures can be time-consuming and require a significant amount of commitment from the criminal.
This can lead to a strain on personal relationships and a loss of social connections, which can make it
difficult for the criminal to reintegrate into society. When a prison is trying to get a criminal to get used to
life outside of prison through rehabilitative measures, it can have opposite affects. The life in prison is
viewed as the real world, and when an offender is let out, they are in a world very different than they
expected, and have a hard time integrating which can case yet another relapse into crime. At that point, it would be better
without rehabilitation.

RAPE CARDS :
Lenient sentencing minimizes the experience of rape victims and trivializes their
trauma.
Doan-Minh 19 [Sarah Doan-Minh, researcher with a JD from the University of
California Hastings College of the Law, 2019, “Corrective Rape: An Extreme
Manifestation of Discrimination and the State ’s Complicity in Sexual Violence,”
Hastings Women’s Law Journal,
https://repository.uclawsf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1418&context=hwlj]/
Kankee
Police also have a tendency to re-victimize rape survivors by using gendered stereotypes in their interactions.148 For instance, police officers
sometimes ask victim-blaming questions of rape victims, such as “Why didn’t you scream?” or “Why were you in that neighborhood at night?”—
questions which would never be asked of victims of other crimes.149 Police officers have also threatened to arrest survivors for false reporting,
indicating that officers may believe that victims of rape lie about their experience because of some ulterior motive.150 Survivors’ decisions to
seek legal action in the criminal justice system are influenced by police officers’ actions,151 and police officers’ current response seems more
likely to perpetuate corrective rape than address the harm being caused. At trial, prosecutors routinely deny rape survivors the right to equal
protection under the law.152 Because prosecutors have nearly absolute and unreviewable power to choose whether to bring criminal charges
and what charges to bring, prosecutors often choose not to prosecute rape cases.153 Of those cases that are prosecuted, prosecutors usually
decline to add charges of a hate crime.154 Some prosecutors prefer to treat hate crimes as “just a garden variety criminal case,” while others

By minimizing
choose not to bring these charges because they view these prosecutions as “no-win cases with little political gain.”155

the seriousness of the crime, and thereby invoking the stereotype that rape is not a
harmful crime, prosecutors actually continue a self-fulfilling prophecy that rape is not
a worthwhile crime to prosecute. Judges similarly respond to rape cases
inappropriately, in a way that discriminates against rape victims.156 Judges use
gendered stereotypes to make sentencing decisions for rapists .157 Despite the fact
that rape is
one of the most heinous crimes, judges tend to give shorter sentences for rape
than for other crimes.158 In fact, nearly one-half of all convicted rapists are sentenced
to less than a year in prison.159 For a rape victim, this kind of lenient sentencing
means that the trauma he or she faced throughout their involvement with the criminal justice system was
meaningless, as the justice served equates to “a proverbial slap on the wrist for her
convicted attacker.”160 Judges also blame victims in order to justify their sentencing decision or their decision to find the
defendant not guilty.161 In the course of trials, judges make victim-blaming comments, which can influence the jury and their own sentencing
decisions.162 For instance, a judge in a Georgia rape case overturned the defendant’s conviction, citing the lack of evidence that the victim
“exhibited visible distress” in being around her alleged attacker at the trial.163 He further stated that “at no time prior to her outcry . . . did the
victim behave like a victim,” and that the defendant did not “behave like someone who had recently perpetrated a series of violent crimes

against her.”164

Slaps on the wrist perpetuate rape culture, and causes future victims to not report
and emboldens potential rapists. Leniency doesn’t justify learning rape is wrong
through trial and error.
Keneally 18 [Meghan Keneally, senior digital reporter for ABC with a Master's
degree at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, 12-20-2018,
"'Inappropriately light sentences' in sexual assault cases can hurt reporting of
future crimes: Experts," ABC News, https://abcnews.go.com/US/inappropriately-
light-sentences-sexual-assault-cases-hurt-reporting/story?id=59748226]/Kankee
The outcry over a recent plea deal that allowed a former Baylor University fraternity president accused of sexually assaulting a woman to avoid
jail time has advocates pointing to similar cases and criticizing overly lenient sentences for men who attack women. Jacob Walter Anderson was
indicted on sexual assault charges after his victim, who has not been publicly identified, accused him of repeatedly raping her and gagging and
choking her at a 2016 frat party, a claim which his lawyers dispute. In the end, Anderson pleaded no contest earlier this month to the lesser
charge of unlawful restraint, and agreed to go to counseling and pay a $400 fine. Part of the outrage over Anderson's sentence was that he will
not have to register as a sex offender or serve any jail time. For some advocates, the Anderson case drew instant parallels to those of Brock
Turner and Owen Labrie. Turner, a Stanford University swimmer, was sentenced to six months in prison after he was found guilty of sexually
assaulting an unconscious woman in 2015. Labrie, a student at a New Hampshire prep school, was convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old
girl on campus in 2014 after a highly publicized trial. Turner ended up serving three months of a six-month sentence, and Labrie just had his
motion for an amended sentence denied this week. Carole Alfano, the New Hampshire court system spokeswoman, confirmed to ABC News that
Labrie must report to jail and begin serving the remaining nine months of his year-long sentence the day after Christmas. 'Inappropriately light

sentences' All threesentences were criticized by victims and advocacy groups as being
overly lenient for sexual crimes. But aside from letting the perpetrators walk free or
serve minimal jail time, such sentences can also send a message to victims that it is not
worth trying to go through the justice system, experts say. Kristen Houser, the chief public affairs officer for
the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, said that sentences are "interpreted by many people as a

value of the claim, and that's why light sentences feel so egregious because it's saying,
'This particular rape complaint isn't as bad as these other ones.'" Public frustration with what are
interpreted to be "inappropriately light sentences " for certain sexual assault cases "is a

common issue that we deal with," said John Wilkinson, an attorney adviser for AEquitas, a nonprofit focused on prosecution practices
related to gender-based violence. "They're trying to get away with it and when you have lenient

sentences, it sends the message to the perpetrator that they can get away with it,"
Wilkinson said. "It sends the message to the victims that it's not worth reporting it, and those

are terrible messages to send." "Sexual violence is already one of the most, if not the most,

under-reported crimes, and this is just going to drive it deeper ," he added. 'Why would they
bother?' In her official response to Anderson's plea agreement, the victim wrote to Judge Ralph Strother that she was "devastated" by his

Rape is a violent crime that alters the victim's life and the life of everyone
decision. "

around them forever. He stole many things from me the night he raped me. I will
never be the same again," she wrote. She also raised the possibility that other victims would not report
assaults after seeing the way she was treated. "I reported this rape immediately ... I
had to repeat the facts and relive that night over and over again so that the justice
system could do their job," she wrote. "I wonder if other women in Waco will report their rapes if Jacob Anderson
gets this plea? Why would they bother?" she added. For their part, Anderson's lawyers, Mark Daniel and Tim Moore,
sent ABC News a lengthy statement disputing the victim's account, saying in part that they have "never encountered a case with more
misrepresentations concerning what actually occurred." Daniel and Moore detailed perceived discrepancies in the victim's testimony and in the
evidence of the case, and concluded their statement by saying that the criticism of the judge and the assistant district attorney who was
involved with the plea deal "is complete [sic] unfounded based on the facts and the truth." 'The seriousness has to be communicated clearly' In

the case of Brock Turner was released from jail

, he in September 2016after serving three months
of his six-month sentence. Turner had to register as a sex offender and serve three years' probation. Turner appealed the sentence and asked
for a new trial. His attorney, Eric Multhaup, argued during their appeal that the initial jury based its decision on "speculation" that Turner's
intent was rape, but in August, Turner lost his appeal and had his request for a new trial denied. Multhaup did not respond to ABC News'
request for comment for this story. The victim in the Turner case wrote a 12-page impact statement that mentioned "leniency." "As this is a first

we cannot forgive everyone's first

offense, I can see where leniency would beckon. On the other hand, as a society,

sexual assault or digital rape. It doesn't make sense," she wrote. "The
seriousness of rape has to be communicated clearly, we should not create a
culture that suggests we learn that rape is wrong through trial and error ." The outrage
over Turner's sentence ultimately took down the judge who handed it down. Michele Dauber is a Stanford University law professor who led the

there is a long history of

ultimately successful effort to recall Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky. "I think

the legal system in general, both civil and criminal, not handling sexual violence and domestic violence
correctly, and this is particularly true if the offender is privileged in some way. For example, being a private
university student like Mr. Anderson at Baylor or Brock Turner at Stanford," Dauber told ABC News. Persky did not respond to ABC News'

When a perpetrator is held

request for comment for this story. 'It shows survivors people are listening'

accountable and forced to serve time in jail, it can help victims feel vindicated, experts
say. Chessy Prout, now 20, came forward and publicly identified herself as the girl Labrie assaulted in 2015.

Status quo sentencing lets rapists off the hook, caring more about rapists’
wellbeing instead of punishing them for traumatizing others
Loofbourow 19 [Lili Loofbourow, Slate staff writer with a BA in English from USC,
05-30-2019, "Why Society Goes Easy on Rapists," Slate Magazine,
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/sexual-assault-rape-sympathy-no-
prison.html]/Kankee
One clarifying outcome of trying to see through the anger is realizing that, as observers, we aren’t the only ones in the grip of strong emotions.
What’s different inside the precincts and courtrooms where these cases are being decided—by ostensibly impartial interpreters of laws and
norms—is that the private feelings and assumptions of arbiters and investigators might be even less understood than they are acknowledged.

the Anchorage man who masturbated on

And they’re having significant effects. I started my list with the case of

a woman after strangling her unconscious while telling her he was going to kill her .
According to the detective’s notes, Justin Schneider said that he “needed her to believe she was going to die so that he could be sexually
fulfilled.” He pleaded guilty in September to one felony assault charge—not the four felony counts and one misdemeanor that he was indicted

for by a grand jury—in exchange for a sentence of two years, one suspended and one considered time served. No jail time. No
apology. Some might call that an extraordinarily lenient outcome. The district attorney commented that the
strangler-masturbator’s having lost his government job was already tantamount to a “life sentence.” Then there’s the judge who, in sentencing
a man convicted of raping his 14-year-old student, remarked that the young girl, who had since died by suicide, was “as much in control of the
situation” as her teacher was and “older than her chronological age.” He gave the guy—back in court after violating a sweetheart deal in which
all charges would’ve been dropped if, among other requirements, he’d completed a sex offender treatment program (he didn’t)—a mere 31

Richards IV, the du Pont heir,

days. (The defendant was resentenced to 10 years in prison after public outcry.) Then there’s Robert H.

who was convicted of raping his 3-year-old daughter. The judge suspended his
eight-year sentence because he might “not fare well” behind bars. He got no time
in prison at all. Last year, a Texas judge allowed a Baylor University student charged with
sexual assault—his accuser said he’d repeatedly raped her until she’d lost consciousness—to plead no contest to “unlawful
restraint” and avoid jail time altogether; Jacob Walter Anderson got a $400 fine, counseling,

and probation. The district attorney accepted the plea without informing his accuser; she found out about it
in the paper. Stephen Dalton Baril, the grandson of a former Virginia governor, agreed in July to an Alford plea deal
that reduced the charges of felony rape and sodomy. The judge sentenced him to five
years of probation (no prison) and, according to news reports, approved the plea as a fair
compromise, per the Associated Press, “in part because neither party was happy.” The implication
seemed to be that the rapist and the raped ought to find a middle ground. Then there’s
Nicholas Shumaker, whom a jury convicted of the felony sexual assault of Emma Top in 2017. The recommended sentence was four

years in a state prison with other violent offenders. The judge gave him one year in a county jail. He was out in

nine months. “The professionals in this case generally agree there is no purpose served by Mr. Shumaker going to prison, that it will
not change him in any positive way, that it will not help Ms. Top,” said the judge. Top herself told the Star Tribune she felt differently: “I felt like

for what he had done, he basically got a slap on the wrist.” In the time since I started writing this, Michael
Wysolovski, a Georgia man who groomed and abducted an anorexic teenage girl
and kept her in a dog cage for over a year, pleaded guilty to “interstate interference with custody” and child
cruelty, defined as “excessive physical pain during sexual intercourse.” He was sentenced to “ten years with eight

months to serve.” He’d been in a detention center for eight months and he’ll be on probation for
the rest. No prison. Shane Piche, a 26-year-old bus driver who pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-
old student, was sentenced to 10 years probation and must register as a sex offender on the lowest tier.
No prison. The lack of accountability for sexual assault in this country can’t be explained just by retrograde judges, or relaxed district
attorneys, or reluctant prosecutors, or understaffed departments who don’t assign investigators. It’s not just a lack of evidence or the
agnosticism bred of he said–she saids. And it’s not just a plague of plea deals. It’s investigators pressuring victims to sign statements that they
won’t cooperate in the investigations of their own rapes. It’s grand juries: Last year, the Washington Post’s Elizabeth Bruenig published a feature
about a years-old rape case from her high school. A police officer described to Bruenig a separate incident in which a “victim was sent the
photographs of her own rape, which she turned over to police.” The outcome? The grand jury did not indict. The main subject of the piece,
Amber Wyatt, said that in high school she was raped by two boys and immediately reported it. And yet, “despite [one of the alleged
perpetrators’] semen found in Wyatt’s body and the injuries she sustained, neither of the boys were questioned by police.” As I said, this set of
examples is far from a complete description of the problem, but so is the picture we get from the little data we have. When you add up all we

the presumption of innocence (which matters!) lets

don’t know and all we refuse to know, the issue might not be that

certain kinds of men—mostly men society doesn’t deem inherently suspicious—off the hook.

It’s that in all too many cases, there was never a hook to begin with . What rankles about my
list, I think,

is that as cherry-picked and clumsy as it is, it tells a real story about how unevenly distributed sympathy produces disproportionate
consequences. Now, sympathy’s not a bad thing; our institutions could use more of it. A system that prioritized rehabilitating people rather than
locking them up would be vastly preferable to the one we have. But those locked up for drug offenses—and that includes 47 percent of men in
federal prison—don’t seem to be getting the understanding and consideration that convicted rapists are. No one seems worried about whether
nonwhite drug offenders would “fare well” in prison. So why, in a system that otherwise tends to overpunish, are sexual assailants eliciting so
much extra consideration? For one thing, it’s simply the case that plenty of people think a lot of rapes weren’t rape at all. Surely, these skeptics
think, given how “difficult” it is to know when sex is truly involuntary, some context is missing in rape cases. That skepticism is baked into the
way many of us have been raised to think; on hearing rape, many an American—including those who work in criminal justice—believes that
what one party calls a rape might actually be a misunderstanding, or a miscommunication, or an oversexualized society’s fault. And these ideas
are so deeply rooted they can keep hold even when the assailant has been convicted. “Sex was in the air,” said a Manitoban judge who gave a
two-year conditional sentence (no prison) to a man who in 2006 forced a woman to have sex in the woods; the judge called the assailant a
“clumsy Don Juan.” An Idaho judge blamed “social media” for a 20-year-old man’s rape of a 14-year-old girl. Sympathy and understanding flow
toward a certain kind of accused man, proof be damned: He’s just a regular person. It couldn’t have been as bad as actual rape. Even when
convicted, some rapists can experience leniency because of the “unjust” burden men face as the sexual aggressors in traditional courtship. If you
believe men must exclusively initiate and pursue, mishaps and mistakes are bound to happen. Sure, there’s something intrinsically predatory
and gross in this model of male-female relations, but the danger this predatory aspect poses to women isn’t really what troubles those who
subscribe to this model. They see it as a risk to men. “I want you to tell your friends, your male friends, that they have to be far more gentle with
women,” said a male Canadian judge after acquitting a man accused of raping a woman over a sink. “They have to be far more patient. … To
protect themselves, they have to be very careful.” (That judge is now in danger of losing his job.) The unstated corollary of this worldview is that
some degree of sexual coercion is an inevitable side effect of the natural order, and maybe instead of blaming men for going too far sometimes,
we ought to accept that stuff happens. “Some sex and pain sometimes go together … that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” said that same judge.
To object to the pain is cheating, unsportsmanlike. Men have needs, sex is a team sport where people get hurt, and if players from only one of
the teams ever seem to get injured, well, them’s the breaks. It goes without saying, I hope, that these distortions are deeply unfair to male
victims of sexual assault. (And the idea of a female rapist runs so counter to our ideas of masculinity—the victim should consider himself lucky!
—that perpetrators who are women receive lower sentences than even white men.) The effect is a telling blind spot in our culture’s ability to
process and respond to assault. And it has a price: It means we’re more likely to believe that women will invent accusations for money than we

a criminal justice system that

are to believe that (white, straight, cis) men abuse or attack people for fun. The result is

shows an unexamined bias toward accused sexual predators—particularly those from the
dominant race and class—by protecting them in advance from punishments that (in practice) very rarely

materialize. And this is a hypercorrection that occurs again and again even though false claims remain
statistically minuscule, and even though less than 1 percent of rapes result in a conviction. What remains true is the obvious fact this protective

Sexual assault is the infliction of humiliation and

mélange of distorted rationalizations tries to skirt:

trauma and pain on another human being for pleasure—a pleasure derived more
from domination and power than the sex itself. It is not affectionate excess. It is not human need. It is
cruelty. But what both the data and my anecdotes reflect is a long-standing reluctance to admit that
and treat rape as what it is: a serious danger to society. The Department of Justice’s Sex Offender Management
Assessment and Planning Initiative summarized a 2004 study as saying that “sexual recidivism estimates for rapists, based on new charges or
convictions, of 14 percent at five years, 21 percent at 10 years, and 24 percent at 15 years.” A 1997 study based on a smaller sample and older
data puts the recidivism rate at 39 percent over a 25-year period after initial arrest. Those numbers are not small, and they also mostly depend

Rape being one of the

on new arrests when—as we know—arrests for sexual assault are exceptionally rare to begin with.

most essentially antisocial acts a person can commit, you’d think it’d be the kind of
crime a system dedicated to communal safety would prioritize . But when Brock
Turner was caught raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster, Judge Aaron
Persky famously said in 2016, “I think he will not be a danger to others.” Persky may be right. But that’s a
bold prediction that willfully ignores the full measure of the danger Turner already
was, particularly to the survivor of his attack, as well as the data suggesting there is reason to worry about
re-offense. There is nothing wrong with hoping that a person will reform; reform and rehabilitation should be major considerations
across all America’s courtrooms. What’s telling here is the ease with which Persky had already credited Turner with

reforming. These opportunities for redemption aren’t afforded to everyone. Seriously addressing sexual assault means recognizing the
scope—and persistence—of the problem. Much has been written about how Turner’s privilege and position might have influenced Persky’s
leniency. But Persky has also been intelligently defended on different grounds by those, like Sajid A. Khan, who argue that the “culture of mass
incarceration has warped our psyches into thinking that lengthy jail or prison terms are always the answer to criminal behaviors like sexual
assault.” This is a fair critique of the outrage that got Persky removed from his bench. If anger and sympathy are the free radicals in affective
jurisprudence, rape cases flood us with both. The legal system treats rape in inflammatory ways that hurt the defendant—victim impact
statements are controversial for this exact reason, as Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern has argued, calling this liberal hypocrisy—and dismissive in ways
that hurt the survivor (glossing losing one’s job as the equivalent of a “life sentence”). Public opinion isn’t much better. We are magnificently

bad at talking about rape (I include myself here), and that’s why I’m telling you about what’s wrong with my list.

Rape severely impacts hundreds of thousands of victims due to the justice system
not holding rapists accountable
Lynge 22 [Stephanie Lynge, Acquisitions Editor of the Cumberland Law Review
with a JD from the Cumberland School of Law and a Masters in Victim Services
Management from Sam Houston State University, 2022, "Real Rape": Bias That
Allows Violent Offenders to Escape Real Accountability, Hein Online,
https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/cumlr52&i=269]/Kankee
II. RAPE IS A VIOLENT ACT Outside the legal field, "rape" and "sexual assault" are often used interchangeably, falling under a larger umbrella
term of "sexual violence."1 6 The way in which these two terms are used interchangeably affirms the idea that, as a society, we agree

sexual assault and rape are inherently violent acts. In fact, society considers sexual violence as a
"public health issue [because] it has a clear and measurable impact on the physical and mental

health" of its victims.' 7 Yet, there is a large disconnect between the legal theory or categorization of sexual violence as a violent
crime versus holding offenders accountable for committing these violent acts.' 8 The reality is that sexual assault and rape are violent acts, and

caselaw repeatedly shows the extreme brutality of rape.1 9 For example, in People v. Jovanovic,
defendant Oliver Jovanovic was "convict[ed] for kidnapping, sexual abuse[,] and assault." 20 Jovanovic and the victim became acquainted after
weeks of e-mailing and instant messaging.21 The very first instant message conversation "quickly took on an intimate tone," with the victim
exaggerating her interest in Jovanovic, who in response indicated an interest in sadomasochism. 22 During a later conversation, the victim
confided in Jovanovic that she was distraught "about having dragged a girl she knew to the emergency room after the girl was raped the
previous night." 2 3 Jovanovic responded by sending an "e-mail asking for details" of the rape. 24 Eventually the two met, and Jovanovic invited
the victim to his apartment.25 Once at his apartment, "Jovanovic gave her some tea, which she found to have a chemical taste, and a book of
photographs ... depicting corpses placed in grotesque poses." 26 After watching a video where "Muppet-like characters engage[d] in sexual or
violent behavior" and an erratic conversation, Jovanovic "sternly told [the victim] to take off her sweater." 27 When she did not comply, he
"then repeated this directive in a louder voice." 2 8 The victim "did not know what to do" and complied thinking this "was [simply] a. joke[.]" 2 9
When Jovanovic "tied her legs and arms to the frame of the futon" and proceeded to put lit candles in a glass between her legs, she
"demand[ed] that [Jovanovic] stop." 30 Rather than ceasing, Jovanovic began pouring hot wax over her stomach, vaginal area, and nipples." He
then placed ice cubes where he had poured the wax.32 Despite her screaming and telling Jovanovic to stop, Jovanovic simply asked "why she
was screaming" and stated that "suffering was a human condition." 33 Jovanovic bit her nipples and collarbone, and then simply paused the
assault to go move his car. 34 Once Jovanovic returned, he moved the victim to his bed where he hog-tied her and "penetrated her rectum with
either a baton or his penis, causing the [victim] intense pain." 35 Thankfully, the victim escaped after she was able to untie her legs herself.36
This intense assault was at the hands of an acquaintance with whom she had spent months forming a relationship.37 Her assault was at the
hands of someone who she had confided the trauma of witnessing a friend's rape. 38 Jovanovic used his relationship of trust to overpower the
victim and violently sexually assault her.39 Similarly, in Spain v. State, Matthew Spain abused his place of trust as the victim's fianc6. 40 One
evening, Spain and the victim had "an intense argument," and the next morning the victim told Spain she wanted to break off the engagement.
41 While the victim "went to the bathroom to get ready for class," Spain began looking through texts on the victim's cell phone.42 Spain locked
himself in the bathroom, refusing to return the victim's cell phone and questioning the victim "about various males to whom she had been
sending text messages." 43 When Spain eventually left the bathroom, the victim jumped on him in attempt to get her cell phone.44 "Spain
pushed [her] to the floor," and when she stood back up, he "grabbed [her] by her throat and held her against a wall." 45 Once Spain "wrestled
[the victim] to the ground .. he pinned her while interrogating her about [the] other men" she texted.46 Whenever Spain "came across a guy's
name in [the victim's] phone, he would spit in [her] face, and every time that he thought [she] was lying to him, he would flick [her] on the side
of the head." 47 Spain then proceeded to "make up" with the victim by "remov[ing] [her] shirt and kiss[ing] her." 48 After telling Spain that she
"wasn't doing anything with him," Spain explained "she could leave only if she had sex with him." 49 She told Spain no and attempted to escape,
but he "grabbed [her] neck and choked her" until she "could not breathe and began to black out."50 "Spain threw [the victim] onto his bed,
pinned her arms, and resumed his attempts to kiss her."51 He continued to overpower the victim and, without her consent, "inserted his penis
into her vagina."5 Once he finished, "Spain got up and walk[ed] around the apartment like absolutely nothing had happened." 53 Later, the
sexual assault nurse examiner "noted bruises and abrasions to [the victim's] face, arms, chest, abdomen, legs, back, heel, and ears."54 Spain
attempted to classify his violent actions as "consensual[] makeup sex[,]" but luckily law enforcement recognized this offense as violent rape.55
There is no escaping the inherent violence and cruelty of rape and sexual assault. Therefore, this violent crime understandably affects both
victims and society at large. A. Effects of Sexual Violence on Victims The cases discussed above demonstrate the violent nature of rape and

sexual assault.This brutality affects victims both physically and psychologically. In the most
immediate aftermath, victims of sexual violence "are at risk of pregnancy and sexually

transmitted [diseases]."56 Even with the small probability of women becoming pregnant from "one-time, unprotected
intercourse," between 7,750 and 12,500 "children [are] conceived from rape each year ."5

7 Regarding the more long-term physical effects, "sexual assault [survivors] have poorer perceptions of

health, more self-reported health complaints, more gastrointestinal and

gynecological problems, more chronic health conditions (including fibromyalgia,
diabetes, and arthritis), greater utilization of primary and emergency medical
services, higher median
medical bill costs, and higher mortality rates."5 8 Beyond physical effects, sexual violence also has extensive
psychological impacts on victims. After being raped, within two weeks "94% of women ...

experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder[.]"5 9 Studies show that post-traumatic

stress can linger for many victims. For example, nine months after being raped, 30% of
women still report PTSD symptoms. 60 One-third of women contemplated suicide
after being raped. 6 1 Further, "[t]he fact that 13% of all rape victims have actually attempted
suicide confirms the devastating and potentially life-threatening impact of rape." 62
Around "70% of rape or sexual assault victims experience moderate to severe
distress," which is "a larger percentage than any other violent crime ." 63 Individuals
who have been assaulted are also "[six] times more likely to use cocaine" and "[ten] times more

likely to use other major drugs" (excluding marijuana). 4 These statistics collectively show that the long-term effects on
victims of sexual violence are clear and measurable. These effects justify why sexual violence is worthy of being classified as a violent crime. B.
Effects of Sexual Violence on Society The effect of sexual violence on society as a whole is even more alarming when considering the prevalence

Every sixty-eight seconds, an American is sexually assaulted."65

of this form of violence: "

Therefore, on average, 463,634 individuals are raped or sexually assaulted yearly.66 The

National Crime Victimization Survey, a self-reported survey, suggests this number may be even
higher with over 734,000 individuals self-identifying as rape or sexual assault
victims. 67 In 2019, 459,310 individuals self-reported as rape and sexual assault victims,6' but this sharp decline may be related to other
factors, such as an overall hesitancy to disclose, rather than a decline in sexual violence. Although men are also victims of sexual violence,

women comprise 90% of adult rape victims. 69 If "[one] out of every [six] American women has been
the victim of an attempted or completed rape[,]"70 it is likely that each and every
one of us knows a survivor. Therefore, we know someone who has experienced or is currently enduring the physical and/or
psychological effects of such violence. There is also social cost to this omnipresent sexual violence .

Per victim, the "estimated lifetime cost of rape victimization is $122,461," which
then totals to "$3.1 trillion for all rape victims." 71 Furthermore, our economy experiences
a $1.6 trillion loss in work productivity and a $1.2 trillion loss in medical costs due
to sexual violence. 72 The prevalence of sexual violence, the extreme negative effects it has on
victims, and the expounding impact it leaves on our society as a whole clearly and measurably demonstrates that sexual
violence is not something we should hold at arms-length. We cannot simply avert
our eyes or minimize the level of violence in hopes of curbing sexual violence. There is a glaring gap, however,
between these idealized legal and social theories and our actual application of the theories, as the criminal justice system

has largely failed to hold sexually violent criminals liable. III. ATTRITION RATES ARE PROOF THAT
SEXUAL VIOLENCE IS NOT TREATED AS A VIOLENT CRIME
No link turns – recidivism for rapists is high, and harsh punishment/imprisonment
sends a deterring message towards rapists
Kebodeaux 18 [Claire Kebodeaux, J.D. Candidate at the University of Kansas
School of Law with a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Miami, 2018, “Rape
Sentencing: We're All Mad About Brock Turner, But Now What?” Kanas Journal of
Law and Public Policy,
https://lawjournal.ku.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Kebodeaux-V27I1.pdf]/
Kankee
out of every 1000 rapes, 994
III. CURRENT SENTENCING According to the Rape Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), "

perpetrators will walk free."32 Six out of a thousand rapists will be incarcerated,
compared to twenty out of a thousand robbers and thirty-three out of a thousand
batterers. 33 Scott Berkowitz, RAINN's president and founder, believes "this staggering statistic sends a clear
message to offenders that they can commit this horrible crime and get away with it."
34 Berkowitz also believes that "the single most important thing we can do to prevent rape is to

put more rapists in prison."35 The two factors that are most predictive of sentence length for any crime are the seriousness
of the offense and the defendant's criminal record.36 For rape, these factors do not make as much sense as they do in other crimes, because
most rapes occur in a context where the defendant does not have a prior criminal record and the victim and defendant know each other.37 Only
13.8% of women report being raped by a stranger. 38 The majority of women are raped by a partner (51.1%), acquaintance (40.8%), or family

Rapists have
member (12.5%).39 For male victims, the statistic goes up slightly, with 15.10% reporting being raped by a stranger.4 0

high levels of recidivism and "research shows that not only do an alarmingly high
number of perpetrators of rape reoffend, but also that repeat offenders commit the vast
majority of rapes." 4' In a study of 126 incarcerated rapists, the rapists committed a
total of 907 rapes involving 882 victims. 42 The average number of victims per rapist
was seven.43 In a statistical analysis comparing the prosecution of sexual assault to other crimes, sexual assault offenders were more
likely to be imprisoned when the offender was unemployed or when there were multiple witnesses, two factors that had no effect on the length

of sentence for persons convicted of non-sex offenses. 44In a statistical analysis of the seventy-five most
populous counties in America, the median length of incarceration rapists received
at sentencing was four years.45 Less than 50% of people arrested for rape are
convicted, compared to a 69% conviction rate for murder and a 61% conviction
rate for robbery.46 Twenty-one percent of convicted rapists are never sentenced to
jail, while 24% of convicted rapists spend only eleven months in jail.47 Prosecutors
tend to recommend, and judges tend to sentence, all first-time violent offenders to lighter

sentences, based on the assumption that first-time offenders are less dangerous than repeat offenders and first-time offenders will not
reoffend.48 This assumption, however, does not apply to rape cases, because rapists have a high rate of reoffending.49 Rapists are also

given lighter sentences compared to other crimes due to societal and community
assumptions. When the community believes that a rape by an acquaintance is less severe than a stranger rape, or a victim is to blame
for drinking at a bar, judges in that community are less likely to hand down severe sentences. 5 ' When the community assumes "that a rapist
who is young and otherwise an exemplary student and athlete is not sufficiently dangerous to send to prison, then [the community is] likely to
see less severe sentences." 52 Prosecutors and judges perceiving first-time rapists as not dangerous coupled with societal leniency towards
rapists results in lighter sentences for rapists compared to other offenders. While in theory the victim's race should not be a factor in
sentencing, in reality the victim's race impacts sentence length. Even when criminal history, offense type, and details of the crime are controlled
for, the race and sex of victims matter in the sentencing of homicide cases.53 The race and sex of victims matter in vehicular homicides
sentencing, even though vehicular homicide is a crime "in which victims are almost always random and blameless."54 Even with "all other
variables being equal, a drunk driver who kills a woman will receive a sentence 50% longer than one who kills a man, and a driver who kills a
black victim will receive a sentence 50% shorter than one who kills a white victim."5 5 Although sex crimes and vehicular homicides are different
crimes, these statistics demonstrate that the race and sex of the victim do impact sentence length. There is no reason to think that race and sex
of a victim do not have an impact on sentence length for sex crimes.