Following a lengthy investigation, the SIU has decided to lay a charge of sexual assault against Sgt. Steve Desjourdy of the Ottawa Police Service for his conduct during a unconstitutional strip search of Stacy Bonds.
For a legal argument that the facts of the case meet the Supreme Court of Canada's legal test for the actus reus of sexual assault, see David M. Tanovich, "Bonds: Gendered and Racialized Violence, Strip Searches, Sexual Assault and Abuse of Prosecutorial Power" (2011), 79 Criminal Reports (6th) 132.
Showing posts with label Sexual Assault. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sexual Assault. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Is it a Training Issue? The Police and the Prevalence of Rape Myths
In general, how do police officers view the victims of sexual assault? Are their attitudes towards gender roles and rape related to each other? Do these attitudes influence the investigation process? A safety information session at York University would force these questions back into the public discourse.
Since 2006, sexual violence on York University campus has been increasing at alarming rates. Most recently, in April 2010, a York University graduate student was sentenced to eight years in prison for sexual assault and sexual assault causing bodily harm stemming from attacks on two first year students in their campus dormitory during frosh week in 2007. A month later, a 20-year-old student was sexual assaulted by three strangers as she walked to her apartment just south of the campus where many students reside.
In the wake of this it is no surprise that the University’s students unions have been calling for improved campus safety. Readdressing these concerns for the safety of students, on January 24, 2011 Osgoode Hall Law School in conjunction with the Toronto Police Services (TPS) and York Security Services held an information session on safety for the students. Since then, York students and staff have been demanding a written apology and an explanation from the Toronto Police Service after one of the uniformed officers allegedly told the audience that one of safety tips he could offer was that women can avoid sexual assault by not dressing like sluts.
Ronda Bessener, Assistant Dean at Osgoode who attended the session, told the Excalibur student newspaper “he said something like, I’ve been told I shouldn’t say this, and then he uttered the words.”
The Toronto Star is reporting that the police officer from the 31 Division has apologized, saying “he is embarrassed by the remarks and that assaulted women are not victims by choice.” Constable Michael Sanguinetti wrote on February 17 to Osgoode Hall Law School, “I made a comment which was poorly thought out and did not reflect the commitment of the Toronto Police Service to victims of sexual assault.” According to the Toronto Star, although unclear as to the extent, the officer has been “disciplined” by the professional standards unit of the TPS.
The Vice-President of the York Federation of Students noted that “linking provocative clothing to sexual assault is a huge myth and all it does is blame the survivor of a sexual assault while taking the onus away from the perpetrator”.
In light of rape law reforms, the TPS officer’s comments illustrate that, culturally, police officers have not completely adapted to these changes. The officer’s ‘safety tip’ and language used points to the pervasiveness of rape mythology and the deeper challenges to the sexist stereotypical reasoning of rape, and about women, and about who are raped. The existence of rape myths is not a new phenomenon and has even been judicially recognized in cases such as R. v. Ewanchuk. In her concurring opinion, Justice L’Heureux-Dube quoted from D. Archard, Sexual Consent (Colorado: Westview Press, 1998), at 131:
"Myths of rape include the view that women [fantasize] about being rape victims; that women mean 'yes' even when they say 'no'; that any woman could successfully resist a rapist if she really wished to; that the sexually experienced do not suffer harms when raped (or at least suffer lesser harms than the sexually 'innocent'); that women often deserve to be raped on account of their conduct, dress, and demeanour; that rape by a stranger is worse than one by an acquaintance. Stereotypes of sexuality include the view of women as passive, disposed submissively to surrender to the sexual advances of active men, the view that sexual love consists in the 'possession' by a man of a woman, and that heterosexual sexual activity is paradigmatically penetrative coitus."
Research in this area has also shown that the dominance of rape myths, include the view that the victim is lying, deserved the sexual assault, or asked for it because of how she was acting or what she was wearing, thereby downplaying the seriousness of the sexual assault that occurred by suggesting it was a trivial or even a natural event. Consequently, victims of sexual assault are more likely to think that the police will not believe their charge.
Other evidence suggests that sexual assault victims are more likely to complain that the police were too lenient or that they did not conduct enough of an investigation into their complaint. In general, fear of reprisals and feelings of intimidation are significant issues for victims of sexual assault when coming into contact with the police and, in turn, influences whether they file a police complaint concerning their case. The systemic problems in police investigation of sexual assault were brought to mainstream consciousness in 1998 with the landmark judgment of the Ontario Court in the Jane Doe case.
With sexual violence being a common occurrence on the University’s campus, Assistant Dean Bessner, underscores the on-going implications of the officer’s remarks, “such comments make it difficult for victims dealing with sexual assault because they make them feel uncomfortable going to the police for help. I think it’s really important that the police […] receive appropriate training on sexual assault, so that statements like this are never made and that they understand the dynamics of sexual assault. ”
Posted by Andrea Anderson (Windsor Law, 2009)
Friday, November 19, 2010
What were the prosecutors thinking?
By David M. Tanovich, Ottawa Citizen Special November 19, 2010
By now most people are familiar with the horrific experience of Stacy Bonds, the young woman who was arrested for effectively asking why she had been stopped and questioned by the police and then assaulted, strip-searched and detained half-naked for over three hours in a police cell. Her charge of assaulting police was stayed by Justice Richard Lajoie who concluded that there was no lawful authority for any of the conduct of the police that night and that what had happened to Bonds was an "indignity towards a human being."
While the focus has quite properly been on the conduct of the police officers involved, less attention has been placed on the Attorney General, the Crown Attorney's Office and the prosecutor, all of whom it seems believed that prosecuting Bonds for a minor offence in these circumstances was in the public interest.
It bears repeating that the purpose of a prosecutor is not to secure a conviction but to serve as a minister of justice. To ensure that the administration of justice is not tainted by conduct that subverts the rule of law.
Well before the trial, the Crown had seen the videotape. What did it show him? In addition to having a hand shoved down Bonds' pants and twice violently kneed in the back, she was strip-searched in the presence, and with the assistance, of male officers, one of whom forcibly cut her shirt and bra off with a pair of scissors. She was then left half-naked in a cell for over three hours. When she was found, her pants were soiled.
In R.v. Golden, the leading constitutional case on strip-searches, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized that "[w]omen and minorities in particular may have a real fear of strip searches and may experience such a search as equivalent to a sexual assault." Indeed, as Bonds puts it, "I was mentally and verbally raped."
The trial judge concluded that the only reasonable explanation for the officers' conduct was "vengeance and malice." He didn't link it to any prior event but presumably it was for Bonds' questioning the authority of the police earlier on the street. As Bonds is a black woman, there is also the lurking question of whether race and/ or gender were a factor not only in their decision to stop her on the street, but also to subsequently humiliate her. Given what we know about racism in policing and given that one of the officers was earlier temporarily demoted for assaulting and repeatedly Tasering a young woman in a cell less than a week before this incident, this is a very real likelihood.
Any reasonable Crown viewing the videotape would have concluded that the only offence it revealed was the assault and sexual assault of Bonds by the officers. Any reasonable Crown would have realized that Golden prohibits strip-searches of women by male officers absent extraordinary circumstances, and that without lawful authority, the non-consensual touching of a female suspect that interferes with her sexual autonomy or dignity is a sexual assault. As the trial judge pointed out, there was no lawful authority for any of the officers' conduct in this case.
Had the Crown Attorney's office properly examined this case and identified it as a serious incident, the case would have come to the attention of the chief of police. It is hard to criticize Chief Vern White or his executive for inaction when not only was the matter not brought to their attention but an independent agency was prepared to prosecute and defend the officers' conduct. Even during the trial, the Crown prosecutor was given the opportunity to do the right thing and withdraw the charges but presumably after getting instructions from his superior, he persisted.
In staying the proceedings against Bonds, the trial judge held that to continue the prosecution would be a "travesty" and that "I certainly would not be a party to such an action." The question is why the prosecutor and his office permitted itself to be a party.
What remains to be seen is how our system responds. One officer has been banned from dealing with the public and an internal investigation has been launched. But will the province's Special Investigations Unit investigate the case as this conduct should be deemed to fall squarely within their mandate? Will these officers be charged with assault causing bodily harm and/or sexual assault? And finally, will the public find out why the Attorney General continued to prosecute Bonds in these circumstances and failed to denounce what happened to her?
David M. Tanovich is a professor of law at the University of Windsor and academic director of the Law Enforcement Accountability Project (LEAP).
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
By now most people are familiar with the horrific experience of Stacy Bonds, the young woman who was arrested for effectively asking why she had been stopped and questioned by the police and then assaulted, strip-searched and detained half-naked for over three hours in a police cell. Her charge of assaulting police was stayed by Justice Richard Lajoie who concluded that there was no lawful authority for any of the conduct of the police that night and that what had happened to Bonds was an "indignity towards a human being."
While the focus has quite properly been on the conduct of the police officers involved, less attention has been placed on the Attorney General, the Crown Attorney's Office and the prosecutor, all of whom it seems believed that prosecuting Bonds for a minor offence in these circumstances was in the public interest.
It bears repeating that the purpose of a prosecutor is not to secure a conviction but to serve as a minister of justice. To ensure that the administration of justice is not tainted by conduct that subverts the rule of law.
Well before the trial, the Crown had seen the videotape. What did it show him? In addition to having a hand shoved down Bonds' pants and twice violently kneed in the back, she was strip-searched in the presence, and with the assistance, of male officers, one of whom forcibly cut her shirt and bra off with a pair of scissors. She was then left half-naked in a cell for over three hours. When she was found, her pants were soiled.
In R.v. Golden, the leading constitutional case on strip-searches, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized that "[w]omen and minorities in particular may have a real fear of strip searches and may experience such a search as equivalent to a sexual assault." Indeed, as Bonds puts it, "I was mentally and verbally raped."
The trial judge concluded that the only reasonable explanation for the officers' conduct was "vengeance and malice." He didn't link it to any prior event but presumably it was for Bonds' questioning the authority of the police earlier on the street. As Bonds is a black woman, there is also the lurking question of whether race and/ or gender were a factor not only in their decision to stop her on the street, but also to subsequently humiliate her. Given what we know about racism in policing and given that one of the officers was earlier temporarily demoted for assaulting and repeatedly Tasering a young woman in a cell less than a week before this incident, this is a very real likelihood.
Any reasonable Crown viewing the videotape would have concluded that the only offence it revealed was the assault and sexual assault of Bonds by the officers. Any reasonable Crown would have realized that Golden prohibits strip-searches of women by male officers absent extraordinary circumstances, and that without lawful authority, the non-consensual touching of a female suspect that interferes with her sexual autonomy or dignity is a sexual assault. As the trial judge pointed out, there was no lawful authority for any of the officers' conduct in this case.
Had the Crown Attorney's office properly examined this case and identified it as a serious incident, the case would have come to the attention of the chief of police. It is hard to criticize Chief Vern White or his executive for inaction when not only was the matter not brought to their attention but an independent agency was prepared to prosecute and defend the officers' conduct. Even during the trial, the Crown prosecutor was given the opportunity to do the right thing and withdraw the charges but presumably after getting instructions from his superior, he persisted.
In staying the proceedings against Bonds, the trial judge held that to continue the prosecution would be a "travesty" and that "I certainly would not be a party to such an action." The question is why the prosecutor and his office permitted itself to be a party.
What remains to be seen is how our system responds. One officer has been banned from dealing with the public and an internal investigation has been launched. But will the province's Special Investigations Unit investigate the case as this conduct should be deemed to fall squarely within their mandate? Will these officers be charged with assault causing bodily harm and/or sexual assault? And finally, will the public find out why the Attorney General continued to prosecute Bonds in these circumstances and failed to denounce what happened to her?
David M. Tanovich is a professor of law at the University of Windsor and academic director of the Law Enforcement Accountability Project (LEAP).
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
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