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WASHINGTON / October 4, 2016 – In observance of Wrongful Conviction Day, a leading criminal justice reform group is calling on the Police Executive Research Forum to remove a recent report that promotes “victim-centered” investigations. The PERF report, titled “Identifying and Preventing Gender Bias in Law Enforcement Response to Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence,” describes the “victim-centered” approach as handing “control of the process back to the victim” and asserts the complainant has a “right” to “request certain investigative steps not be conducted.” (1)
'The Women’s Officer at the University of York has labelled students “dangerously naive” after they protested the institution first ever sexual consent classes, walking out en mass as they felt “patronised”.
The Union officers argued the “gender neutral” lessons were necessary to protect first-year students’ “wellbeing, physically and mentally”, following the nationwide moral panic concerning a supposed campus “rape crisis”.
However, around a quarter of the 5,000 youngsters summoned defiantly decided to leave the event, arguing that they did not need the lecture or wish to be framed as “potential rapists” by the feminist Women’s Officer.
“We’re Women’s Officers at the University of York. Earlier this year, we were elected after a cross-campus ballot in which we pledged to run consent talks. On Tuesday 27 September, we did just that”, wrote furious Student Union official Lucy Robinson, responding to the protest.'
'A university in the United States has begun offering classes in “constructive male allyship,” providing a space where male students are able to “question and deconstruct toxic masculinities.”
Duke University, based in the city of Durham, North Carolina, held its first Learning Community session last week. The women’s centre has organised a nine-week series of seminars, as part of the Duke Men’s Project.
And, with sexual harassment and sexism remaining hot topics on American university campuses, the university has created the seminar series under the banner of the Men’s Project.
“Our purpose is twofold: to foster constructive male allyship, and to question and deconstruct toxic masculinities,” the Men’s Project says on its website.
“We also understand how masculinity in its normative form alienates most – if not all – men, and recognise the part normative masculinity plays in alienating men and reproducing violence.'
'The BBC was at the centre of a damaging diversity row last night after one of its top radio stars was sacked for being 'white and male'.
Bafta award-winning comedian Jon Holmes was axed from The Now Show – the hit Radio 4 programme he has appeared on for 18 years – when bosses told him 'we're recasting it with more women and diversity'.
Last night, leading figures from the world of entertainment and across the political spectrum reacted with fury to the BBC instigating a policy in which it was now choosing performers based on their gender or skin colour, instead of their talent.
Mr Holmes revealed that since his sacking he has heard from other stars who have been rejected by broadcasting bosses because of 'positive discrimination'. He told how one woman presenter was given a job only later to be told 'we can't have you, because you are too white and middle class'.'
'Most reasonable people support equal opportunity for women. Often, they are women themselves, or are men with mothers, sisters, daughters, or wives. But once in a while, the push for equality has unforeseen and unpleasant consequences. In the case of opening restricted military occupations, American women are now vulnerable to involuntary military service that will without question subject them to unequal danger and suffering.'
'The Navy announced Thursday that it’s removing all historic job titles and replacing them with occupational specialty codes, as opposed to direct titles, effectively removing the word “man” from job titles in a roundabout way.
According to Navy Times, what this decision means in practice is that “Fire Controlman 1st Class Joe Sailor…would be Petty Officer 1st Class Joe Sailor.”
“We’re going to immediately do away with rating titles and address each other by just our rank as the other services do,” Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Robert Burke told Navy Times. “We recognize that’s going to be a large cultural change, it’s not going to happen overnight, but the direction is to start exercising that now.”'
'For decades, there was a widely held belief they should have one home with the primary caretaker, often the mother. But that status quo is changing. Absent some mitigating factor, such as an abusive mom or a mentally ill dad, many experts now agree that kids are happier and healthier when they can “maintain and build on meaningful relationships with both of their parents,” says Michael Lamb, who teaches psychology at the University of Cambridge. More often than not, that requires living under the same roof as each parent for significant periods of time–which is possible only under joint, not sole, custody.
‘Victim-Centered’ Investigations Imperil the Presumption of Innocence, CPI Alleges
WASHINGTON / September 29, 2016 – A leading criminal justice reform organization is today calling on criminal justice officials and law school professors to speak out in opposition to so-called “victim-centered” investigations, and in support of the legal precept of the presumption of innocence. The Center for Prosecutor Integrity believes “victim-centered” investigative methods, which are based on the notion of “start by believing” and “always believe the victim,” are becoming more commonplace.
The Center for Prosecutor Integrity presents five examples of documents that promote the “victim-centered” approach:
'Two women have been accused of having sex with a 15-year-old boy at a pizza party in Derry Township.
Tonia M. Simms, 37, and Melissa E. Weaver, 26, are charged with statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, corruption of minors and indecent assault.
The 15-year-old boy involved told police he met Simms and Weaver through an acquaintance on July 8 and was invited over for pizza at Simms’ apartment in the Holiday Acres complex.'
'Thursday morning, members of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter at California State University- Los Angeles (CSULA) caught a pair of disgruntled feminists on camera tearing down flyers advertising the group’s lecture with Christina Hoff Sommers scheduled for Oct. 4.
...
After being confronted by a CSULA YAF student, the vandal repeatedly insisted the fliers were “offensive.”
One of the feminists claimed removing the fliers was her First Amendment right.
“This is my freedom of speech,” she said.
“So it’s freedom of speech to infringe on our freedom of speech?” the YAF student responded.
'Although a very close call, for the reasons explained below, the Court finds that certain procedures Brown employed in conducting Doe’s hearing fell outside of a student’s reasonable expectations based on the Code of Student Conduct at Brown University 2014-15 (the “2014-15 Code”), and that these procedural errors likely affected the panel’s decision in Doe’s case.2 Accordingly, Doe is entitled a new hearing that remedies these infirmities. Pursuant to Rule 52(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Court makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law. To the extent that any finding of fact reflects a legal conclusion, it should be to that extent deemed a conclusion of law, and vice versa.'
'During the debate, while speaking about race relations and criminal justice reform, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton discussed ensuring rights to young men. She wouldn't say "due process," but she was referring to those rights.
...
It's shocking that Clinton would discuss the "rights of young men," considering the language she uses to talk about campus sexual assault. When Clinton says we must "listen and believe" to accusers, she's saying we shouldn't consider whether the accusations might be false (well, except when the accusations are against her husband).
That's a dangerous policy that has lead to dozens of lawsuits against universities who have denied due process rights to male students accused of sexual assault.'
'Now that another college year has begun, students beware. It seems nearly every week the U.S. Education Department announces another university is under investigation for at least one incident of sexual assault on campus. An alarming feature of present-day life on campuses of colleges and universities in this country is that students — almost always men — find themselves in the midst of a veritable minefield where due process protection is almost always conveniently overlooked.
And even when DOE isn’t making demands of colleges, school administrators often ignore due process, as is claimed in a lawsuit I filed against Columbia University on behalf of a male student facing disciplinary action. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently allowed the accused student’s lawsuit against Columbia to move forward, stating that there was sufficient plausibility of a Title IX violation in the university’s mishandling of the investigation.
Human Rights Watch Report Will Worsen Racial Disparities in Criminal Justice System, CPI Charges
WASHINGTON / September 27, 2016 – A leading criminal justice reform organization is today calling on Human Rights Watch, an international rights group, to remove its report, “Improving Police Response to Sexual Assault.” The non-profit Center for Prosecutor Integrity charges the report serves to bias the investigation, undermine the presumption of innocence, and harm the civil rights of persons accused of crimes, especially African-American men.
The Human Rights Watch report contains a series of recommendations that would severely distort the investigative process, CPI alleges. For example, the report urges investigators to assume that “all sexual assault cases are valid unless established otherwise by investigative findings.”
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