I mean…I could pick the locks to your house and clean your house making it spotless, but I’m pretty sure it’s still breaking and entering.
Sure but only if the person who owns the house where you picked the locks and cleaned is upset about what you did and reports it to the police. If they aren’t unhappy that their house is cleaned, then they may not care how it happened.
…and if you are a friend of the homeowner, who has given you permission to the enter the home on your own before, even you may not think you are breaking and entering.
The criminal system is not in place solely to bring some sense of personal punishment for an accuser. The system is there largely for what is best for society. Right now the prison system isn’t working. We’re locking up people at higher rates than any other civilized nations and putting nonviolent criminals into cells with violent criminals, something I’ve said before. Court dockets are clogged and yes prosecutors have to make tough decisions about who is a potential harm to society vs. who isn’t. So sure, count away, but also think about the fact that it’s speculated as a country we spend around $180 billion on the criminal justice system, from the policing, to the courts to the jails. I’d rather put my efforts and my taxpayer dollars into systems to catch repeat offenders than a single full blown trial for a a couple 20 year old college students that can’t communicate and like their vodka.
@Bay & @momofthreeboys, exceedingly few people are OK with being picked clean or their friends stealing from them.
They may not report it to the police, but that doesn’t mean they are happy or not traumatized by it.
No but again,the criminal justice system is not in existence solely and entirely to make alleged victims feel better that is what therapist are for. It sounds cold and callus, but really some of the things people “think” our criminal justice system should be doing does sound less about what is best for society and more about individuals wanting some sort of personal retaliatory system and some of that comes at the end after the innocent is proven guilty with a victim impact statement.
Niquii’s hypothetical involved cleaning your house, not picking or stealing it clean. But there are probably some people who might be traumatized by having to live in a clean house, or feel violated that it happened and they of course would be the ones who report it to the police.
The point was that people react differently to situations that may constitute a crime under a legal definition, so not every incident meeting the definition will be or needs to be prosecuted or reported to the police if the victim is not offended, unless there is a concomitant danger to society at large by not prosecuting it.
By “cleaning” I meant someone scrubbing your floors and washing your dishes.
Count me as one of those who’d be violated by someone I don’t know breaking into my house and cleaning it. 
I would, too. But if it was someone I knew (which is true about most rapists), and that person had cleaned my house before with my permission, and that someone thought I had consented to him cleaning it again, I might not feel violated at all, or at least not feel it was necessary to report to the police.
@momofthreeboys, you have said numerous times you want victims to go to the police. You want more victims to go to the police. Well…as police get better dealing with sexual assaults…more victims are going to the police. You are getting what you wanted.
Look at Missoula. You read the book. The rate of victims going to the police is up 50 percent since the police changed the way they handle sexual assaults.
A normal progression as police do a better job is …more victims go to the police… More arrests occur…more settlements…more convictions.
As the rape kits are examined, more serial rapists are caught. That’s what you wanted. That’s what is happening.
Saintfan, your link about the high school girl…the cop said what happened to her is rape in Louisiana. . Yet nothing happened. Tulane did nothing. It’s good to be a male college athlete.
There are changes occuring…even in Louisiana.
@Niquii77, I like your avatar. I have liked several of your avatars. This latest one is striking.
Unfortunately, there are some jurisdictions where even solid cases are not prosecuted and where those in charge of deciding have a vested interest in not bringing certain categories of crime to trail. Of course there are the certain categories of people who tend not to be charged as well. Unfortunately this sets up the gray area of all gray areas where failure to prosecute is touted as solid proof of innocence.
http://www.thefalcoholic.com/2014/5/13/5713476/prince-shembo-a-surprising-pick-for-the-falcons
Prince Shembo (formerly of Notre Dame) became innocent when his accuser committed suicide and the case was closed. Unfortunately he is in the news again this weekend for killing his GF’s dog which brought him to mind.
“Police said the dog had a fractured rib, fractured liver, abdominal hemorrhage, thoracic hemorrhage, extensive bruising and hemorrhage in the muscles of her front leg and shoulders, head trauma, hemorrhage and edema in its lungs, hemorrhage between the esophagus and trachea, and hemorrhage in the left eye with internal injuries.”
Maybe this time the charges will stick, but at least the Falcons released him.
In the Tulane case, happening right now, where the HS basketball recruit is suing, the football player was reinstated as if nothing happened. He says he didn’t rape her and maybe in his mind having sex with a girl who you just met who is passed out drunk on your roommates bed does not constitute rape. I am still amazed at the apologists who say that he wouldn’t do such a thing because he was an honor student and a blue chip recruit and they knew him from church. He admits that he had sex with the girl while she was passed out but says that somehow it was consensual (no, he had never “cleaned her house” before.) However, because charges were dropped his slate is wiped clean not just legally but in the minds of his boosters. (yes, Tulane just completed a new stadium and the player was reinstated a month before the grand opening at the start of the 2014 season) Guess who has the season’s 2nd most receiving yards on the team as a true freshman?
Saintfan, I am just shaking my head…
dstark yes I agree with what you are telling me. I suppose what I’m failing to say is that I want the police to focus on egregious cases, on cases where an offender might be a repeat offender, on cases that meet the force and/or incapacitation benchmark and yes the more people that report theoretically the more likely repeat offenders will be caught and prosecuted and offenders that have used force or assaulted a passed out person or someone drugged and in the vast majority of states that is what it will take to meet a potential prosecution. What I don’t agree with is wasting taxpayer dollars in prosecutions that are going to go nowhere and I don’t agree that there is some moral obligation to convince someone who doesn’t think they’ve been sexually assaulted that they have been sexually assaulted and in the some cases with pea deals and a very low probability of recidivism I’m not always convinced that “jail time” is what our society should be doing.
We don’t know who the repeat offenders are if we don’t investigate cases. We are finding repeat offenders right now as rape kits are examined.
I am going to make a guess…that footbal player who allegedly assaulted the high school girl…he has done this before.
As far as convincing people they are sexually assaulted…I think they know. They just don’t know they were raped.
If you ask college guys would you have sex with somebody without her consent if you knew you wouldn’t get caught, over 30 percent of the guys say yes.
If you ask college guys would you rape somebody if you knew you wouldn’t get caught…the number drops 2/3.
Same behavior. Different wording. The behavior needs to stop.
I am not worried too much about the cost of putting rapists behind bars. The gdp of the United States is somewhere around $18 trillion a year.
If you don’t want people to go to jail, you should rethink your attitude about schools handling cases. I think a student would prefer expulsion from a school over jail time. I would. Maybe, depending on the circumstance…the accused would not have to have sexual assault on his record if he was expelled. Maybe, his name could be put in a database and if stays clean for a certain amount of time… His name can be withdrawn from the database or his record could be sealed. If he committed another sexual assault and his name was in a database, maybe this would go on his permanent record.
Thank you, @dstark!
Here’s more on the untested rape kits. It just boggles my mind that we have the TSA taking baby food away from babies but we left all these perfectly good examples of criminal behavior go untested and the perps go unpunished for so long. I know, I know, national security is more important than the security of a few thousand rape victims…
@momofthreeboys, just want to point out that what @greenwitch posted is more the norm when it comes to criminal prosecution of rape in this country than prosecutors going after 2 people having drunken sex.
I would hope so.