“Still A Long Way To Go”: Four Lessons From Steubenville
Thanks to a trial overseen by a juvenile court judge, justice in Steubenville was administered remarkably quickly. On Sunday morning, Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond were found delinquent of the rape of a sixteen-year-old girl, for which they will serve, respectively, a minimum of two years and one year each. But this isn’t the end of the story, which went national with the help of Anonymous but was truly laid bare in the four days of testimony last week. The only unique aspect of the story was its prominence and the abundant, inarguable recorded evidence, so it’s worth taking stock of what those factors tell us about rape in America:
1. They thought they could get away with it. The release of text messages sent that night and immediately afterwards make it clear that at least some of these kids, particularly Trent Mays, knew what had happened was wrong. It’s just that they had reason to believe they would operate with impunity. One teen texted Mays the next day, “You’re a felon.” Mays subsequently said, “I shoulda raped now that everybody thinks I did.” (He had at one point said he’d had intercourse with the girl, then said he didn’t; digital penetration is rape under Ohio law.) But Mays’ damage control is telling: In a text, he referred to football coach Reno Saccoccia: “I got Reno. He took care of it and shit ain’t gonna happen, even if they did take it to court.” Mays also said that the coach said that next time they got into trouble, they’d be suspended for three games. ”But I feel he took care of it for us,” Mays wrote. “Like, he was joking about it, so I’m not worried.” Unluckily for Mays, the coach wasn’t quite as powerful as believed.
2. The bystanders could have prevented it. One of the witnesses, Evan Westlake, wasn’t drunk, and when he realized one of his friends was too drunk to drive, Westlake tricked him into handing over his keys. Yet as Yahoo News’ Dan Wetzel points out, Westlake didn’t think to intervene in the same way when he saw the girl passed out on the floor being violated by Mays and Richmond. (On Sunday, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said he would ask for a grand jury to investigate whether there would be further charges.)
The national expert in bystander intervention, Jackson Katz, told the Daily News, “I assume there were people in that room who were uncomfortable with what was going on, but they were silenced by the dominant ethos of their culture. Nobody spoke up. If you are a teammate and you really have someone’s back like you say you do, you would have intervened before they committed a crime.” There was one exception, after the fact: Sean McGhee, Richmond’s cousin, who testified against him. He had been at the party early in the night and then learned about the sexual activity from the photos and texts. “You are dead wrong,” he texted his cousin. “I’m going to choke the [expletive] out of you for that. You could go to jail for life for that.” Of course, by then it was too late.
3. Education about rape and consent needs to happen, and earlier. Westlake’s rationale for failing to intervene was that “It wasn’t violent. I didn’t know exactly what rape was. I always pictured it as forcing yourself on someone.” If Westlake truly believed that, as Katz put it, “The failure of adult men’s leadership is a primary factor in this case… How many athletic departments have mandated sexual violence education?” Much of what exists tends to happen in college and tends to be aimed at women. A report on rape prevention by the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence notes, “The data suggest that first sexual experiences typically occur at a much younger age, that a notable percentage of these first experiences are forced, and that sexual and physical violence occur at alarming rates among middle school and secondary school students.”
4. Even now, victim-blaming is all but inevitable. The equivalent of a conviction doesn’t mean the girl’s suffering is over. If you need evidence of that, check out the Public Shaming Tumblr,which includes social media commentary like, “Be responsible for your actions ladies before your drunken decisions ruin innocent lives.” Closer to home, two of the girl’s friends testified against her, calling her a liar and saying they were no longer friends because she had insisted on staying out that night. The victim’s attorney told the press, “The mom and the daughter and the family want people to know rape’s not acceptable conduct.” On Sunday, the legal system recognized that. But the broader culture still has a long way to go.
By: Irin Carmon, Salem, March 19, 2013
“Guilty”: In Steubenville, A Powerful Blow Against Rape Culture Has Been Struck
Something happened today that is exceedingly rare in America, and the world — justice was served in a rape case. News outlets are reporting that 17-year old Trent Mays and 16-year old Ma’lik Richmond, both of whom are star football players at Steubenville High School in Ohio, were found guilty of raping a 16-year old girl last August.
On the one hand, the guilty verdicts shouldn’t be surprising. This case became so notorious largely because there was so much corroborating evidence. Eyewitnesses tweeted about the assault and, horrifyingly, posted photos of the passed out victim on Facebook. There was DNA evidence. Consent was never an issue, because the victim was either unconscious or to intoxicated to give meaningful consent.
On the other hand, many in the town rallied to the rapists’ defense and vilified the victim — a fairly classic move in these cases, particularly in cultures that valorize sports heroes. I’ll never forget an infamous rape case that occurred in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, a town close to where I grew up. In 1989, a gang of high school jocks raped a developmentally disabled girl (she had an IQ of 64) with a baseball bat — and yet the town rallied around the jocks and viciously attacked the girl’s reputation. It was sick. The rapists were convicted, though, and the case was the subject of an acclaimed book.
Getting back to Steubenville, it’s notable that the case was decided not by a jury but by a judge. I have to wonder whether if the case had gone to a jury composed of members of the Steubenville community, the verdict would have been the same.
And again, it bears repeating that rape convictions are exceedingly rare. Using statistics from the Justice Department and the FBI, RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) reports that out of every 100 rapes that occur, 46 get reported to police, 12 lead to an arrest, 9 get prosecuted, 5 lead to a felony conviction, and 3 see the inside of a prison cell. The other 97 lucky rapists walk free.
While at some level, it’s sad to see two such young men — or (almost) anyone, really — spend time in our awful prison system, prison sentences serve an extremely important purpose. It’s not even about them or their victim as individuals, it’s about the message that is sent. Jll Filipovic has noted that research shows that “cultural opposition to rape myths makes men less likely to commit assault, and acceptance of those myths makes sexual assault more likely.”
I believe that the same thing holds for how rape is treated in our criminal justice system. We have to show that rape is never minimized, excused or tolerated by a decent society, and that rapists must pay for their crimes. Today’s conviction in Ohio has probably prevented countless rapes from occurring, by unambiguously demonstrating the consequences.. A powerful blow against rape culture has been struck.
By: Kathleen Geier, Washington Monthly Political Animal, March, 17, 2013
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