Friday, February 22, 2019

On Jordan Peterson's 'rape' comments and the provocation of outrage

Regarding the views of Jordan Peterson, recently interviewed by NZ Herald journalist, Simon Wilson: "He's said several times it's wrong to believe the victim in rape cases.”

Without wishing to put words in Peterson’s mouth I expect he might have conveyed his intention better if the word ‘automatically’ had been inserted before ‘believe’.

And I suspect that Mr Peterson has talked about this issue on the back of feminist fixation with the issue of rape and consent. It is entirely pertinent to this country.

The message steadily gaining traction is, ‘No women laying a rape complaint must be disbelieved’. Prior to the 2014 election Labour wanted to shift the burden of proof of consent to the defendant.

In any event Labour did not win the 2014 election. But again in April 2017 Labour's sexual violence spokesperson, Mrs Poto Williams called for “…radical reform of the sexual justice system which would see rape accusers believed by police as a starting point.”

This would invert the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’.

Naturally Peterson would oppose this idea. We all should. The whole point of the justice system is to fathom out the facts and respond accordingly.

To further explain his position he also makes mention of the high number of false rape complaints that occur. There have been numerous examples in New Zealand. Reports from the mid-2000s suggested police put the level of false rape complaints as high as 60-80 percent. The Peter Ellis organization documents many. Not content with second-hand information, I wrote to the New Zealand Police in 2008 asking for statistics relating to false rape allegations. Their response:

“Police record statistics under the offence “False Statement/Declaration Etc”. However, these statistics do not distinguish/identify the nature of the false complaint e.g. ‘Rape’….official statistics for what you have requested do not exist.”

Hit a brick wall there. But in the late 1990s Jan Jordan, Victoria University, wrote a paper Beyond Belief? Police, Rape and Women’s Credibility.

Describing her own interviews with detectives experienced in sexual assault investigations,  Jordan writes estimates of false rape allegations  “…ranged between one detective who said 10 percent and another who estimated that 80 per cent of all rapes reported were false ‘in one way or another’.”

Jan Jordan was given unprecedented access to police files to make her own analysis of rape and sexual violation complaints. Police judgement on 164 cases from Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch were examined. Factors that featured in findings of false complaint included drug or alcohol impairment, a delay in reporting, previous consensual sex with accused, previous rape complaints and intellectual impairment. Jordan observed “…a dominant mind-set of suspicion underlying police responses to reports of sexual assault.”

She also sensibly points out: “The police do, in fact, have to tread a fine line between the victim and the accused as they attempt to preserve the balance of justice and guard against the possibilities of wrongful conviction. However, an over-zealous commitment to the rights of the accused may unwittingly tip the balance the other way.”

The converse is equally true. That is the direction we are heading in, or indeed, a destination we have arrived at - an “over-zealous commitment” to the rights of the accuser.

This, then, provides context for Jordan Peterson’s comments which taken in isolation provoke the outrage the journalist intended.

5 comments:

Mark Hubbard said...

If you look a the clip supporting that very emotive framing in the text, Wilson was trying to put the words into Peterson's mouth: but from listening to Peterson, he was simply supporting an adversarial justice system. Wilson was trying to go out of context. I'll take Sean Plunkett's approach to interviewing Peterson any day.

Although note if you've ever been on the sidelines of a custody or (professionally) a child support administrative review, then the notion all 'female victims' in issues like these must be believed (and presumably the man not) becomes laughable. We're all individuals, and gender has little input into being able to tell whose lying.

Mark Wahlberg said...

I used to believe sociopathic people were the exception, sadly life has taught me they are in fact the norm. To my youthful detriment,I discovered many to whom I gave my trust, were in fact consummate liars and masterful manipulators.
Today I employ a meagre defense mechanism which is fraught with faults and with very few exceptions, people who claim anonymity when making contentious claims, soon realise they are fighting an uphill battle if they seek my support for anything.
In a world awash with public opinion from every conceivable perspective, truth and justice are mirage's shimmering on the horizon of my world.

Psycho Milt said...

It's wrong for people on the left to misrepresent Peterson's views on rape complainants true. However, Labour's 2014 on rape cases also gets misrepresented by people on the right.

Prior to the 2014 election Labour wanted to shift the burden of proof of consent to the defendant.

They did, and quite reasonably so. A defendant who claims that it wasn't rape because the sex was consensual is making a claim, and claims require supporting evidence if they're to be taken seriously. It would be wrong for the justice system to simply accept at face value a woman's assertion that she was raped by the defendant, but it's equally wrong to simply accept at face value a defendant's claim that sex was consensual. A jury should be entitled to hear from a defendant what he bases his claim of consent on, otherwise it's a get-out-of-jail free card.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

I didn't misrepresent it. It's a statement of fact italicised by you.

I took issue with the next development regarding the starting position for police as believing the accuser.

Psycho Milt said...

The misrepresentation lay in using that proposal re claims of consensual sex to support the statement:

The message steadily gaining traction is, ‘No women laying a rape complaint must be disbelieved’.

The proposal didn't give that message at all. Instead, it was a suggestion of how to better deal with situations like the one in which a famous cricketer could admit that his victim was telling him "No" but still succeed with a defence of consensual sex. Wanting to improve that situation doesn't imply that we must automatically believe the complainant's version of events.