Wednesday 19 December 2007

Reforming sexual offences

I understand that the Scottish Law Commission's Report on Rape and Other Sexual Offences is to be published today. If so, the report should be available shortly at this link, and a news release summarising it should be available here.

[Update (19/12): See now news reports in The Herald (with a separate commentary including a piece by Sandy Brindley of Rape Crisis Scotland), The Scotsman (including a commentary by Fiona Raitt) and on the BBC News website.]

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the report once again highlights the fact that the law cannot accomplish the task of dealing with sexual offences alone. At 2.53, the Commission wants to avoid negative indicators/definitions because "much can be done, by education and awareness campaigns, to increase general attitudes and perceptions about situtations that do not mean a person is consenting to sex".

This is, I felt, a theme running throughout the paper and should certainly be encouraged - rather than simply claiming the law is "broken".

Anonymous said...

I read the Herald article online then made the mistake of going on to read the 'comments', many of which were sour, whining and misogynistic, and appeared to regard the prospect of any alteration to the Scots laws on rape as an attack upon the authors' precious 'Saiturday nicht' civil liberties . I have of late come to the view that the Herald is the best of the Scottish papers (I think of my own local paper as the Press and Sturmer these days), but, time and again, its website 'comments' leave me depressed. Education? Yes, urgently.

DfA

DfA