Preview

Criminal Law Reform Essay

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1772 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Criminal Law Reform Essay
The legal system has proven to be moderately effective in addressing the issue of sexual assault with regard to law reform. Sexual assault is the term used for criminal offences involving unwanted sexual contact. This can include unwanted touching or groping, indecent acts of other kinds and rape, and this can occur from any type of perpetrator, someone that the victim has a relationship with or a stranger. There are many problems regarding the issue of sexual assault, such as consent, and under reporting.

In the past decades, there has been significant law reform in relation to sexual assault offences. This is due to the increasing awareness that the criminal justice system was not delivering right outcomes for the victim and the community. This crime is dealt with under the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW). A number of recent law reform initiatives intended to address on how the criminal justice system has responds to allegations of sexual assault have
…show more content…
Mechanisms of law reform relating to sexual assault include the parliament and the courts. There have been many acts passed by the NSW Parliament from the past few years. These include; Criminal Procedure Amendment (Sexual Offence Case Management) Act 2005, Criminal Procedure Amendment (Evidence) Act 2005 and the Crimes Amendment (Consent - Sexual Assault Offences) Act 2007. It has been suggested that specialist courts for sexual offences would lessen the trauma suffered by victims when giving evidence, and this would help improve conviction

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Police, both in Australia and the United States, are often lacking the training and experience to deal with victims of rape in a compassionate way. They simply follow department procedures and do not know how to adhere to the victim's feelings (Rape Crisis Information Pathfinder, 2007). This is unfortunate because many rape victims, throughout…

    • 1680 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Spohn, C., Beichner, D., & Davis-Frenzel, E. (2001). Prosecutorial justifications for sexual assault case rejection: Guarding the ‘gateway to justice '. Social Problems, 48, 206-235.…

    • 1426 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    * Sexual abuse. Rape and sexual assault or sexual acts to which the vulnerable adult has not consented, or could not consent or was pressured into consenting.…

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sexual abuse is when a sexual activity is performed without informed consent being freely given, such as rape or sexual assault, indecent exposure, sexual harassment, masturbation, involving a vulnerable adult in pornography, enforced witnessing of sexual acts or sexual media, attempted or penetration of intimate areas without informed consent, etc. It can also involve abuse of a position of power. Children are unable to give informed consent to any sexual activity of any description. Some adults are also unable to do this due to diminished capacity or a lack of understanding of the meaning.…

    • 2796 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rape Shield Law

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages

    As indicated, rape shield laws provide protection against false conceptions and the suffering of an emotional trauma, which can lead to an erroneous decision in the trial. However, there are also some exceptions to these laws, which are applied in some specific cases. Evidence of the victim’s sexual…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    4. Sexual assault is defined as intentional sexual conduct, characterized by use of force, a threat of force, the abuse of authority, or in any circumstance in which the victim does not, or cannot consent. Sexual assault includes rape, nonconsensual sodomy, and indecent assault, as well as any attempts to commit such acts.…

    • 248 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Our criminal justice system demands a continuous evolution to create success within the department. The last 60 years society has provoked change with our criminal justice system. These changes vary across three different areas inside the departments; corrections, courts, and policy. Corrections had a large advancement in their policy with PREA. PREA is the prison rape elimination act and protects offenders and employees. The criminal justice court system made adjustments to policies on self-defense by creating the standard your ground law. A major policy change took place in the state of Arizona due to illegal immigration. The policy was show your paper law. Identifying the opportunities for cooperation between the different elements of…

    • 2073 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Inmate Victimization

    • 5700 Words
    • 23 Pages

    One of the solutions to this problem is the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003. Although it is called the Prison Rape Elimination Act it includes all state and privately owned facilities including; federal, state, and local prisons, jails, police- lock- ups, and community settings like residential facilities. The act, voted on unanimously by the House of Representative and Senate, was the first national step toward a new understanding of the problem of sexual abuse in correctional and detention facilities. This act outlines specific details of what constitutes as a sexual abuse, “(a) the carnal knowledge, oral sodomy, sexual assault with an object, or sexual fondling of a person, forcibly or against that person's will; (b) the carnal knowledge, oral sodomy, sexual assault with an object, or sexual fondling of a person not forcibly or against the person's will, where the victim is incapable of giving consent because of his or her youth or his or her temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity; or (c) the…

    • 5700 Words
    • 23 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sexual assault had been a serious issue in Australia. Recently there had been a lot of news regarding sexual assault in Australia, an example would be the news where two men have been jailed for sexually assaulting a woman in Broome. Sexual assault refers to any offence of a sexual nature committed upon another person, such as rape, sexual assault without consent, indecent assault and acts of indecency. Rape is now referred to as sexual intercourse or sexual assault in the New South Wales jurisdiction. However, some states in Australia still used the terms ‘rape’, ‘sexual intercourse without consent’ and ‘unlawful sexual penetration’ in their jurisdictions. Sexual intercourse can include several actions. It was listed and the term “sexual intercourse” was defined in section 61H of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW). The Act stated that:…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Sexual assault offences are the least reported crimes in NSW, with only 15-20% being reported in 2004. Out of the reported offences, an estimated 2% were convicted. Even being compared to all other categories of crime it is a small conviction rate. These conditions gave rise to the need for law reform, and research into why both the rate of reporting the crimes, and the conviction rate were so low. ‘Why Sexual Violence is Almost Legal’1 gives an insight into the delay and lack of convictions in this area. Research found that many victims believed that they wouldn’t win their case, and so they didn’t report it. In 70% of the cases, the offender is known to the victim which makes the proof even more difficult. This is because the case is usually replying on one person’s word against the other, unless there is convincing physical evidence. Physical evidence for this also needs to be examined, which is an issue if the…

    • 1201 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Today our world is filled with crime. People who tends to commits such crimes must have consequences for their illegal actions. “The Criminal Justice System,” is a system that keeps everything fair and safe. This system was set up in order to ensure that fairness and justice will be served to people who breaks that laws.…

    • 1642 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Criminal Defense Essay

    • 855 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Criminal defense is better understood if the concept of criminal law is understood as well. Criminal law is defined as the body of law which deals with the constitution of offenses and the punishment given to offenders for their wrong doing. Among concept of criminal law, there are four important principles that correspond to the subject. The first principle is innocent until proven guilty which is considered the basis of the criminal justice system. Even though that an individual can get charged with an offense, he or she is still proven innocent until proven guilty of that offense. The case must have more than beyond the belief of reasonable doubt that the individual is guilty. Of course, if there is reasonable if there is reasonable doubt,…

    • 855 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There has been significant law reform in relation to sexual assault offences over the past decade. The failures of criminal justice systems to provide just outcomes for victims have provoked the need for law reform. A defining event and spark for major law reforms regarding sexual assault began after the horrendous acts of Bilal Skaf. The R v Skaf case led to the passing of the Crimes Sexual Assault in Company Act which greatly increased the sentencing for rapists. This led to a noticeable decrease in gang-rape; however the law is still unable to prevent rape all together. The positive outcomes from the case did not completely outweigh the negatives and the effectiveness of the law is questioned.…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The laws concerning sexual offences have always attracted criticism upon them because the legislative language with which were drafted were often considered to be inconsistent and gender-biased. For instance, the absence of the word ‘consent’ in the Sexual Offences Act 1956 and the unclear definition of rape, according to which ‘it is a felony for a men to rape a…

    • 1777 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    following the spine chilling and horific gang rape of 23 year old in the capital of the country the question which arised after the agonized gang rape was how to stop such cases ? can the bill containing harsher punishments stop such incidents . the government had set up a panel headed by a retired judge to recommend legal reform and other ways to reduce sexual violence. justice verma committee recieved 80,000 recommendations . the new law is a combination of just thinking about gender and existing patriachal attitudes in society.…

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays