"A Day in the Life of ... a Rape Crisis Advocate" Blog Contest
Thank you to the advocates who submitted a blog post. We chose 6 finalists, and will feature a new story each week.
We hope you enjoy reading about the fascinating experiences
of these rape crisis advocates!
Week 1: Laura, from the Mt Sinai Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Program
Week 2: Vicki, from The Awareness Center
Week 3: Ihotu, from the Crime Victims Treatment Center
Week 4: Meredith, from Beth Israel Medical Center Rape Crisis and Domestic Violence Intervention Program
Week 5: Kristin, from Mt Sinai Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention (SAVI) Program
For 35 years he was the district attorney of Manhattan, responsible for fighting crime on many fronts. He pursued corporate thieves, mobsters and many other criminals. He presided over almost 100,000 cases. He is the boss of 500 assistant district attorneys who prosecuted some notorious criminals.
Among his notable cases have been the Robert Chambers murder trial, the crime of the grifters, mother and son, who bilked an elderly lady out of her townhouse and the trial of Bernard Goetz, who shot a group of teenagers whom he believed were threatening him in a subway car.
(Full story)
A stalwart defender of victims’ rights, Morgenthau spoke in 2006 about the statute of limitations:Â “After murder, the crime that causes the most permanent damage to the victim is a rape. The statute tells the perpetrator after five years you can forget about it, even though the victim never can forget about it.”
The Alliance thanks Mr. Morgenthau for his many years of service. He will be sorely missed.
Prostitution has been called a victimless crime, but — especially when the “perpetrator” is a minor — the facts are often very different.
Prosecutors say an alleged pimp has been indicted for promoting the prostitution of a 14-year-old girl who he met on a social networking Web site and lured to New York. There, they say, he exploited her by having her work for him as a prostitute and go on more than 500 “dates” during a two-month period.
(full story)
Before last year, the true victim of this crime, the girl who was trafficked, might have been arrested and treated as a criminal. The Safe Harbor Act, passed in part thanks to the advocacy work of the Alliance, will ensure that victims of statutory rape are not arrested, but are instead provided with services and support.
In a 7-2 decision written by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “the Supreme Court yesterday affirmed federal efforts to bar those convicted of crimes involving domestic violence from owning guns.” (Read the full story.)
In an Amicus brief (pdf) the Brady Center and others write:
[O]n average, 3.5 people are killed by intimate partners every day in the United States. Intimate partner homicides account for between one-third to one-half of all female homicides. … In each year from 1980 to 2000, 60 – 70% of batterers who killed their female intimate partners used firearms to do so.
Thanks to the Supreme Court for upholding this law, and to Sen. Frank Lautenberg for recognizing the danger of intimate partner violence when he sponsored it in 1996.
