Rape victims revictimized.

As further evidence that the U.S. is not making a serious effort to reduce the incidence of rape, a report by Human Rights Watch revealed that scores of police departments in Los Angeles County have not tested thousands of rape kits. That means hundreds or perhaps thousands of rapists will not face justice for their crimes and may rape again. Just as many women will be revictimized by the message that the justice system is not intended to redress the wrongs inflicted on them. Rape will continue to be one of the many injustices women face that makes it harder for them to attain a standing in society equal to men.

U.S. rape and domestic violence rates up.

U.S. Department of Justice surveys show an increase of 25 percent in rape and sexual assault and 42 percent in violence by intimate partners against women between 2005 and 2007, in part due to a change in research methodology. "Except for simple assault, which increased by 3 percent, the incidence of every other crime surveyed decreased." You would think this would be big news, but it did not get much coverage in the media.

A number of blogs fail to point out that these numbers are based on telephone surveys of crime victims, which is only the start of the confusion. The surveys found that the percentage of rapes and sexual assaults reported to the police increased from 38 percent in 2005 to 42 percent in 2007. Yet at the same time, the number of rapes actually reported to the police decreased more than 4 percent from 2005 to 2007. Based on these numbers, one can only assume that the 25 percent increase in rape and sexual assault is because a lot more women are telling the phone surveyors that they were sexually assaulted, but either they are not reporting these assaults to the police as rape, or the police are not categorizing the reports as rape. Is that what's really going on here?

Question for Palin.

As Governor, what is she doing about the fact that Alaska ranks number one in the nation for the rate at which women are murdered by men, and number one for its rape rate? (Alaska only ranks 22nd for murders regardless of gender.) While she served as mayor, her town began charging rape victims hundreds of dollars each for the forensic exams used in prosecution of rape, and her police chief vehemently opposed a bill in the state legislature to prohibit charging victims for the exams.