Standing in front of a full courtroom in Palo Alto on Thursday, the 23-year-old college graduate who was sexually assaulted by former Stanford University student Brock Turner turned to address him directly. "I was awake, right?" The young woman, Emily Doe, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy,…
Since our founding, America has advanced on an unending path toward becoming a more perfect Union. This journey, led by forward-thinking individuals who have set their sights on reaching for a brighter tomorrow, has never been easy or smooth. The fight for dignity and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and…
#LGBTQ+LadyKathryn Williams-Julien’s first childhood memory is of her father punching her mother in the face. She was 6. Her mother fell to the ground, where Williams-Julien was already cowering. They were eye-to-eye, mother and child, both trembling with fear. “Her whole face was covered with blood,” she said quietly, sitting…
Thirty-one percent of all mass shooting deaths in 2015 were related to domestic violence incidents, according to a New York Times analysis published Sunday. The New York Times examined violent episodes in which four or more people were killed or wounded by a firearm, including the shooter. In 2015, there…
Mohammed Anwaar, 27, pleaded guilty to coercive and controlling behaviour. Legislation to make this type of behaviour a criminal offence was only introduced in December. Anwaar, of Charlotte Road, Sheffield, also admitted nine counts of assault and criminal damage. South Yorkshire Police said Anwaar had exercised "controlling and abusive behaviour over…
Rape and domestic violence against Native women have reached “epidemic proportions,” but the hotlines that could help are often unprepared for the unique cultural needs of tribal women who may live in rural areas with little support and a bewildering legal system. But that could be changing. Sometime this year,…
On March 8, the Iowa House of Representatives passed a bill setting new mandatory minimum sentences in domestic violence cases. Those convicted of domestic violence three times must serve 85 percent of their sentences prior to release, regardless of their conduct while imprisoned. The Iowa Senate voted unanimously to adopt…
This new program was authorized in the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (VAWA 2013) and received its first appropriation in fiscal year 2016. VAWA 2013 recognizes tribes’ inherent power to exercise “special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction” (SDVCJ) over certain defendants, regardless of their Indian or non-Indian status, who…
Postsecondary institutions reported a 34 percent decline in crimes between 2001 and 2013, with decreases in every category except forcible sex crimes, which rose 120 percent over the same period. It is not clear whether sex crimes are occurring more frequently or whether victims have become more willing to report…
Outraged activists and prosecutors in Oklahoma called for changes to a state law on forced oral sex after a court rejected the prosecution of a teenage boy in Tulsa because his 16-year-old accuser had been intoxicated to the point of unconsciousness. “Forcible sodomy cannot occur where a victim is so…
