This book evolved from our interest in rape as feminists and as sodal sdentists. As feminists, we were concemed about the treatment of rape victims and the attrition in rape cases under traditional rape law, and we welcomed legal reforms designed to improve the situation. As sodal sdentists, we wondered about the efficacy of legal changes aimed at an inherently resistant court system. We also were curious about the lack of studies examining the impact of these changes; we were particularly surprised to find that no one had attempted to ana lyze the impact of the reforms in more than one jurisdiction. Con vinced that untangling the effects of the reforms from the effects of contextual factors required a multijurisdictional study, we deeided to undertake the project. We quickly discovered that evaluating rape law reform in several jurisdictions would be no easy task. We had deeided that such an evaluation would require monthly data on the outcome of rape cases before and after the reforms were implemented, as weIl as qualitative data on the attitudes of criminal justice officials toward the reforms. Because states do not generate monthly data on case outcomes, we would have to collect the data ourse1ves from court records main tained by individual jurisdictions. To obtain an adequate number of cases for the time-series analysis, we would have to select our sites from large urban jurisdictions scattered throughout the United States.

The first comprehensive book on rape since Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will and Susan Estrich's Real Rape, this volume probes every aspect of rape law and the discrepancies between ideal law (on the books) and real law (in action). Susan Caringella canvasses the success and failure of reform in the United States, as well as Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand, and assesses alternative perspectives on rape reform, making use of theoretical models, court cases and statistical data. She uniquely delineates a creative model for change while addressing the discretion that undermines efforts at change. This includes charging the accused and plea bargaining, confronting a lack of transparency and accountability in implementing law, and acquiring funding for such changes.

This book explores the burgeoning interest in alternative and innovative justice responses to sexual violence both within and outside the legal system. It explores the limits of criminal law for achieving 'rape justice' and highlights possibilities for expanding how we think about justice in the aftermath of sexual violence.

Arguing that law must be looked at holistically, this book investigates the ‘hidden gender’ of the so-called neutral or objective legal principles that structure the law addressing violence against women. Adopting an explicitly feminist perspective, it investigates how legal responses to violence against women presuppose, maintain and perpetuate a certain context that may not in fact reflect women’s experiences. Carline and Easteal draw upon relevant legislation, case law and secondary studies from a range of territories, including Australia, England and Wales, the United States, Canada and Europe, to contextualize and critique different policy responses. They go on to examine the potential and limits of law, making recommendations for best practice models of policymaking and law reform. Aiming to help improve government, community and legal responses to women who experience violence, Shades of Grey – Domestic and Sexual Violence Against Women: Law Reform and Society will assist law-makers, academics, policymakers and a wider audience in understanding the complexities of violence against women.

Rape law reform has long been hailed as one of the most successful projects of second-wave feminism. Yet forty years after the anti-rape movement emerged, legal and medical institutions continue to resist implementing reforms intended to provide more just and compassionate legal and medical responses to victims of sexual violence. In Up Against a Wall, Rose Corrigan draws on interviews with over 150 local rape care advocates in communities across the United States to explore how and why mainstream systems continue to resist feminist reforms. In a series of richly detailed case studies, the book weaves together scholarship on law and social movements, feminist theory, policy formation and implementation, and criminal justice to show how the innovative legal strategies employed by anti-rape advocates actually undermined some of their central claims. But even as its more radical elements were thwarted, pieces of the rape law reform project were seized upon by conservative policy-makers and used to justify new initiatives that often prioritize the interests and rights of criminal justice actors or medical providers over the needs of victims.