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Abstract: 

Editor’s Note: That violence against women often involves sexual assault, and that such assaults are most often perpetrated by their partners is common knowledge. It has been estimated that approximately 20% of women have been the victim of a completed rape, and over half of these rapes were committed by someone known to the victim. However, when entering the criminal justice system to report such crimes, victims are often not taken seriously by law enforcement, treated as mere evidentiary decoration for the prosecution’s case, and revictimized by the indignity of being involuntarily thrown into a justice system that fails to punish offenders appropriately and acknowledge the victims’ trauma. Victims of sex crimes find themselves fighting a battle against “deeply ingrained attitudes that view rape victims as less deserving than other crime victims.”

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