NCJ Number
79878
Journal
Tijdschrift voor criminologie Volume: 21 Issue: 5 Dated: special issue (September/October 1979) Pages: 243-256
Date Published
1979
Length
14 pages
Annotation
The tendency of the Dutch police and criminal justice system to tolerate offenses such as rape, assault, and abuse is documented.
Abstract
It is argued that the reaction to these offenses in particular is related to the power relationship between men and women. Statistics show that Dutch police are less likely to file an official crime report for crimes involving women than for those involving men when the amount of property damage is less than 100 guilders. The reverse is true for crime with damages over 100 guilders. While prison sentences are imposed, usually with fines, in 85 percent of all rape cases, the prison terms tend to be under 1 year and are shorter than for murder or even armed robbery. Assault cases are settled by fines in 75 percent of the instances reported. Dark figures for rape and assault also appear to be higher for rape and assault than for simple abuse and for property offenses. Police response in abuse cases is dependent on the victim-offender relationship. In more than half of the cases, women are abused by family members, whereas men tend to be battered by strangers. Still, offenses against women are much more likely to be settled by fine than those against men, even though the severity of injuries is the same in both cases. The incidence statistics are similar in the case of murder or manslaughter: women are the victims of family members in two-thirds of the cases, while men are usually victims of friends or acquaintances. However, in cases of murder, the penalties are much more stringent when the victim is a woman. Thus, offenses against women do not appear to be taken seriously by the police and justice system until the degree of injury becomes severe. Then the system tends to react toward women in an overprotective fashion. More adequate prosecution of offenses against women and a policy of intervention by the police in victimization situations involving women are advocated. Notes, tables, and a 24-item bibliography are supplied.