[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Victims of Sexual Assault and Their Rights
Generally speaking, anyone who suffers a loss or injury as the result of an act that constitutes a crime under a federal, state, or local law has been victimized. This includes individuals as well as corporations, relatives, and dependents of persons who themselves are injured or killed during the course of a crime and even Good Samaritans who may be harmed during the act of preventing a crime or while preventing the perpetrator from leaving the scene. What is "rape"?
The definition of rape varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Since the mid 1970s, attempts to make the offense gender neutral, so that a person of either sex can be convicted of rape or be a victim of a rape, as well as attempts to define the crime as one of violence rather than as a sexual offense, have affected the definition of the offense. Generally, however, a person is guilty of rape if that person engages in sexual intercourse with another person when that other person has not consented, is incapable of consent, or is below a statutorily mandated age, thereby making consent irrelevant. The definition of sexual intercourse varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, with some jurisdictimis including homosexual intercourse and sexual assault with an object, and with other jurisdictions limiting the definition to heterosexual vaginal intercourse.
Rape is an act of brutal violence perpetrated by means of an intimate sexual act. This unusual combination of intimacy and brutality has historically made the law on rape unique. Historically, the law seemed more concerned with the victim's actions than the defendant's, and trials of rape cases were nothing short of ordeals for the victim. Reflecting a skepticism and undue fear of "frame-ups" found in no similar degree with respect to any other crime, numerous procedural hurdles were imposed on the prosecution......
