1,721,073 research outputs found
"With the disruption to your family life, it's more a vocation than a job": favours and family in the forensic nurse examination of sexual assault survivors
No full textFor those involved in the management of the forensic intervention following a rape assault, the attendance of a survivor is unpredictable. Rotas are produced to attempt control; however, as the forensic intervention is an example of bodywork (determined by body time), it necessarily poses a challenge to clock time. To solve this dilemma, nurses offer “favours” (Lara Cohen 2010) to colleagues in the form of flexibility over shifts. Nurses are also flexible with the end of their shifts in order to provide survivors with a sense of control over their bodies. While these favours necessarily problematise nurses’ non-work commitments, it is exactly these familial/maternal responsibilities which provide them with the empathy and caring skills necessary to carry out their work. Based upon a qualitative, international comparative study, this paper will explore the favours nurses offer and the complex ways they manage the relationship between their family responsibilities and forensic work
Whose credibility is it anyway: professional authority and relevance in forensic nurse examinations of sexual assault survivors
Full text linkThere is an inherent tension in the information gathering and recording stages of the forensic medical examination of rape survivors. Medical practitioners do not wish to record information that can undermine a complainant’s credibility, but at the same time must ensure that they do not problematise their own credibility by appearing partisan (for instance, by omitting information that might be relevant). Drawing upon semi-structured interviews with Forensic Nurse Examiners (FNEs) and their trainers (Forensic Medical Examiners) in England, and Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANEs) in Ontario, this paper will investigate the strategies that both sets of nurses employ in order to document medical, sexual and assault histories, as well as physical phenomena (injuries, tattoos and piercings). FNEs collect more potentially prejudicial information than SANEs; this is a result of their greater anxiety in regards to their perceived credibility and professional authority
‘It is not for me to say whether consent was given or not’: forensic medical examiners’ construction of ‘neutral reports’ in rape cases
No full textAttrition rate studies have outlined the role the ‘real rape’ stereotype plays in prosecutor decisions concerning the progression of rape cases through the criminal justice system. According to the ‘real rape’ stereotype, the victim should attend the medical examination with significant physical injury, and therefore police, prosecutors and jurors take injury evidence into consideration when deciding the veracity of the complainant’s allegation. However, forensic medical studies have shown injuries to be rare, and even when present, consent cannot be dismissed. To this end, in nearly all cases Forensic Medical Examiners (FMEs) produce ‘neutral reports’; reports that neither confirm nor deny the complainant’s allegation. In this article I explore FMEs’ justifications for neutral reports, and find that their production reinforces FMEs’ expertise. FMEs construct boundaries, distancing themselves from contentious issues. While such boundaries ensure authority, they limit evidential significance, which in turn provides a space for the prosecution to dismiss evidence that does not conform to the popular understanding of rape. Such a ‘vicious cycle’ of prosecutorial decision-making removes the opportunity for FMEs to explain the limits of injury evidence to the police, prosecutors and the jury and reinforces the belief that injuries are a necessary outcome of rape assaults
“Morphology is a witness which doesn’t lie”: diagnosis by similarity relation and analogical inference in clinical forensic medicine
No full textIn this paper, I utilise semi-structured interviews with Forensic Medical Examiners (FMEs) in Scotland in order to investigate their diagnostic work. Drawing upon classic medical sociological work on diagnosis (for instance, the work of Paul Atkinson and Michael Bloor), my understanding of diagnosis is as a subjective, but socially-constructed activity whereby medical practitioners are taught to identify (in this case) injury types, initially by ostension, then also by examination. I then extend the analysis postulated within the classic studies by outlining a mechanistic method for the actual cognitive process of diagnosis, drawn from a sociologically informed reading of the historian of science, Thomas Kuhn. It is argued that diagnosis is achieved by similarity relation (comparing new cases to those previously observed), and analogical reasoning (drawing inferences based on the analogy with previous cases). Given that new cases subtly alter the individual FME’s classificatory schema, resulting in potential differences in diagnoses, the FME community are required to conduct much reparative work in order to construct their evidence as consensual and factual, as is required by law. The paper will conclude with some brief comments on the future of forensic medical examinations, particularly concerning the fact/opinion distinction
Making the colposcope “forensic”: the medico-legal management of a controversial visualisation device
No full textVindictive but vulnerable: paradoxical representations of women as demonstrated in internet discourse surrounding an anti-rape technology
No full textMuch media interest surrounded a campaign to raise funds to distribute 30,000 Rape-aXe condoms to women during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The barbed device is worn inside the vagina and attaches to a penis upon penetration. This paper presents an analysis of popular attitudes towards women and rape as identified from comments made upon online news websites and popular blogs in response to this technology. Two over-arching representations emerged; first, that the Rape-aXe would be employed as a weapon for vengeance and deceit, and second, that it was a means of helping women negotiate risk. We argue that such paradoxical representations of women as simultaneously vindictive and vulnerable make problematic the utility of such an anti-rape device. We suggest that the cultural entrenchment of stereotypical and negative attitudes towards women needs to be recognized and counter-acted upon before rape intervention measures, like the Rape-aXe, can have any positive effect
Self-defense or undermining the self? Exploring the possibilities and limitations of a novel anti-rape technology
No full textDespite decades of feminist-inspired law reforms, rape remains highly prevalent. While many continue to fight for broad cultural and institutional changes, some argue that more immediate interventions are required. Self-defense techniques represent a key strategy of resistance to rape, and empirical evidence suggests that women’s active resistance may hold a number of positive benefits. In this essay, we compare the aims and objectives of a novel anti-rape technology, known as the Rape-aXe, with traditional self-defense techniques, focusing upon the potential for both to resist individual acts of sexual aggression and, more broadly, end gendered sexual violence
Contentious roommates? Spatial constructions of the therapeutic-evidential spectrum in medico-legal work
No full textMaking a space for medical expertise: medical knowledge of sexual assault and the construction of boundaries between forensic medicine and the law in late nineteenth-century England
No full textThis article looks at the boundary work performed by Victorian doctors in order to position themselves as beneficial to the court in helping to determine whether a woman had been raped. These doctors provided tangible physical evidence to support already widely-held beliefs about the nature of the rape victim. Such physical evidence could then be used to support, or undermine, the complainant’s allegation. The paper concludes that the reliance upon forensic evidence, the result of such boundaryconstruction, is one of the major factors maintaining the current international “justice gap” in rape cases
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