Why don't victims of rape and sexual abuse go to the police? Attitudes like this:
An employment investigation has been launched after a senior police officer described a 10-year-old rape victim as a "willing'' participant in her sexual abuse.
Central District commander Superintendent Russell Gibson made the comments in a letter to the rapist's wife.
In it he said the girl, who was 10 at the time of the abuse, was a "willing party'', 3News reported last week.
The good news is that they're at least trying to sack the prick. But it raises the question of how many other police have such attitudes, and the effect is is having on the handling of complaints. The Auditor-General in their 2012 monitoring report on the Response of the New Zealand Police to the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct [PDF] found "mixed but relatively poor progress to improve services for adult sexual assault complainants since 2010" - in other words, nothing had really changed. And with people like Superintendent Gibson in leadership positions, its not hard to see why.
