A new documentary about a real life Special Victims Unit shows how tough it is to make rapists pay for their crime.
June 19, 2011
Devoted fans of the popular cop show can probably recite it in their sleep: "In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories."
Those stories on Law & Order: SVU are fiction (although they frequently echo tabloid headlines), but these statistics are not: Every two minutes someone in the United States is sexually assaulted. One out of six American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. But only forty percent of these crimes will be reported. Only six percent of rapists spend a day in jail.
These devastating numbers are at the very soul of a new documentary that offers an inside look at a real-life SVU -- the sex crimes prosecution unit of the New York District Attorney's office, the first of its kind in the country. Produced by Lisa F. Jackson, Sex Crimes Unit premieres on HBO, Monday, June 20, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, and will be repeated throughout the rest of the month and into July. Look for it.
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A collection of articles defining our times. The pages contain clickable links, don't let the titles fool you, some of the best articles have very non-descript titles and there are usually more articles on the matters in the days and week pages the links land on so it's a sort of treasure hunt through history, Enjoy!
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