For the women of Cork

I was sitting on the bus yesterday, making my way home from a night in my friend’s house. Due to certain circumstances, I was already thinking about the Irish justice system when I boarded. For the most part, I was lamenting internally its’ inefficiency and overall uselessness. It takes forever to get anything done, as I’m sure it does in most countries – but in Ireland it really seems as if the system is actively trying to screw those who are most dependent on its’ assistance, namely those who have been victimised, or abused and have no recourse to justice but to seek it in court as they cannot defend themselves. It takes forever for cases to reach court, evidence is frequently misplaced or neglected, sentences are farcically lenient, and the policework required to enable cases to reach court in the first place is substandard.

It was during this rather depressing internal monologue that I heard an announcement on local radio news, among the chatter and the noise, that genuinely scared the crap out of me. According to Garda (police) statistics, the number of reported rapes in Cork city area has increased by 500% in a one year period.

That’s not a typo with an extra zero there. Five hundred per cent, since this time last year. There is of course the question to be considered as to the cause – are more women being raped, or is it the case that a far greater proportion of them are reporting it? Given the treatment of sexual assault cases in Ireland, which I have touched on in previous posts, I find it rather difficult to believe the latter. This statistic leads me to a number of conclusions, all of which are deeply unsettling.

As I have said, I find it hard to believe that a 500% increase in number of rapes being reported during a one year period, isolated within one regional area, can be attributed to higher incidence of reporting by victims. As such, the increase must be reflective of a massive increase in the number of assaults. 500% is a terrifying figure. It would also suggest to me that we have at least one serial offender responsible – it’s not a difficult conclusion to draw. We have to consider the number of rapes historically committed per annum in Cork, and the kind of numbers represented by a 500% increase. Say for example, the increase represents 150 assaults. The possibility of an increase or decrease in crime levels by such an amount is proportionate to the size of the population of the area in question. An increase by 150 assaults could much more likely be coincidental in a major city – London, Paris, Berlin. In a population the size of Cork’s, though, the likelihood of such an increase consisting of purely isolated incidents is practically zero.

It led me to thinking about the likelihood of there being an appropriate response to this near certainty (of a serial rapist, or more than one) by an Garda Síochána. I have tremendous respect on an individual level for certain gardaí I know personally – and as a profession in general I consider it extremely worthy. But as a woman in Cork, I have little faith that major perpetrators of sexual assaults here will be apprehended before many, many more women are hurt. If ever. In what little dealings I have had with the police force here, I have found their response to even the most basic of crimes insufficient and sluggish. We are totally unprepared in Ireland for serial crime. There was an entire spate of female disappearances in the midlands in the 1990s, such as that of JoJo Dullard, which are widely believed to be related but remain unsolved. Our response to serial offenders – by understanding, and consequently being able to adequately predict or apprehend the various psychoses that drive their behaviour – is effectively nonexistent. It frustrates me, because there is no want of talent in Ireland for such things, the systems are just not in place to channel that talent and expertise into effective, specialised police subforces dedicated to such crime.

So, in the meantime, if you live in Cork and happen to be female – please don’t take any chances. I don’t want to cause undue alarm, but I think the aforementioned statistics speak for themselves. The piece mentioned two specific scenarios to be aware of – home invasion assaults, and assaults on women who were heavily inebriated. Double check that your windows and doors are locked before you go to bed. If you’re drinking, either try not to drink to excess or at least stick to a group. Be aware of your surroundings as much as you can, and trust your instincts. It strikes me as hypocritical how we are so averse to displays of assertiveness in women here, be it in the form of turning guys down flat or setting firm boundaries if someone is bothering you – and yet when a woman is attacked, we often blame her for not doing precisely these same things. Should anything happen to you, or even if it has happened in the past, it was unequivocally NOT your fault. We can only be responsible for that which we can control, and since rape is by its’ very nature the deprivation of control over what happens to one’s own body, the responsibility for rape lies irrevocably with the perpetrator. It doesn’t matter what preceded it, or how much he might have felt you “led him on”. But I would rather as few women (or indeed men) as at all possible be subject to the horror of being raped, so please, if you’re reading this – be careful. Don’t put yourself in situations you are unsure of, and if you find yourself in one anyway, it’s better some random guy think you’re acting like a complete freak than you get assaulted. Try to find the balance between being cautious and sensible, and accepting that rape is never the victim’s fault, and as such your preventative measures can only ever be a precaution against something outside of your control.

Please be safe, and be aware – not only for yourself, but for the women around you. No-one deserves the pain of being raped, save perhaps those who inflict it on others – who, for the record, I would gladly have skinned and rolled in salt. With any luck those responsible for the dramatic increase in the past year will end up with a bad dose of karma, and preferably floating face down in the Lee.