Sentencing rape: How to navigate and guide public discourse?

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

Sentences imposed for rape are discussed throughout Europe. No other sentencing topic fuels public debate in Spain, Czechia, Finland, Germany, Slovenia and many other European countries as rape. This is mainly due to it being one of the most serious offences, yet suspended prison sentences are often imposed for it. This often-raised disproportionality of sentences is presented not as a simple fault of a sanctioning system but as a deliberate ignorance of female victims resulting from a patriarchal conception of society. Discussing principled sentencing concerning sentencing rape becomes difficult within such a setting, as the debate sometimes becomes devoid of principles. Additionally, those arguing for penal restraint against the frequently raised demand for harsher sentences face a surprising alliance of progressivists and conservatives. Contributing to such debates can be very challenging for sentencing scholars.
Having experiences with public debates over sentencing rape in the last years (and engaging in them), we want to discuss and share our experiences – disclosing examples of good and bad practices and of ethical dilemmas sentencing scholars face when entering the public arena. Experts from Czechia, Slovenia, Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary and Romania will firstly outline how a debate over sentencing rape was waged in individual countries, who were the actors and in what aspects the debate was different from other sentencing debates. Secondly, those scholars who personally engaged in the debates will present strategies they have taken and ethical dilemmas they faced.

Subtopic

• Topic 5: Social Control and Criminal Justice / Courts and Sentencing and Penal Decision Making (Sentencing and Penal Decisionmaking WG)

Chair

• Jakub Drápal, Charles University; Institute of State and Law of Czech Academy of Sciences

Discussants

• Mojca M. Plesničar, Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law Ljubljana

• Patricia Faraldo Faraldo-Cabana, Universidade da Coruña

• Mirza Buljubašić, The Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR); Faculty of Criminal Justice, Criminology, and Security Studies, University of Sarajevo

• Csaba Győry, ELTE University Faculty of Law, Budapest /Institute of Legal Studies, Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences