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Sexual Assault Of Women And Adolescent Girls With Mental Disabilities, Janine Benedet, Isabel Grant Jun 2023

Sexual Assault Of Women And Adolescent Girls With Mental Disabilities, Janine Benedet, Isabel Grant

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This Report considers the research that addresses the sexual assault of women (age 18+) and adolescent girls (12-17) with mental disabilities (disabilities that affect cognition and decision-making, including intellectual disabilities present from birth, dementia, brain injury and certain psychiatric conditions.) These victims are targeted for sexual violence at rates even higher than for women generally. Yet when these women report abuse to authorities, the criminal trial process struggles to provide them with justice, while the consequences of disclosure can be severe and participation in the criminal justice process particularly traumatizing for them.


Resurrecting 'She Asked For It': The Rough Sex Defence In Canadian Courts, Elizabeth Sheehy, Isabel Grant, Lise Gotell Jan 2023

Resurrecting 'She Asked For It': The Rough Sex Defence In Canadian Courts, Elizabeth Sheehy, Isabel Grant, Lise Gotell

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According to rape crisis centres and women’s shelters in Canada, the US and the UK, women are reporting extreme levels of violence by men who rape them, including strangulation—a particularly dangerous form of violence that is highly predictive of femicide. At the same time, accused men are deploying the “rough sex” defence when the victim—nearly always a woman—has suffered bodily harm or even death as a result of the accused’s actions. This defence is used to suggest that the woman enjoyed strangulation, bondage or other violence as part of “sex play”, inviting judges and jurors to find that she either …


Criminality And Inequity Under Canada's Legalization Of Cannabis: A Study Of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Stephanie Lake, Margot Young Jan 2023

Criminality And Inequity Under Canada's Legalization Of Cannabis: A Study Of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Stephanie Lake, Margot Young

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The origin of this essay reminds us of the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to the development and assessment of public policy. It also demonstrates the serendipitous beginnings of many interesting inquiries. This collaboration was thus fortuitous: authors Lake and Young met during Lake’s doctoral dissertation defence. Young was on the examining committee. Lake presented a series of epidemiological studies (three of which are summarized below) involving the use of cannabis for therapeutic and harm reduction purposes among marginalized people who use drugs (PWUD) in Vancouver. Young’s lines of questioning involving the legal implications of Lake’s findings spurred the idea to …