Citation

Du Mont J, Parnis D, Forte T. Med. Law 2006; 25(1): 139-157.

Affiliation

Centre for Research in Women's Health, Violence and Health Research Program, Toronto, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, International Centre of Medicine and Law)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

16681119

Abstract

This article examines judicial descriptions of and responses to intimate partner sexual assaults in the Canadian context. Drawing on data from sexual assault sentencing judgments, we investigated 186 cases across four categories of perpetrator-victim relationship. Offence and case-related characteristics, as well as sentencing outcomes were analyzed. The data indicated notable similarities between intimate partner and stranger sexual assaults in terms of the occurrence of penetration, force, and injury. At the same time, our analyses revealed that strangers received longer sentences than intimate perpetrators. Some significant differences were also found between intimate partner and authority figure relationship groups across the variables examined.

Language: en