Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.05.2016, Qupperneq 14

Dr. Nina Burrows is a British
psychologist specialising in
the psychology of sexual abuse.
She offers training to police of-
ficers, prosecutors, barristers,
and judges in the UK, teaching
different approaches and solu-
tions to the problems that often
arise in investigations around
the rehabilitation of sex offend-
ers. She was invited to come to
Iceland in April, where she met
with lawmakers, lawyers, law en-
forcement, journalists, student
activists, and survivor organisa-
tions and offered a constructive
conversations about how sexual
violence could be more effectively
tackled in Iceland.
When people get accused of sexual
assault or harassment, they often
act surprised and don't believe they
did anything wrong. Why do you
think this is?
Of course some people will react
like this because they are genu-
inely innocent of any crime, but
for many there is a different sto-
ry behind the reaction: they are
simply trying to get away with it.
Sex offenders need to be able to
lie and manipulate people in or-
der to gain access to victims and
commit their offence, so protest-
ing your innocence can be a way
of playing the game to see if you
can fool people. Many offenders
enjoy this aspect of their offend-
ing as much as the actual sexual
abuse. Their ability to fool other
people, especially people in au-
thority, can make them feel pow-
erful. Others will act like they’re
surprised because they will be
trying to protect the relation-
ships that they have with friends
and family. Many offenders are
abandoned by others when it's
clear that they are guilty of the
crimes, so it makes sense that
you would try to convince others
that you are innocent if you want
them to still love you. For others
the story is more complex. Many
perpetrators of these crimes do
not admit their own behaviour to
themselves. A large minority of
offenders will still protest their
innocence long after conviction.
Sex offenders are highly motivat-
ed to deny their own behaviour to
themselves because to admit the
truth can be very difficult.
Terms like informed and
enthusiastic consent frequently
get used in discussions about sex
and grey areas—what do they mean
in practice, and why should people
take them seriously?
It's really important that people
understand that consent is ac-
tive. It's about something you
do, not something you don't do.
If a person isn't speaking and
isn't moving you cannot assume
that they are consenting to sex.
You also can't assume they are
having a good time. If you want
to experience great sex then you
both need to be active in that en-
counter. There are no grey areas
when it comes to active and en-
thusiastic sex. I think the “grey”
areas come in when people are
using sex as a conquest, when it's
only about one person's pleasure,
or when it's about copying tech-
niques people have seen in porn
films. We should be teaching
young people about consent, but
within that we should be helping
them understand the psychology
of good sex because sometimes it
can be our fears of being vulner-
able, asking for what we want, or
being rejected that lead to non-
consensual sex.
What more can the police do?
Police forces around the world are
waking up to the reality of sexual
violence and the important role
that they play in bringing more
offenders to justice. Victims are
key to this. If no victim reports
then very few perpetrators will
end up in court. The change in
mindset that I've seen in the UK
and in the US, where I do most
of my work, is that police forces
want to do more to encourage
victims to report and get more
convictions, but they are not
always sure of how to do that.
Investigating a sexual offence is
different to other crimes. Often
there is a lack of physical evidence
and the case rests on testimony.
Sometimes investigators can feel
that these cases have no “good
evidence.” As a psychologist it's
my job to help investigators see
just how much solid evidence you
can gather when you interview
victims and suspects. Doing a
good job in these cases requires
slightly different skills, but when
those skills are in place I believe
we can trust police officers to
do what they are good at: build
solid investigations that lead to
convictions.
What steps can the authorities
take to regain public trust?
When the system fails people
will take matters into their own
hands, which is not good news for
anyone. The solution is to make
the system better. We need to
make it much easier for victims
to report crimes and provide in-
telligence to the police. We need
detectives with much better in-
terviewing skills because these
cases are always likely to rely on
testimony as evidence. And we
need a system that allows some-
one to be innocent until proven
guilty because everyone deserves
an opportunity to defend them-
selves from an allegation. All of
us have a responsibility to open
our eyes to the realities of sexual
abuse because the first person
most people are likely to tell
about their experience isn't a po-
lice officer, it's their family and
friends. We need to make sure
we're not living with unhelpful
misconceptions about what sex-
ual abuse is so that we are more
alert to the real risks and so that
we are better at supporting vic-
tims ourselves.
SHARE: gpv.is/ninab
A Different
Conversation
On Sexual
Violence
Words by GABRIEL BENJAMIN
Photo by ART BICNICK
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