Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1495439
OPINION 12 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 22 MARCH 2023 ACCORDING to the Crime Survey for England and Wales for 2020, 1.6 million adults aged between 16 to 74 have ex- perienced sexual assault by rape or pen- etration (including attempts), since the age of 16. But the vast majority didn't report it to the police. And, in the tiny fraction of cases that do make it to the courts, the victim's testimony will be closely examined and subject to scep- ticism – especially if they disclose that they had been drinking on the day it happened. But my team's first-of-its-kind study found women can recall details from memory even when they were mod- erately drunk at the time. This means people who refuse to believe or chal- lenge victims' claims "because they were drinking" are often wrongfully dis- crediting a sexual attack survivor. Victims usually say that they didn't report what happened because they felt embarrassed or thought police would not be able to help or simply not believe them. Their concerns have foundation. In 2022, charges were only brought against a suspect in 1.5% of reported rapes ac- cording to recent Home Office figures. This rate is lower than the 6.3% charge rate for robbery or the 5.9% charge rate for violent crimes against the person during the same period. Under the influence Alcohol is a key factor in the low con- viction rates. Up to 80% of sexual as- saults involve alcohol, but victims are more likely to blame themselves and are less likely to report the crime if they drank alcohol just before the attack. According to research by Northwester University, US, the public is also more likely to blame rape victims who drink alcohol. This belief about alcohol and sexual assault makes justice officials wonder whether the victim is misremembering the encounter. Even if the police and prosecutors believe the victim, the de- fence team and memory expert witness- es may argue the complainant is falsely remembering consensual sexual activity as rape because she had been drinking at the time. Science does show alcohol impairs memory consolidation, or the forma- tion of new memories. Research has found people freely recall fewer details about incidents they experienced or witnessed while intoxicated, compared to people who are sober. What many of us don't realise, how- ever, is the accuracy of the details peo- ple report does not differ depending on alcohol intoxication under free recall conditions. Memory for salient, central details is also more likely to be accurate compared to peripheral details about the event, regardless of alcohol intoxi- cation. Against this backdrop, we set out to study the effects of acute alcohol in- toxication upon how accurately women remember sexual encounters, both con- sensual and non-consensual. The experiment In our study, 90 women reported to the lab early in the morning. They were randomly assigned to drink vodka and tonic, or tonic water alone. Each par- ticipant had three standard size drinks, each within five minutes, one right af- ter the other, on an empty stomach. This amount of alcohol, consumed at this speed, is enough for a fragmentary blackout, or partial memory loss. Half of the participants in each bev- erage group were told they were con- suming alcohol, the other half that they were consuming tonic water alone, re- gardless of the drink they were actual- ly given. This was done to control for the psychological effects of alcohol on memory. The belief that you are drink- ing alcohol can sometimes affect how people pay attention and report their memories. Fifteen minutes after finishing their drinks, participants engaged in an hy- pothetical scenario, in which they went on date with a man named Michael. Throughout the exercise, women de- cided whether they wanted to continue to engage with Michael or to instead "call it a night" and end the story. Dur- ing the date, the participant was told her friends have gone home, and Mi- chael had offered to give her a lift. If she accepted, eventually Michael made sex- ual advances towards her. Some participants (about 10%) decid- ed to continue and listened to descrip- tions of consensual sex. For the 90% of participants who stopped consenting, they were told Michael refused to take "no" for an answer. A week later, all participants were in- terviewed about the scenario. We found women were accurate (correctly an- swering up to 90% of questions) in re- calling the activities to which they had consented, regardless of alcohol intox- ication. Women were less accurate in their an- swers to questions about Michael's be- haviour during the rape. But those who did drink alcohol had a similar level of accuracy to those who did not. Women who thought they had con- sumed alcohol, as opposed to tonic water alone, had higher accuracy on average, regardless of whether they had actually consumed alcohol. This find- ing is in line with research that shows women's awareness is heightened in sit- uations where the risk of rape is high, such as when they are drinking alcohol. A new way forwards My team's research is an important first step in studying how accurately women remember sexual encounters depending on alcohol intoxication. Our results do need to be replicated in dif- ferent contexts. For example, in studies where the par- ticipant is repeatedly interviewed, or interviewed for the first time after a rel- atively long delay. But the more public awareness that women can still recall details of an attack even when moder- ately drunk, the more likely it is that interviews in courts and police stations will result in a fair outcome for every- one involved. It is always up to the victim-survivor whether or not to report rape. But we hope that when people choose to do so, they can be confident they will be be- lieved like the victims of other crimes. Women can reliably remember if they gave sexual consent when intoxicated - study Heather D. Flowe Heather D. Flowe is Professor of Psychology, University of Birmingham A woman holds a banner during Reclaim These Streets Vigil for Sarah Everard who was kidnapped and murdered in 2021