I had to select a topic for a research paper, and I chose "Bias Against Men in the Court System" and the class laughed. I need some statistics to Shut them Up.

deez_nuts_730 · 2016-12-08T18:23:12+00:00

Just a quick bit of advice, its not only important to throw numbers at them. You have to also make an argument that they could care about. Make it human and personal. Think about that article were moms were complaining about getting 50/50 parenting. The reason it worked wasn't because they threw out some 50/50 number. It worked because they painted a picture of mothers struggling to cope with their situation. You gotta do the same. Don't just mention lenient sentences on women. Mention how these men and their families are affected by the bias. Stories are a useful tool here. Especially the suicide stories.

thrway_1000 · 2016-12-08T17:38:29+00:00

Judges ordered to show more mercy on women criminals when deciding sentences

Judges told: 'be more lenient to women criminals'

New plans for women in custody announced

Scotland is to adopt a new approach to dealing with female offenders with a move towards custody in the community, backed by targeted support to address underlying issues and action to reduce the numbers of women receiving custodial sentences. [Link]

The family courts make a mockery of justice

Lawyers alarmed at criminal charges in family cases

thrway_1000 · 2016-12-08T17:28:20+00:00

Prof. Starr's research shows large unexplained gender disparities in federal criminal cases

rg57 · 2016-12-08T22:03:29+00:00

Be sure to note that the class's reaction illustrates what men face when tried by jury.

Dog_Phone · 2016-12-09T00:01:00+00:00

Same thing happened in my class. Every senior needs to do a big presentation at the end of the year. When entering topics a couple kids were shut down from doing anything related to men's rights.

(There are always like 100 talks about women's rights)

mitchelljeff · 2016-12-09T07:14:07+00:00

A number of countries around the world only execute men:

http://www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org/women.cfm

Studies show a gender bias in sentencing that leads to more men being executed in the United States:

https://www.wcl.american.edu/journal/genderlaw/08/shapiro.pdf

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/studies-gender-bias-death-sentencing

96% of the victims in Police shootings are male:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2016/

Leinadro · 2016-12-08T17:51:51+00:00

One tip. Dont bother with comparing men v women or else the class will likely try to use that as a chance to derail your presentation into a gripe fest about how women are the eternal victims of everything.

Just lay out how men are faring in regards to this and dont let anyone try to derail. And you might not be able to trust your teacher to help you keep focus.

kinyutaka · 2016-12-08T17:19:12+00:00

The statistics you will be looking for are going to be the number of arrests of men vs women, number of convictions, length of incarceration, percentages of each gender in higher security prisons, and ease of getting parole in certain key crimes (pick at least one category with 1 year prison sentences, one category with 5 years, and one category with 20 years, at least)

For family court, try to get details on alimony, especially giving examples (if you can find any) where a woman who has her own lucrative career is still awarded alimony, or unfair splitting of marital assets (she gets to keep the expensive house, he has to live in the HoJo, instead of having the home liquidated and the money split). That kind of thing.

MagicTampon · 2016-12-09T07:38:58+00:00

There are a lot of lies floating around out there about how men are treated in family courts. In reality, men are treated very poorly. States have stymied researchers from studying the issue very closely, by claiming that the family court proceedings must be "secret" and therefore researchers don't have a lot of information. What information there is, is horribly biased and largely discredited:

http://breakingthescience.org/SJC_GBC_analysis_intro.php#mbr_analysis

"There is a legitimate argument that in the prevailing legal climate, the deck is so stacked against fathers that the only ones who do seek sole custody are those who have extraordinarily good cases, and therefore constitute a self-selected non-representative sample."

I have had several male friends who were told by their lawyers that it would be fruitless to vie for custody, because, as the male, the chances they would win it are horrible.

Some other misconceptions:

"NO FAULT" DIVORCE

Actually, we need shared custody legislation, not rolling back no fault divorce.

No fault divorce has never been tried anywhere. We'd actually be in much better circumstances, if we actually did have REAL no fault divorce.

We do not have no fault divorce in this country. We never have had it. In practice, what "no fault divorce" means today, is that the man (in a court of law) is always found to be at fault.

And because the man is always found to be at fault, women have great financial incentive to seek divorce. They literally get paid to divorce. That's the root of the problem.

More specifically, all the wording of a "no fault divorce" law states, is that couples may legally split without establishing the existence of one of the traditional grounds for divorce (desertion, abandonment, cruelty or adultery). That's all it says. By the old system, if you could not prove desertion, abandonment, cruelty or adultery, you literally could not get a divorce.

That's not good. The old system was pretty terrible.

But after reforms today, "no fault divorce", doesn't say that a court won't assign blame (what we normally consider the meaning of the word "fault") for a divorce. And the courts regularly do assign blame for divorce.

And in divorce, who do you think that the courts will as a matter of practice, blame for the divorce? That's right: always the person who has the penis (the male).

"No fault divorce" is not the problem at all. The problem is that we've established a legal system that always holds the man at fault.

We've gone from a system of having only four different reasons to assign fault for a divorce (desertion, abandonment, cruelty or adultery), to a system with an infinite number of reasons to assign fault for a divorce (he doesn't hug me enough).

This is hardly "no fault." "No fault" divorce laws have never been passed, anywhere.

And in so doing, we've created legal, financial and cultural enticements for the one who is most likely to breach the agreement.

We need shared custody legislation and court reform to counter bias and unfairness in divorce proceedings that favors females. We do not need a return to the old system of "fault divorce."

http://mensviews.com/how-feminist-and-liberal-women-have-ruined-marriage-for-men-and-our-society/

SHARED CUSTODY

In most states of the US, there actually is a presumption of joint legal custody of the child, unless one parent is deemed unfit. What they don't have in the US a presumption of shared (as opposed to joint) physical custody.

Basic terminology:

Joint legal custody: Both parents have the legal right to influence major decisions (medical, educational etc...). Has nothing to do with how much access the parents have to the child.
Shared (Physical) Custody: This form of custody means each parent receives roughly equal amounts of time spent with the child, and the parents work together to raise the child in the same manner that they would have if they were still together. [A bit of a bullshitter's definition, because the divorced parents typically do not live together. Shared custody means roughly equal amounts of time spent with the child, period. That's all it means.]
Joint (Physical) Custody: This type of custody, which comes in both the forms of legal and physical custody, focuses more on the tasks and responsibilities of each parent as a separate person instead of both parents together as a couple [usual bullshitter's definition, see below] ... Most joint custody arrangements involve an alternating schedule between each parent. However, one parent may have a much greater amount of physical custody time than the other parent. Also, one parent may have more parenting responsibilities than the other. [Actually, it's usually the case. A typical joint custody arrangement for the non-primary custodial parent is once every other weekend; generally not enough to maintain a meaningful long term relationship.]

http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/shared-custody-vs-joint-custody.html

A recent North Dakota Bill was not just about joint legal custody, it was also about creating a presumption in favor of shared (as opposed to joint) physical custody. It was defeated due to opposition from women's groups and the ACLU (which was run by feminists in North Dakota).

Similar bills in a great many states have likewise been defeated after receiving pressure from women's groups.

The way things work in the US now, unless both parents agree to shared physical custody, there is a presumption that the courts will not award shared physical custody, but generally apply joint custody instead. If one of the two parents (almost always the female) demands primary physical custody, it forces the court to decide who is the primary physical custodian, and that person get the lion's share of time with the child. The courts are literally not able to award shared physical custody if one of the two parents (usually the female) objects.

This situation is largely a result of pressure from feminists groups, established through the courts.

Once every other weekend contact is typical for one of the parents in a joint custody arrangement (almost always the father).

Be careful not to unscrupulously accept terms such as "joint custody" as they are bandied about in literature or by journalists as in your paper.

The typical American arrangement for fathers is "contact" once every other weekend, which is frankly not a basis to maintain a long term emotional tie to a child.

CHILD SUPPORT

Here, you need to read about the Federal Bradley Amendment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Amendment#Controversy

girlwriteswhat · 2016-12-08T20:20:15+00:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9759000/9759893.stm

Philip Davies addresses the lenient treatment of women criminals compared to men, his data sourced by the UK Home Office.

xNOM · 2016-12-08T22:42:42+00:00

Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases

Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Courts

EDIT

Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 30 States in 2005: Patterns from 2005 to 2010

Source_or_gtfo · 2016-12-08T23:31:45+00:00

Norwegian study finds bias in favour of mothers/against fathers in child abuse cases [translated article] - probably applicable to child custody cases also.

This video is good (deals with justice system for half, schools for half) if you have 20 mins.

Vanriel · 2016-12-08T23:52:25+00:00

Not really got any other info that the others havent given you, but could you let us know how it goes? It's always interesting in these situations to see how people react to cold hard irrefutable facts.

roharareddit · 2016-12-09T02:34:27+00:00

A great book to read concerning the family courts is "Taken Into Custody" by Stephen Baskerville. He is widely regarded as an authority on the toppic.

https://www.amazon.com/Taken-Into-Custody-Against-Marriage/dp/1581825943

Aslo, you may want to reach out to these guys. They are a great resource.

https://nationalparentsorganization.org

Good luch and knock em dead. I love it when students come here.

Imnotmrabut · 2016-12-08T17:07:00+00:00

Which Country?

Iappreci8thegr8r8m8 · 2016-12-08T17:07:25+00:00

There is a good resource in the sidebar that has a list like that.

Revoran · 2016-12-08T19:13:37+00:00

Some more studies regarding men being sentenced more harshly for the same crimes:

http://fcx.sagepub.com/content/7/2/146.short

http://cjp.sagepub.com/content/25/2/242.full.pdf+html

Also, feminists often like to cite a study done in Middlesex county, Massachusetts which says that when men actually tried to get sole custody of their children, they got it more often than women.

However that study was done over 30 years ago, draws on even older data, and only applies to Massacheusetts law. It can't be relied upon to be representative of the other states / in the present.

RubixCubeDonut · 2016-12-09T01:00:17+00:00

So, disclaimer, I'm not entirely sure if this will be useful for your paper (and didn't see anywhere suggesting a definite age/social range) but if the laughing was definitely about them believing the idea had been disproven by "research" then their "knowledge" most likely came from the Gender Bias Study of the Court System in Massachusetts.

You should definitely focus the most on your own research paper but if you have the time, energy, and curiosity feel free to read it. (And take my analysis with a huge grain of salt because I'm being incredibly lazy and only going off of memory.)

My own glancing over it revealed it to be nothing but toilet paper. Basically, from memory, its central argument for there not being bias against men went like so:

Men's lawyers advise their clients they aren't likely to win.
But here's a stat saying that if men fight they get custody.
Therefore there's no bias.

There's so many things wrong with just this small part that it's hard to respect anybody that quotes this garbage:

It never explores why lawyers suggest it. (A very sure sign that the paper already had the answer in mind.)
It never tries to look for any differences between men who fight vs men who don't. (Could require a lot of $$$ to fight for that custody that the courts are supposedly not biased against.)
It doesn't care if the "custody" that men get when they fight for their kids can be practically called that. (If a man has joint custody but the mom refuses to ever let him see the kids, the police don't enforce the court order, and the court doesn't punish the mom... for all intents and purposes it is not a joint custody.)

And that's without getting into the possible problems with the numbers used. (Spoiler alert: the stats don't measure what the paper claims, and if you ask the appropriate sibling question "how many women win custody when they fight?" then it suggests that the "win rate" for women is even higher compared to men who fight.)

So, again, large grain of salt since I'm being lazy, and maybe not helpful for your paper.

MRA-automatron-2kb · 2016-12-09T04:27:59+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/51o6sf/quite_surprised_by_my_college/?st=isulz21n&sh=6884bc6b

Coerced Sex Not Uncommon for Young Men, Teenage Boys

A total of 43 percent of high school boys and young college men reported they had an unwanted sexual experience and of those, 95 percent said a female acquaintance was the aggressor, according to a study published online in the APA journal

I think this indicates that the 1 in 23 figure for men may be a gross underestimate!

French, Bryana H., Jasmine D. Tilghman, and Dominique A. Malebranche. "Sexual coercion context and psychosocial correlates among diverse males." Psychology of Men & Masculinity 16.1 (2015): 42.

MRA-automatron-2kb · 2016-12-09T04:34:14+00:00

http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf

Approximately 1 in 21 men (4.8%) reported that they were made to penetrate someone else during their lifetime; most men who were made to penetrate someone else reported that the perpetrator was either an intimate partner (44.8%) or an acquaintance (44.7%).

Approximately 1 in 20 women and men (5.6% and 5.3%, respectively) experienced sexual violence victimization other than rape by any perpetrator in the 12 months prior to taking the survey.

damac_phone · 2016-12-09T15:10:30+00:00

There's a gap in prisons sentences between blacks and whites. I don't know the actual numbers, but it's there and that is considered evidence that the justice system is biased against blacks. Why would comparable numbers between men and women not be evidence if discrimination against men?

bjkman · 2016-12-10T17:29:13+00:00

gotta check out r/PussyPass

Badgerz92 · 2016-12-11T20:59:25+00:00

Here's an infograph that includes citations. You also might want to mention Hillary Clinton's statements about the justice system where she implied women are the ones being discriminated against and that we need gendered policies to reduce the number of women in prison

Jiang-Wei · 2016-12-09T00:39:42+00:00

Can I get an update on how it does?

Tamen_ · 2016-12-09T10:20:47+00:00

The study referenced here may also be of interest: http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/feminist-researchers-find-female-sex-offenders-get-slaps-on-the-wrist/

Perhaps not because of the findings which are very much in line with the numerous other source others have provided you, but for where it was published: Feminist Criminology

When that blogpost was written the paper was freely available in full, unfortunately it now appears to be behind a paywall. I can only recommend googling sci-hub.

Mens-Advocate · 2016-12-10T18:01:44+00:00

OP, IMO try to avoid their diverting to "women still have it worse". Perhaps the way to do this is to stick to specific issues - longevity gap, empathy gap, custody, false accusations, suicide, etc.

Griever114 · 2016-12-14T16:15:44+00:00

Not sure if OP will respond but, is there anyway I can get a copy of this to also help shut some people up???

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