If it were up to the Rape Relief, there'd be a cop watching every male in Vancouver and a higher ranked female cop watching the males, since as far as they're concerned, all men are rapists.

Crawl back into your feminist bunker, Kler, you sound like a complete knob.

Lets blame the police for everything... seems like an easy thing for the media to always do. I got a flat tire the other day.. must be the police's fault for not keeping the road safe for my tires...

While these statistics are extremely concerning (as sexual assault is a very serious crime), the quote “systemic discrimination within the police regarding violence against women and issues of gender" is uncalled for.

Let's tone down the rhetoric and look at realistic ways of reducing such an alarming trend. The reasons for such an increase may be due to a multitude of factors, but singling out the police is simplistic and reeks of ideological dogma.

As long as you give air time to the shrills, they will continue to escalate their rhetoric to ridiculous heights as you see above. No media has the intellect to question outrageous claims. Reporting is all about getting dirty little headliners out regardless of evidence to the contrary. Balanced reporting is an illusion.

High crime rates are a concern of course. But what is actually good about high sex crime rates is that the victims are stepping forward and making complaints. No one comes forward when the police are hostile or simply indifferent, and where prosecution would be pointless. It would seem that in Vancouver, a significant number of women are feeling enough trust in system to go through the re-traumatizing ordeal of telling the cops.

I wonder what VRR (to whom I give money to support their counselling function) thinks would be a better police response. To monitor more of society? To spray the city with depo-provera?

To make an optimistic point, is it possible that victims are, for some reason, beginning to report these crimes more frequently in the past? The real level of violence against women may have changed little. Increased reporting drives the numbers up, but would be a welcome development.

The comments from Rape Relief are based on the police data. They are not being shrill or ideological. Careful analysis of police data across Canada and in fact across North America reveals that violence against women, particularly sexual assault, is not handled in the same way as other violent crime. The question is why? One answer is sexism, and this is worth having a public discussion about. Dismissing the women who are putting the idea forward for discussion is just an extension of the sexism. Is there any other idea we should be considering? Can one of the previous posters present another option for us to consider? Because I'd like to hear it. If the cops aren't sexist in the extreme then why do they not investigate violence against women? Please, offer up ideas and lets discuss.

In any case, they are not blaming the police for sexual assault. They are saying the police are not doing enough to change investigation procedures so that more cases come before the courts.

Ask any woman who has gone through a report to the police about how much you have to do to get yourself heard and taken seriously from the 911 call through to the sexual offences squad. It is not easy and there is not a lot of support within the VPD in particular for these investigations to take precedence.

This topic deserves a full investigative article, to be written by a journalist who is interested in coming up with some answers. This is a short piece which doesn't give due service to the people interviewed or the topic in the bigger picture. Rape Relief women have written long reports and participated in research studies which back up their claims over 35 years of helping rape victims and battered women. They deserve more respect from the posters and more time to make their case.

One off news stories do not present the whole picture.
And the VPD does have to clean up its act bout violence against women, by its own admission.

Ahh misogyny is alive and well in Vancouver. Just when we were calling ourselves world class we just have to show our true colours.

Just don't wear provocative clothing girls or you'll get what you deserve.

Remember feminism is accomplished, done, finished. Anyone that still thinks feminism is still a live issue in contemporary society is suffering from hysterics.

"If the cops aren't sexist in the extreme then why do they not investigate violence against women?"

So the cops are sexist now, too Tamara? You are talking about the same force that employs (and pays the same wages) to quite a lot of women and rightly so...are they sexist too?

"This is a short piece which doesn't give due service to the people interviewed or the topic in the bigger picture."

Now the author is to blame too?

This is the problem with you misandric feminists - you kick, scream and whine for attention, you falsify statistics (1 in 4 my ass, proven wrong upon release), you point the finger at everyone who criticizes you or gets sick of listening to the BS and you expect people to keep listening?

No, Tamara, the problem is not with the police any more than it is with the author of this article. Besides the rapists, the problem is with the shameless misandrists who scream and lie to increase their funding.

"...found that 62 of the first 100 women who came to the refuge were as violent or more violent than the men they left."

- Erin Pizzey, woman who opened the first women's shelter.

If those are the stats then there is a great deal more that are not reporting and lets go back a week or two as women where being turned away by the hundreds as long waiting lists stop battered and abused women from getting the help they so badly need. And phoning the police what a joke that is as it is just more abuse as officers are ignorant and what about those officers sitting by as women are engaged in sexual activity but one has HIV and it is a crime going on for sure and the police are in on it as they were watching for sure. So what happened at the prison as the officers were getting all hot and bothered as not unlike the VPD officer looking after the missing women who did all his searching looking at children in an unclothed and sexual ways?