PurpleBerets.org
Title
The Home Page of the Purple Berets Advocacy & Education Project
Description
What We Do
The backbone of the work of the Purple Berets has been direct advocacy, advocating for women with police and the district attorney, helping to ensure that their voices are heard and that their cases move through the criminal justice system. Almost without exception, the cases of women we have advocated for have gone significantly better, most times resulting in prosecution and conviction despite the initial refusal by police and/or assistant district attorneys to even file charges.
But advocacy on individual cases is only the first step. We then choose cases that can make change for all women, cases that highlight the barriers women face in their quest for justice. Using advocacy, direct action, grassroots organizing, and well-targeted media work, we then build a political campaign to change local policy and procedures. Again and again, our effective organizing has made it politically impossible for law enforcement officials to continue to protect the perpetrators in their midst.
In Sonoma County, California in 1992, out of the 181 forcible rapes reported to police only 11 resulted in rape convictions (a conviction rate of just 6%); 1, 998 domestic violence calls resulted in only 30 cases (1.5%) charged as felonies; and 1,444 reports of child sexual assault resulted in felony charges in only 31 cases (2.1%). This record of the utter failure to prosecute violent crime would be intolerable in any other crime category and would lead to cries for the district attorney's resignation; yet this was the norm in the category of violent crimes against women and girls.
Additional Information
Related Domains
- Abuso De Ninos
- Abuso Infantil
- Activism
- Activismo
- Child Abuse
- Contra
- Criminal Justice
- Cuerpos Policiales
- De
- Defensores De Victimas
- Derechos De Inmigrantes
- Derechos De La Mujer
- Direct Action
- Discrimination
- District Attorney
- Domestic Violence
- En
- Equal Justice
- Family Law
- Fiscal
- Girls
- Immigrant
- Immigrant Rights
- Inmigrante
- Issues
- Jail Deaths
- Jails
- Justice
- Justicia
- Justicia Criminal
- Justicia Igualitaria
- Justicia Para Mujeres
- La
- Latina
- Law Enforcement
- Maria Teresa Macias
- Muchachas
- Mujer
- Mujeres Policia
- People
- Police
- Police Brutality
- Police Misconduct
- Policia
- Prosecutor
- Rape
- Sex Discrimination
- Society
- Tanya Brannan
- Victim's Rights
- Victim Advocacy
- Violacion
- Violence Against Women
- Violence And Abuse
- Violencia
- Violencia Domestica
- Women
- Women's Justice
- Women's Rights
- Women In Policing
- Violence and Abuse