This was published 6 years ago
Brock Turner's picture appears in textbook next to definition of rape
By Annie Brown
The six-month sentence handed down to student Brock Turner for the intention to rape and sexual penetration with a foreign object of an unconscious woman behind a dumpster at Stanford University was decried by protesters around the world.
Turner blamed "drinking" and "party culture" for the sexual assault.
Fle booking photo released by the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office of Brock Turner. Credit: AP
Turner's father famously characterised the crime as "20 minutes of action".
Nevertheless, the case, and the victim's powerful statement, published in full on Buzzfeed – a letter that was read out in congress and responded to by former US Vice President Joe Biden – had an indelible impact on the way that rape, and the victims and perpetrators of rape are viewed.
Now, more than a year after his release after serving three months of his sentence, Brock Turner is back in the public eye after an image was shared on social media of Turner's mugshot in a university criminal justice textbook under the definition of "rape".
The image was uploaded to Facebook by Washington State University student Hannah Kendall Shuman from her copy of Introduction to Criminal Justice: Systems, Diversity, and Change, 2nd Edition.
The post has been shared nearly 98 thousand times.
"Some are shocked at how short this sentence is," the mugshot's caption reads. "Others who are more familiar with the way sexual violence has been handled in the criminal justice system are shocked that he was found guilty and served time at all. What do you think?"
As Jezebel reports,the authors of the textbook, University of Colorado-Denver School of Public Affairs professors Mary Dodge and Callie Rennison, haven't commented on the Brock Turner inclusion.
However Rennison did say in a speech upon accepting the Bonnie S. Fisher Victimology Career Award from the American Society of Criminology in November last year, that she wanted victims to be a focus of her textbook.
"Existing criminal justice books have focused on three elements: cops, courts and corrections. They speak little about victims, reflecting how they have effectively been in the shadows of our criminal justice system. In our book, victims are front and centre with equal emphasis as cops, courts and corrections. This is the way it should be."
Slate makes clear that the inclusion of Turner as a case study in the "rape" section of the textbook is misleading as Turner was not charged with rape, but three felonies - assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated person; sexually penetrating an intoxicated person with a foreign object; and sexually penetrating an unconscious person with a foreign object.
As Slate's Christina Cauterucci points out, "in California, a charge of rape requires forcible sexual intercourse, which Turner did not commit".
Though as Cauterucci notes, "With the public discourse Turner's victim began, at least the authors were able to use a familiar case to bring a vivid urgency to both a terrible crime and our inadequate system for punishing it."