Talita Ferrantelli (LSE) - 2023-24 Students
t.ferrantelli@lse.ac.uk

An Epistemic Critique of Rape Fact Finding

Rape is not some figment of our imagination. Yet, criminal systems often fail to acknowledge the facts of the matter in rape cases. Only 1.3% of the recorded rape offences in England and Wales ended in a charge or summons (House of Commons Committee, 2022). Evidentiary systems are equipped to consider, e.g., the value of a suspect’s fingerprints on a murder weapon as evidence of their guilt. However, evidence-based accounts of rape often seem distorted. The project aims to explore rape fact-finding. I intend to propose a novel epistemic theory that can assess evidence-collection procedures in rape cases.

Primary Supervisor: Lewis Ross

Secondary Supervisor: Anna Mahtani