Brock Turner's mugshot is now in a textbook's 'rape' section

Textbook example of rape.
 By 
Sasha Lekach
 on 
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Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Brock Turner was released after serving three months of a six-month sentence for sexually assaulting an unconsicous woman on Stanford's campus after a fraternity party in 2015.

His short sentence and even shorter time served stirred up debate on how the justice system handles rape, campus drinking culture, and privilege.

Now that same debate is featured in a criminal justice textbook with Turner's mugshot under the "Rape" section.

Washington State University student Hannah Kendall Shuman snapped a photo of her book, Introduction to Criminal Justice: Systems, Diversity, and Change, last week. It showed Turner as an example of a rape case involving alcohol and taking advantage of an unconscious person.

Turner, who was then 20, was seen sexually assaulting the 22-year-old woman on the ground behind a dumpster near the frat house. Two grad students saw him on top of the woman with her dressed pulled above her waist, underwear and bra taken off, with her eyes closed, body still, and head tilted. The grad students helped get the woman to a hospital.

Later, she recalled to the court waking up and thinking, "I don’t want my body anymore. I was terrified of it, I didn’t know what had been in it, if it had been contaminated, who had touched it."

The 2015 edition of the textbook's rape section looked pretty similar to the newest textbook published in January 2017 -- except, of course, for the missing Turner mug. (Mashable reached out to the publisher for comment and will update if it responds.)

Part of the caption under Turner's photo reads, "Some are shocked at how short this sentence is. 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?"

Shuman's Facebook post garnered thousands of comments.

One woman wrote, "It points out a flaw in our criminal justice system and how it isn't set up to protect the victims!" Another man commented, "Three months in jail. Should of been 20+ years for the terrible act. What a monster."

The case shined a light on the problem of campus rape culture. Only about a year ago, a petition and crowdfunding campaign tried to remove Judge Aaron Persky from the bench for his lenient sentencing and comments about Turner.

RAINN, the anti-sexual violence organization, says 11 percent of students have reported being sexually assaulted through "physical force, violence, or incapacitation."

UPDATE Sept. 14, 5:43 p.m. PT: The textbook publisher, SAGE, said through a spokesperson that the textbook authors reviewed the section on rape. They looked over their use of Turner's felony sexual assault case as an example of rape after all the media attention the past week.

The authors intend to clarify different definitions of rape in California's justice system compared to the FBI definition in future reprints of the book. "Turner’s actions, as determined by the California jury, fit the standards for the FBI definition of rape, as well as certain other state definitions, but not the California definition as of the time of the final book manuscript," the spokesperson said.

Here's the publisher's full statement.

Topics Politics

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Sasha Lekach

Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.

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