Despite recent criminal law reforms to define rape through the lack of consent, practical questions remain about how to regulate different kinds of violations of sexual autonomy. Many common law scholars have found it eye-opening how much more extensive and easily accepted the protection of property rights is compared to the protection of sexual autonomy. But when the rationale of criminalization resides in human rights, such a comparison is alien; protecting human dignity appears separate from protecting instrumental property rights. Considering rape a subversion of our ownership rights to our bodies (the property model of rape) is rightly regarded as problematic. This article argues that comparing sexual crimes and property crimes is not predicated on the property model but rather on autonomy itself. Comparisons based on autonomy could help resolve practical dilemmas of consent-based rape laws while respecting human dignity and thus be fruitful research pursuits within a human rights tradition.

This study is based on crime mapping and crime analysis of property crimes in Jodhpur. The property crimes which were selected were house breaking, auto thefts and chain snatching. Data from police stations were used to generate the maps to locate hot spots of crimes. The profile of these hot spots was analyzed through observations supplemented with interviews of police officers and public 100 cases of house breaking and 100 cases of auto thefts were further analyzed to understand the contexts which lead to these crimes. These contexts are in consonance with situational crime prevention theories. This study may help to understand the environmental factors which may be responsible for certain places becoming hot spot areas of property crimes in Jodhpur.