My own rape shows how much we get wrong about these attacks - by Richard Morgan TRIGGER WARNING

I was a college cop in the early 90s. Myrealana, I am so sorry any of my colleagues ever treated you this way. My chief had standards, and if any of us had ever treated a victim this way, we'd have been fired on the spot.

Where i worked, in SE Ohio, we handled the case well. We worked with the city department, and they ran the case, but we stayed in close contact with the victim, and kept them educated about what the process entailed. The rest of the system, not so much.

We got a frantic call at 10:00 one night from a victim who had just been served with a grand jury subpoena. The prosecutor hadn't called or spoken to her at all. She had no clue why the sheriff's deputy was banging on her door. I spent 20 minutes trying to calm her down and explain what was going on. Then at the grand jury proceeding, the prosecutor sat her on the stand, and said "tell us what happened." No gentle leading questions, nothing in the way of helping her into the situation. He left her hanging there. Not unsurprisingly, the grand jury refused to indict.

I took the initial report. It was clearly rape under Ohio law. No question in my mind about it. But because of the way the prosecutor and grand jury looked at it, there was no case. The offender was expelled, but that was all they could do about it.

SomethingOrOther said:

Yep. Browser plugins that can censor words are available. I'm considering replacing 'trigger' with '******' — or perhaps 'buttock'. I like the sound of "BUTTOCK WARNING" a lot.

It seems like at least 90% of the trigger warnings on the web would be better off as content warnings. Whatever happened to those? This one is maybe okay, but meh, the recent surge of inflationary usage has soured me on the phrase greatly.

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Then this one was not for you. Lucky you.

Devil Ledbetter said:

Explain this to me: Why is rape absolutely the only violent crime where anyone concerns themselves about "false accusation" stats?

If I tell you my next door neighbor punched me in the nose, or strong armed mugged me, or beat my dog to death, "false accusation" probably would never enter the discussion. But involve a sex organs and all of the sudden everyone is up in arms about false accusations.

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Because women are "dishonored" and "sullied" by consensual sex outside of marriage, of course, and no respectable man would want to marry a woman who isn't a virgin. And women can only get ahead in life by marrying respectable men. So every time a woman loses herself in the moment (gives into her slutty urges) and has consensual sex, and someone finds out, she *has* to lie and say she was raped. It's either ruin the man or she herself is ruined.

Yeah, this way of thinking made sense back in the Victorian era.

Maybe.

robjvargas said:

And I think it's overly simplistic to frame this as a male issue. I recall a story I posted a couple of months ago where the mother of a defendant didn't even hint at this. She flat out accused the girl of asking for it.

Neither you nor Myrealana made that claim. Just sort of keeping that in the conversation.

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Absolutely, and it's my bad for saying "treating women who've been raped like liars," since it's true that male rape victims can face even worse ridicule and disbelief than women do. And yes, there are plenty of women who want to blame the female victims in rape cases, and they're not always mothers of the accused either. Sometimes, I think, women blame rape victims because they really, really want to believe that there's some code of conduct or set of rules they can follow that will make them safe. So nit picking the behavior of a rape victim--what she wore, how she acted, where she went, what she did or didn't do--can make them feels safe, because they'd never do something that "stupid" or "slutty" or whatever.

Still, it's hard to hear stories like Myrealana's and not wonder if some male cops, at least, feel a sense of solidarity with the accused. Or maybe it's a result of university officials (since these were campus police) telling the campus police (not in so many words, perhaps) to discourage students from filing reports so they don't have to investigate them. I heard a story on the radio the other day about how many colleges and universities are not pursuing rape investigations at all. Federal law requires universities and colleges receiving federal funding to conduct an investigation if there's reason to believe someone was sexually assaulted on their campus or at a campus event, yet 41% of the schools surveyed didn't investigate a single rape in the past five years. Around 1/5 women (and a significant number of men) report being sexually assaulted in some way while in college or university. Even with a relatively low number of victims reporting the crime, this whole thing seems really fishy.

And there's the no good deed going unpunished thing. If a university does a good job of making victims feel respected and protected when they come forward, then more will report their sexual assaults. And the institution will see a sharp spike in reported rapes. In fact, this is happening at some colleges, and while it's a good thing, it can make the school look bad to prospective students or their parents if the number of reported rapes is higher than most other campuses.

TheMathematician said:

From my own moral standpoint, I just don't think that there's anything worse than an innocent person going to jail for a felony he/she did not commit. Because of that, I favour policies that try to minimize that type of problem. The problem is that if you try to minimize this type of error, you will increase the number of guilty people that go free. It's a terrible situation but that's essentially what happens. Others favour the opposite direction. They want to increase the number of guilty people that are convicted. Unfortunately, this also means you will increase the number of innocent people that get convicted.

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I agree with you in general. I think it's very important not to convict people unless they can be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and overall, I would rather have some guilty people go free than a single innocent one locked up.

I think the problem is that rape cases are often treated very, very differently than other types of crimes. A mugging or theft victim may not always receive the justice they seek, but they probably won't have to worry about having their character dragged through the mud. If the defendant is found innocent, then it's likely going to be because there just wasn't enough evidence to convict them. In rape cases, it's not uncommon for unrelated stuff like the victim's clothing or past relationships to be used against them.

I think it can be legitimately difficult to try rape cases sometimes, because it often does come down to one person's version of events vs. another person's. But there are a lot of biases that are downright sexist and outdated, like believing that women can't be raped by their husbands, or that men can't be raped.

There are false accusations occasionally, but if someone is found innocent of rape charges, it should be because there isn't enough evidence to convict them or there are substantial inconsistencies in the accuser's story. Not because the accuser invited the defendant into their home, or wore a short skirt, or was married to them, or was male.

ETA: Also, I think the chances of being falsely convicted of rape are fairly slim. And the chances of being falsely convicted based on a deliberately false accusation are likely even slimmer. False accusations just aren't that common. The process of pursuing rape charges can be very daunting, and puts the accuser under a lot of scrutiny even if there are no prejudices involved. The only cases of false or highly questionable rape accusations that I've personally witnessed (and there haven't been many) took place entirely outside of the legal system (for example, on the internet or within social circles). I'm not saying that those types of false accusations are harmless by any means, but people accused in those situations have some recourse to sue for defamation, and they're not at much risk of being falsely convicted. I'm not saying that false accusations that end up in the courtroom never happen, but they're not that common. And when people are falsely convicted of rape, it's often because of other factors: they were pressured to plead guilty, for example, and therefore didn't get much chance to prove their innocence. Or they were mistakenly identified in a line-up. These are entirely separate issues.

BenPanced said:

The stats in the survey you cite aren't just about rape:
Are the actual stats on rape or sexual assault somewhere on this page? I'm finding a lot of information on the methodology used to collect the data, how they weighed the data, what population sample they questioned, copies of the forms used for the surveys, etc., but not the data itself.

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The methodology is for both household and personal. There's a link at the bottom if you want to examine them both separately:

http://www.bjs.gov/developer/ncvs/index.cfm

The data that was posted by David comes from the 2008-12 time range.

Roxxsmom said:

Absolutely, and it's my bad for saying "treating women who've been raped like liars," since it's true that male rape victims can face even worse ridicule and disbelief than women do.

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I don't see that as your bad at all. I'm just perpetually amazed at how some of the most vocal victim-shamers can be women. Not all, by a long shot.

Roxxsmom said:

And yes, there are plenty of women who want to blame the female victims in rape cases, and they're not always mothers of the accused either. Sometimes, I think, women blame rape victims because they really, really want to believe that there's some code of conduct or set of rules they can follow that will make them safe. So nit picking the behavior of a rape victim--what she wore, how she acted, where she went, what she did or didn't do--can make them feels safe, because they'd never do something that "stupid" or "slutty" or whatever.

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It's easy to put some distance between yourself and something scary by making the victim a "them." Yeah, I can see that.

Roxxsmom said:

Still, it's hard to hear stories like Myrealana's and not wonder if some male cops, at least, feel a sense of solidarity with the accused. Or maybe it's a result of university officials (since these were campus police) telling the campus police (not in so many words, perhaps) to discourage students from filing reports so they don't have to investigate them. I heard a story on the radio the other day about how many colleges and universities are not pursuing rape investigations at all. Federal law requires universities and colleges receiving federal funding to conduct an investigation if there's reason to believe someone was sexually assaulted on their campus or at a campus event, yet 41% of the schools surveyed didn't investigate a single rape in the past five years. Around 1/5 women (and a significant number of men) report being sexually assaulted in some way while in college or university. Even with a relatively low number of victims reporting the crime, this whole thing seems really fishy.

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I suppose that, technically, an office shaming a victim into not reporting, or into altering the story to a "less rapey" version, that counts as investigation.

I wonder if it's not both more *and* less complex than that. Even with the best of intentions at heart, rape is an uncomfortable subject. When my wife relayed her experience, I held her and comforted her and had absolutely no clue how to respond beyond that. Campus cops aren't as highly trained as civil police forces. In general.

And there's also what you described, without a doubt.

Roxxsmom said:

And there's the no good deed going unpunished thing. If a university does a good job of making victims feel respected and protected when they come forward, then more will report their sexual assaults. And the institution will see a sharp spike in reported rapes. In fact, this is happening at some colleges, and while it's a good thing, it can make the school look bad to prospective students or their parents if the number of reported rapes is higher than most other campuses.

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This, too.

robjvargas said:

I suppose that, technically, an office shaming a victim into not reporting, or into altering the story to a "less rapey" version, that counts as investigation.

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No, it doesn't technically count as an investigation. The point is to have NO investigation. Investigations are public, and once the public knows that a rape has occurred on campus - especially one without conviction - that means there's the possibility of a predator on campus, and that means the campus is possibly unsafe. Unsafe campus means fewer students applying, and that means a potential hit in the budget.

However, if it's "just" a spat between a girl and her boyfriend, then it's not "really rape" because it was only his girlfriend. It's not like he'd go out and rape some random girl, or, you know, his next girl friend, or whatever.

If it's a personal matter between individuals, then it's not a public safety hazard. Therefore, the school is nice and safe, and new students and their cash (along with alumni money and endowments) will continue to flow through the doors.

That's why "Don't call the police, call campus security!" is stressed so hard during orientation for freshmen. Kids who don't know better will do exactly that, expecting the campus cops to have their best interests in mind, when they mostly protect the school before the students. Then, if the student tries to go to the police, they've lost valuable time, and sadly credibility for not going to the police first.

TheMathematician said:

The data that was posted by David comes from the 2008-12 time range.

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Who is David?

Devil Ledbetter said:

Who is David?

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Whooops. My bad. Brain fart on that one.