“Believe women” implies that women are telling the truth before an investigation has taken place.
In 2022, at least 25,000 untested rape kits sat in law enforcement agencies and crime labs across the country. This figure only accounts for data reported by 30 states and Washington, DC; the total backlog number is unknown.
Findings from Canadian national policing data indicate that one in five cases (i.e., 20%) of sexual assault reports to police are deemed baseless (Doolittle et al., 2017). However, the high rates of unfounded are inconsistent with findings from a meta-analysis of seven studies of confirmed false reports of sexual assault to police (Ferguson & Malouff, 2016). They reported that the rate of false reports was approximately 5% (0.52 [95% CI .030, .089], which is considerably lower than the Canadian average for unfounded sexual assault classifications. Sexual assault appears to be coded as unfounded with relative regularity and seems to be ubiquitous within law enforcement discourse. High rates of unfounded sexual assaults reveal that dismissing sexual violence has become common practice amongst police in Canada
The explicit goal of the investigations, laid out in one contract with Black Cube, signed in July, was to stop the publication of the abuse allegations against Weinstein that eventually emerged in the New York Times and The New Yorker.
SomethingBlack@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Can you tell me how this is relevant to the point I made? How any of that suggests something other than what I said?
If you want to have a conversation, let’s have a conversation but don’t throw data that is irrelevant to the point I made while dodging the point I made.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 day ago
How do you have a conversation about the trustworthiness of an alleged rape victim if you throw the rape kit in the trash, file the complaint as “unfounded” based on gut instinct, and turn a blind eye to well-financed smear campaigns by serial abusers?
SomethingBlack@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Because as far as the law is concerned, they ARE NOT a victim until they are proven to be just as the accused IS NOT a perpetrator until they are proven to be. It has absolutely nothing to do with “trustworthyness”, and all to do with due process.
Destroying this legitimately good and absolutely fundamental part of the deeply flawed legal system will not fix this problem. It will only create more. Rage against the machine all you want, I’m absolutely with you. But do so with some critical thought behind it.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s so crazy to talk about “innocent unless presumed guilty” as a policy that exists in western society, when we are drowning in cases to the contrary.
What sets rape apart from, say, immigration violations or illegal drug use or terrorism charges or subway fare evasion or CEO murdering isn’t this sacred commitment to “innocent until proven guilty”. It’s the number of people and the volume of surveillance equipment dedicated to investigating and prosecuting these crimes.
Treat allegations of sexual assault with even a fraction of the seriousness put forward to prosecute minor traffic violations. Maybe we can clear that mountainous backlog of uninvestigated rape claims within the victims’ lifetimes.