Even if we take into consideration that 90% (out of 25) could be lying (they aren’t), that’s still ~3 women he assaulted.
Edit: Damn y’all, thanks for that old internet feeling I keep coming back to Lemmy for. Not a girl in sight in these comments.
Is testifying under oath not considered evidence? There have been so many credible lawsuits against this guy for sexual assault. Honestly what are these files going to prove that we don’t already have plenty of evidence for?
And lastly, do you have any idea what going after a rich powerful man for sexually assaulting you does to your life? Why the fuck would anybody put themselves through that if they weren’t absolutely sure they had a credible case? Some of the plaintiffs in these cases had their lives and their family’s lives threatened and disrupted.
Welp, to the bottom with me I suppose.
I don’t think the current legal systems are perfect, but I do think “believe women” would make them fundamentally worse.
How do you handle the issue of future false accusations? And don’t give me the hand wavy “but there are so few false accusations” because that doesn’t matter to the person being accused.
THE core tenet of most legal systems is effectively “innocent until proven guilty”. “Believe women” utterly breaks that, they cannot exist within the same legal framework.
So, would you rather have the legal system change to better serve women by equally investigating their accusations, or by removing “innocent until proven guilty”?
The same way you do it with men, presumably. Document the incident, collect forensic evidence, interview suspects, refer the matter to the local DA.
I’m trying to imagine this response for any other crime. “Oh, you want us to investigate your car jacking? How do we know you don’t loan it out voluntarily? I guess we should just convict an innocent person!”
See, this is the problem. “Believe women” implies that women are telling the truth before an investigation has taken place. If you had read my original comment you’d see that I’m not suggesting women should be treated as they currently are, but that “believe women” specifically is a harmful rhetoric.
If we both want women’s accusations to be taken seriously and investigated as any other potential crime would be, then we’re on the same page and want the same thing. The statement “believe women” does not literally or figuratively mean that though, the problem is the wording. Say what you mean instead of this wishy washy language that is detrimental to the cause.
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
In the fall of 2016, Harvey Weinstein set out to suppress allegations that he had sexually harassed or assaulted numerous women.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
That is patently false. This really makes me think that you have absolutely no concept of what you’re talking about. The “court of public opinion” often assumes guilt based off of an accusation and that is exactly why “believe women” is so dangerous.
I agree, and this should stay exactly as it is. It’s is one part that is unquestionably beneficial to literally EVERYONE.
I absolutely agree. The lack of investigation is the issue, not the fact that women are implicitly believed when they make an accusation. No one should have that privilege.