If Reporting A Robbery Was Like Reporting A Rape: Why Most Rapists Never Do Jail Time

[KamaAina]

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/02/26/if-reporting-a-robbery-was-like-reporting-a-rape-why-most-rapists-never-do-jail-time-video/

Why do so many rapes go unpunished? Many victims — the majority of whom are women — fear that no one will believe them, that they will be found at fault, or that their assailant will find out and retaliate against them. And in all too many cases, these fears are correct. Those who have the courage to report their rape to the police are met with exactly the skepticism, bias, and scorn they expected.

Then cops tell rape victims they can’t do anything without “physical evidence,” but when women demand a “rape kit” for collecting DNA evidence — a surefire way to prove what happened and put the rapist behind bars — they are told no kits are available due to a “backlog” that doesn’t really exist. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of rape kits lie around unused in police departments and crime storage units across the nation....

Most of us have no idea of how humiliating and pointless it feels for rape victims to file a report, but Cynthia Kao plans to change that. On Feb. 24, this talented filmmaker (best known for her work on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) released a scorching video titled “If A Robbery Report Was Treated Like A Rape Report.” In it, a man tries to report a stolen laptop but the police officers treat him with open skepticism and contempt and clearly want him to let the matter drop....

The scenario presented in Kao’s video is painfully absurd. If people got treated like that when reporting a robbery, the public would vent their outrage and there’s no way we’d put up with it. Which should make any rational person wonder why the hell rape victims have to put up with that crap.

[Thinkingabout]

1. Interesting point, just in the past week I have read an article about rape kits piled up for years

And never tested, shameful, the crime is terrible and then those who report it are just passed to a shelf that is forgotten for years.