This is taken from a retired Female Police Officer post on Reddit. It covers a lot of solid points and I think everyone should at least skim it.
No, because I know how hard we work, and I know the system works as best that it can and in the way we want it to. As a 30 year retired police lieutenant, female, who spent 20 years as an expert in sexual assault investigations, there are things we know, that you don’t that help understand WHY most reports of rape don’t end in convictions.
- police can’t pull evidence out of their asses. If its not there, its not there. They can’t make up evidence just so they can arrest someone because you want them to.
- Police have to work with the legal definitions of rape. If you weren’t raped according to legal definition, then its not rape, no matter if you think or feel that it is. LEGALITY matters to convict someone, not the feelings of the victim. Drunken sex is legally, not rape. If you let someone, that’s not legally rape. Regretting it later, is legally, not rape. We don’t make the laws up to suit the complainant. We work with the actual laws. Rape-culturists tend to call all uncomfortable sexual experiences and mistakes rape, and that’s not only incorrect but it causes confusion, pain, and creates distrust of the system.
- Police know that both men and women rape. And they know some people lie for one reason or another. I have prosecuted both men and a few women for sexual assault, and prosecuted a few women for maliciously filing false sexual assault claims over my long career. I know there are enough man-haters who want to make everyone believe there’s a rapist around every corner. Criminals commit crimes, criminals commit rape, and not every man or woman is a criminal. AND its not just the police—the ENTIRE US legal system is BUILT around the basic presumption that everyone is innocent till proven guilty. Innocent is the DEFAULT.
- Police know that after they investigate and they get some evidence, then the case is passed to a special district attorney who decides if its a good case. If its not a good case, it doesn’t go to court. There has to not just be evidence, but good evidence and a good case. You can’t bring someone to trial if its not a legally sound case, so the district attorney’s office is another step that operates on legalities and rule of law rather than feelings of the victim. You may feel you were raped, but the district attorney has to prove you were LEGALLY raped.
- Police know we can’t violate an attackers civil rights. The US Constitution guarantees everyone, even accused criminals, their civil rights of due process and being innocent till proven guilty. If there is no proof, there is no proof. We can’t make it up and won’t violate someone’s rights just on someone else’s say-so.
- Police know that when a case does have enough evidence, is a good case, and the district attorney does take it to court for prosecution, that a jury of 12 independent and objective people (half of them will probably be women on rape cases) still has to be convinced of the attacker’s guilt. IF THERE IS ANY DOUBT, that jury will find the defendant not guilty.
This is important: IF THERE IS ANY reasonable DOUBT, that jury will find the defendant not guilty because they have to find them not guilty by rule of law.
- Police know that society really does want it to work this way where a jury of independent people have to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that someone is guilty, because the alternative is putting people behind bars with less than good evidence. We know when that happens in other countries you are shit out of luck and that the US system is so much better because it really is preferable for 100 guilty people to mistakenly go free than one innocent person spend time behind bars.
And yet the rape culturists will point to police and say ‘they don’t do anything, that’s rape culture! The system lets rapists go free! That’s rape culture! The jury won’t convict, that’s rape culture!
No, no and more no. That’s just tiresome and a downright lie in their effort to promote the idea that the theory of rape culture is an actuality. It’s a lie that -completely- ignores the legal system and how it works and how it has to work.
And to that lie, I say, find another poster child to base your theory on; police want and have nothing to do with it; we know better. We work tirelessly to bring criminals, including rapists, to justice, and sacrifice our health, our time and our families, and sometimes our lives, to do so.
- Police know that rape is a crime of opportunity and that prevention works better than cleaning it up later. We tell you to mind your safety, buckle up your seatbelts, obey traffic laws. We advise you to not walk alone, to not get so drunk you don’t know what you’re doing, and to pay attention to your safety because it keeps you safe and that’s what its all about. But the rape-culturists don’t want to hear common sense and stubbornly and stupidly say they should have a right to engage in risky behaviors without regard for the consequences of such risks. Okies, you do have that right, but you’ll need me later and that’s job security. To be bluntly honest. Just saying.
Believe me…what WORKS is not to hope you’ll have enough evidence to convince a jury AFTER you are assaulted. What WORKS better to keep you safe, is prevention. Prevention is a hell of a lot more effective than dealing with it afterward and convincing 12 strangers that you were forced or threatened with force.
We ARE here for the law and for you and for justice, and will do our damned best to investigate, build a good case, and work for a conviction. But if it isn’t there…it isn’t there.
