LogFAQs > #891260492

While that's not a good position to take, it's important to recognize that it's in response to the attitude that legitimate sexual assault allegations should be downplayed or ignored because it's more important to avoid false accusations. In far too many cases, that attitude is even taken so far that victims have been prosecuted for making false accusations (typically based on minor inconsistencies in their testimony, since that tends to happen when somebody's interrogated without legal counsel shortly after being traumatized), only to find out a few years later when their attacker is arrested on more concrete charges that the allegations were completely legitimate.

It's important to avoid falsely accusing people of crimes, but that goes both ways: Making a false accusation is also a crime, and alleged victims of sexual assault should be presumed innocent of that crime until proven guilty. That means providing the resources victims need to be able to provide testimony that's usable as evidence, and not placing them immediately into an interrogation situation that's likely to pressure them into slipping up and failing to convict their attacker. Some police departments do this, which is great. Others still have the presumed attitude that any allegations are probably false, which is bad.

Also, a sizable chunk of the "court of public opinion" problem with sexual assault is the prevailing feeling that law enforcement is unlikely to solve the problem (see: Turner, one of the rare cases where a violent sexual offender was actually convicted, but just got a slap on the wrist for being a good boy that made a mistake). That doesn't excuse kangaroo courts, but it does explain them, and citing the kangaroo courts as a reason not to bother fixing the underlying cause of them is completely faulty, backwards logic.
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