My mother (60s) thinks that I (25F) need to let my daughter (4) see her rapist father.

Well, two points from OP's story:

  1. If any victim comes to the police with a claim of rape, the police will always encourage (or ask politely for) the victim to do a rape kit and NOT shower since that evidence will expire within 24-48 hours - NO MATTER WHAT. For a rape victim to go to the police and NOT be asked to do a rape kit is a serious breach of ethics. Asking to do a rape kit is Policing 101 with rape victims since it is often crucial to making a case stick in court. OP never mentions this at all. As a counselor, I would be extremely shocked and ask for badge numbers if the police didn't talk about the rape kit at all... let alone encourage the victim to not press charges, which brings me to my next point...

  2. The police will never dissuade the victim from bringing charges to court in cases of rape. It is a breach of ethics and trust. They will take down the victim's information, collect evidence/statements and confirm that the victim wants to press charges (they still might press charges anyways if rape is super obvious, even if victim says no). Then, a district attorney/state/local prosecutor (or someone working under them) will review the case and decide if it warrants a prosecution. The police are NOT in a position to determine if a case will win at trial and should excuse themselves from this assessment in cases of reported rape by a victim. All they should be doing in OP's scenario is collecting the evidence and protecting the victim. Again, if a police said these things about a case not being able to go to court ... I would be extremely shocked and ask for badge numbers since this could get cops suspended or fired.

I don't know if these things prove anything about me being a rape counselor but this is my experience since I know what the police are supposed to be doing in this scenario (training, actually doing this shit for 2 years, etc). OP is full of shit that she was raped IMHO.

/r/relationships Thread Parent