Victim Blaming vs. Due Process

It's helpful for everyone that police do a thorough investigation. They have to cover every detail from multiple angles to ensure they get everything correct. That they ask a large number of questions of the accuser first, isn't a sign that they don't support the victim but simply that they want to ensure a complete picture of all the variables. What could the alternative be? How could they nab the accused without knowing where the weaknesses in their story might lie? Where they might find witnesses or evidence? etc... It can be exhausting for the accuser to deal with all the aspects of an investigation but there is no way to remove that burden without compromising the case or suspending due process.

Regarding the value of due process. The scary part of feminism defends lower standards for convictions. Generally using stats that talk about how rare false accusations are proven to occur vs the conviction rates of rapists. Basically 'no system is perfect, and more rapists are getting away than innocents are being prosecuted'. There are two major problems with this line of reasoning.

  1. Lowering standards for conviction can increase the likelihood of rapists getting away with it. Consider how many men have been convicted based on 'fitting the description' only to be later exonerated. Not only was an innocent prosecuted but the actual rapist effectively got away with it because law enforcement assumed they had the guilty party locked up. Lowering standards certainly increases conviction rates but does it increase the number of rapists convicted?

  2. Prosecuting the guilty isn't the same as protecting the innocent. Both are important, but they aren't equivalent. Criminals should certainly be put in jail, but no amount of putting people in jail will ever undo a crime. Conversely, putting an innocent person in jail adds a victim where one did not exist previously. Our first goal is to not create more victims.

No amount of punishment or restitution undoes a crime. The idea that there are fewer false accusations than convictions has no bearing on what the conviction standards should be. It would be monstrous to have anything remotely approaching equality in the number of false convictions vs true convictions.

/r/MensRights Thread