Police doubt of sexual assault victims predicts whether…
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Police doubt of sexual assault victims predicts whether cases are ever prosecuted, as the reopened Cornell case shows
As a clinical social worker with 20+ years in practice, I've watched the news out of Cornell stir up a lot for survivors this week. New York prosecutors just announced they're reopening a 2024 case in which a student says she was drugged and raped by multiple men at a fraternity house. No criminal charges were ever filed. It took her own lawsuit to get the case looked at again.
The research suggests this isn't an anomaly. King and Bostaph (2024, Journal of Interpersonal Violence) analyzed 175 sexual assault police reports and found officer doubt about the victim's statements or credibility in about 27% of cases. That doubt significantly reduced the likelihood of arrest and referral for prosecution, even after controlling for other case factors. In other words, whether a victim is believed early on shapes whether the case ever reaches a prosecutor.
That matters because false reports are rare. The most cited estimate puts them at roughly 2–10% of cases (Lisak et al., 2010). When skepticism is the default, the system loses far more real cases than it screens out false ones.
"Believe victims" doesn't mean skipping due process. It means starting an investigation from the assumption that the report deserves one. Like #MeToo did, cases like this remind many survivors how often that doesn't happen.
Curious what others here, especially those in clinical, forensic, or law enforcement roles, have seen.
#people
As a clinical social worker with 20+ years in practice, I've watched the news out of Cornell stir up a lot for survivors this week. New York prosecutors just announced they're reopening a 2024 case in which a student says she was drugged and raped by multiple men at a fraternity house. No criminal charges were ever filed. It took her own lawsuit to get the case looked at again.
The research suggests this isn't an anomaly. King and Bostaph (2024, Journal of Interpersonal Violence) analyzed 175 sexual assault police reports and found officer doubt about the victim's statements or credibility in about 27% of cases. That doubt significantly reduced the likelihood of arrest and referral for prosecution, even after controlling for other case factors. In other words, whether a victim is believed early on shapes whether the case ever reaches a prosecutor.
That matters because false reports are rare. The most cited estimate puts them at roughly 2–10% of cases (Lisak et al., 2010). When skepticism is the default, the system loses far more real cases than it screens out false ones.
"Believe victims" doesn't mean skipping due process. It means starting an investigation from the assumption that the report deserves one. Like #MeToo did, cases like this remind many survivors how often that doesn't happen.
Curious what others here, especially those in clinical, forensic, or law enforcement roles, have seen.
#people
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