Victim/Suspect

 This documentary explains a social phenomenon that I have always wondered about. I've always been curious as to why when the topic of sexual assault is brought up, there are numerous people who say yes, but false allegations can ruin lives and this is much more of a problem than sexual assault is. In the United States at least, there is a disturbing yet simple explanation for this. This is the fact that police officers are under a lot of pressure to close investigations because an investigation which leads to a conviction is seen as a success for them. This coupled with the fact that sexual assault claims are very difficult to investigate makes it ironically much easier to frame the whole thing as a false allegation, and in many places false allegations are actually criminal offenses. The documentary does a good job of examining many situations in which the police seem to have just decided it was easier to charge the woman with a false allegation than actually investigate the claims. Another problem that the documentary mentions is the fact that police are under no obligation to tell the truth in an investigation, so sometimes they will straight up lie to a woman who is coming forward with a claim of sexual assault and because she is in a vulnerable position she will feel like yes they must be telling the truth, and then you have  the same problem with false recantations as there is with false confessions. So the social phenomenon of people decrying false allegations as being a plague comes from this fact. And the fact that in addition to everything I just mentioned, often these cases are prominently featured in the media with headlines like 'woman falsely claims rape'. The problem, if it isn't obvious by now, is that the initial claims are often never actually investigated. If you are a detective, and you feel that someone is lying to you, I think you need to be under an obligation to try to remain objective and investigate the claims fully anyway. And if you are of the crowd that believes that false allegations destroy lives, well not believing true allegations also destroys lives. And I think this is a case where the police and investigators do not necessarily need to be open with the media until a charge has actually been laid because that's part of the problem too. There's a difference between being investigated for something, charged for something, and being convicted of something. So I know it would take a lot to reconsider how the media thinks about reporting on crime, but in my personal opinion it would be better if crimes were reported when there was a conviction, not before. Then with a full investigation you can decide to lay a charge of sexual assault or a charge of a false allegation and both with a thorough investigation would be justified depending on the situation. Despite having told you most of the theory of this film it still worth watching for the personal examples that are given in it. It's one of the rare documentaries that has the ability to change minds.

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