Missoula & Pathos

The appeal to emotion within Missoula is hard to dismiss. The emotion the reader feels is undoubtedly guilt for the rape victims, but the defense team's use of pathos to justify the rapists' actions is just as compelling (but not believable). Krakauer quotes a detective that was talking to an accuse rapist that said "we have a lot of cases where girls come in and report stuff they are not sure about, and then it becomes rape." This kind of talk is not uncommon in police questioning/reporting. If this were the investigator talking to the rape victim, I'm certain that the conversation would have gone more like: "Are you sure you were raped? You didn't elude to wanting sexual intercourse at any point? You know.. many men are accused of rape when it's falsely reported. You must be 100% sure to report this." This kind of double-standard talking tells the victim that their problem doesn't matter, and the perpetrator that his crime may not be a crime. By talking to the perpetrator that his act is not uncommon and that people bringing up his heinous act and getting away with it is not uncommon is telling him that he can really get away with whatever he wants. Also, if a rapist heard this kind of jargon, he probably would continue to rape if he got away with it.

Krakauer talks about the comparison between rape victims and victims of other crimes when he says "because the legal system stacks the deck more heavily against sexual-assault victims than victims of other crimes, it’s easier to keep the whole truth from coming out." He brought up this point without a statistic or source backing him up, but I think anyone who reads the news or knows about sexual assault and rape, knows that this statement is most definitely true. The whole "innocent until proven guilty" is seemingly only applicable to the alleged perpetrator. The victim is given almost the opposite treatment. The person coming forward with a rape story is often seen as a liar until proven truthful with either a witness testimony, an exam that proves they were assaulted, or the rapist comes clean. Why is it that the victims are so often blamed and the rapists are protected for so long?

The show *"Law & Order: SVU" may be fictional, but unfortunately describes very real acts of violence, sometimes even using actual cases. When reading this book, it's hard for me to distance the crimes I've seen on SVU from the cases. The way victims are treated perpetuates this notion that something in the justice system needs to change on sexual assaults because victims are ignored far too long and feel that the system has failed them. Often times they have a disregard for police after the fact, and this has an effect on future sexual assault victims. If it's so easy to report a stolen car, or a house robbery, it should be easy (in the way that police believe you, not emotionally easy) to report an assault that happened to a human body.

*If anyone wants to watch an episode of Law and Order: SVU that actually deals with campus rapes, watch Season 14, episode 20: Girl Dishonored on Netflix.