The Coroners Report, “Test case shows how viewpoints about a death can differ” (Herald, June 2), presents a misinformed perspective of the hypothetical death of a woman because of its focus on an erroneous statistic about sexual assault.
Dr. Carol Huser wrote, “I’ve read that around 40 percent of rape allegations turn out to be false.” Reporting statistics in this manner is ethically and professionally irresponsible. There was not a cited source for this statistic; it comes only from the an opinion of the author, not education or research.
Future jurors, lawmakers and community leaders read authoritative articles such as this. Ironically, the community then gets frustrated when rapists are not given prison time or even arrested.
The reality is that statistics of false reporting are notorious for being inaccurate. Please read, “False Reports: Moving beyond the issue to successfully investigate and prosecute non-stranger sexual assault,” published by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.
The article discusses both the research done to address false reporting and the damage that can be caused by defaulting to the possibility of a false report when working with a rape survivor.
The authors write, “to date, [ours] is the only research conducted in the U.S. to evaluate the percentage of false reports made to law enforcement. The remaining evidence is therefore based on research conducted outside the U.S., but it all converges within the same range of 2 to 8 percent.”
Clearly, this is not Huser’s uncited 40 percent.
According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, in 2016, one in six women in the U.S. is a victim of sexual assault. In Colorado, the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault reports that one in four women is sexually assaulted in her lifetime.
Articles such as Huser’s perpetuate the rape myths that are rampant in this country. And still people wonder why a rapist is allowed to go free. It is because of the victim blaming captured in Huser’s comment, “remember that we only have the dead woman’s word.”
This article could have been used to clarify the parameters of consent and truly define sexual assault as the rapist’s fault and problem, as opposed to blaming a victim for the domino of choices made after her initial choice was taken away.
If, as a community and society, we could place blame on those who truly deserve it and build a system that believes survivors and supports their well-being in the aftermath of a trauma, what could we learn then?
Laura West is Advocacy & Volunteer coordinator of the Durango-based Sexual Assault Services Organization. Rhonda Ferguson, assistant director, and Melody Baker, Cultural Outreach coordinator, also contributed to this column. Reach them at 259-3074 or durangosaso.org.
