In a series of tweets published this Friday, President Donald Trump questioned the seriousness of Christine Blasey Ford's allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, based on the fact she did not report the attack to the police when it occurred.
I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2018
The radical left lawyers want the FBI to get involved NOW. Why didn’t someone call the FBI 36 years ago?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2018
In his attempts to support Kavanaugh, Trump's tweets proved just how uninformed he is in regards to the nuanced realities of sexual assault reporting. The fact of the matter is, most sexual assaults go unreported — and even when incidents are reported to the police, charges are usually not filed.
According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN),only310 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to the police. There are numerous reasons incidents of sexual assault are not reported including fears of retaliation and not wanting to relive such a traumatic event over and over again during the course of an investigation.
Yet another reason is the belief that the police would not take any allegations seriously. It's easy to understand how this suspicion of the police come about; for one, according to RAINN, only six perpetrators out of every 1,000 rapes are incarcerated, making many cynical about the legal process.
According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN),only 310 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to the police.
Blasey herself referenced this concept to the Washington Post: “Why suffer through the annihilation if it’s not going to matter?” she said.
An issue related to this is that many victims feel that it is their fault the assault happened, a feeling that many police officers and defense lawyers will exploit. They, and others, feel a sense of doubt about what actually occurred, even though the reality is, only two to eight percent of sexual assault allegations are false, according to Vox.
“There’s something really unique about sexual assault in the way we think about it, which is pretty upside down from the way it actually operates,” Kimberly A. Lonsway, a psychologist and research director of End Violence Against Women International, told the New York Times. “In so many instances when there’s something that is characteristic of assault, it causes us to doubt it.”
The Senate planned to vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation on Sept. 20, but the decision has been delayed until both Blasey and Kavanaugh could testify. Though Blasey declined an invitation to testify on Monday, she has said, through her lawyer, that she was open to testifying later under several conditions including the requirement that Kavanaugh is not in the hearing room when she speaks.