A not so great Newsweek article

Originally posted at Minneapolitan Mademoiselle

I recently read an article in Newsweek about NYPD’s Special Victims Division and was quite unnerved by some of what was written.

How soon does the victim/complainant, as she (or he) is called in the reports, reveal what’s happened? Is she crying? That’s important. But sometimes the crime was committed months or years before.

While I’m glad that there’s at least an acknowledgment that many survivors do not report right away I found the question “Is she crying?” (as well as the follow up phrase “That’s important”) to be problematic. So many times people make assumptions about how survivors are supposed to act and then go on to base whether or not they’re believable on that expected behavior. Shocking, I know, but people respond in many different ways to different types of trauma, and sexual assault is no different. As someone who has experienced trauma and watched my family members work through it in their own ways (not to mention my work with survivors), it comes as no surprise to me that this is the case. Now if only the police officers, lawyers, folks sitting on the jury and everybody else would ‘get’ this, the world would be a different, and likely better place, for survivors.

Shortly after comes another gem – the assumption that a woman asking for a woman detective is really just lying.

“I’m betting nine out of 10 times, when a woman asks for a female detective the story is going to be untrue,” says Lamboy [a detective in the Special Victims Division]. The operative theory is that women who are lying think female cops will be more receptive to their stories.

Or, you know, they were just assaulted by a man and/or they don’t feel comfortable discussing what happened with a male detective. Nope, they’re just lying.

And this classic, wonderful line:

In sex-crime cases, victims often tell only part of the story. Or they make it up altogether.

I gotta say that one kind of came out of nowhere. And it’s followed by some discussion about the recent acquittal of two former NYPD cops and a few sentences about detectives’ regrets (feeling bad for rapists?) I have not seen an article this focused on the fact that victims lie in a long time. Because they lie. ALL. THE. TIME. Indeed, the author spends a good chunk of THREE PARAGRAPHS later on in the article talking about how the detectives determine if an accuser is lying.

I have to say that there were a few bright spots in the article – namely acknowledging that the first contact is crucial in gaining the survivor’s trust and cooperation, and the discussion about how the Division is underfunded and understaffed. I also found most of the description of how the Division does their work to be interesting. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to make up for all of the other problems in the article, and it left me with a bad taste in my mouth.