And let's see what happens if we follow Loren's suggestion that the person reporting a rape gets to decide how many other potential rape victims have to come forward before a prosecution becomes possible.
Potential Victim 1 wants her report sealed until there's at least 3 other reports. Police and prosecutors won't advance the case even if there's enough evidence to charge the suspect.
Potential Victim 2 comes forward a few months later. She wants to have her report sealed until there's at least one other report. Authorities can't tie her report to Potential Victim 1's because 1's report is still sealed, so her case goes nowhere.
Potential Victim 3 comes forward a few years later and wants her case brought to trial ASAP. Her case and PV2's move forward without 1's, even though PV1's report would make the case stronger. PV1 might have the best, clearest evidence backing her claim but it's of no use whatsoever because it's still sealed away somewhere.
In what way would this stop a serial sexual offender sooner than having each accusation brought to trial as soon as sufficient evidence to support the allegation is found?
What you are missing is that each victim's case can't be brought forward to trial because many are never started with a complaint. This aims to change that.
Bill Cosby has 60 accusers once all was said and done. For the sake of argument, let's say all of those accusers were victims and that there were no false allegations. That would mean that 59 victims didn't come forward until 1 victim did so publicly. Had that 1 victim not come forward so bravely, Cosby may have never been caught. Many others like him probably aren't. Had this system been in place, these 59 victims could have made sealed complaints and set X = 59, and Cosby would have bee caught sooner. Perhaps some of them wouldn't have even made a sealed report, lets say even most. Let's shave that number down to x=25 then. Now, what if some of these allegations are false and shave it down to x = 20. We don't have research to show where X is likely to be set by victims of sealed reports, but I very much doubt it would be anywhere near as high as 20. My guess would be closer 1 or 2. So there is a clear benefit here. We would have potentially saved dozens of victims in Cosby's case.
Loren has explained the reason he's making this proposal: "The basic problem is that with a powerful, high profile person most people are afraid to say anything, figuring they can't fight the power. Hence the problem stays hidden for a long time and when someone finally comes forward then we get a flock of others joining in--and no way to be sure if the problem is real or jumping on the bandwagon for personal reasons."
He has given two reasons. His detractors are fixated on the second and are ignoring the first. Why is that?
Some problems I see with this system, and questions I have for Loren:
1. In a case like Cosby's this would catch much him quicker, but in a run of the mill case where it isn't a serial rapist and only a single rape, a good point has been raised that this gives the option to a victim who would come forth anyway to do it sealed, so nothing ever happens and the rapist isn't brought to justice. So would you modify this system to account for that? And how would you do so? It may do more harm than good overall. Does anyone here know if most rapes are one offs or serial?
2. Anonymous tip lines exist for much the same reasons as this. Would you integrate them with this? Maybe have the tip line encourage them to come forward through this system but otherwise not mention this system at police stations?
3. The logic behind this seems to apply beyond rape, and generally to crime. Would you advocate putting using this against crime bosses, etc, where people are afraid of getting killed or otherwise damaged for being witnesses against powerful people? If they knew there were other witnesses standing with them, they may come forward more readily, yes?
