Like, before we get into the rules of evidence("hearsay" in the legal sense isn't quite the same as the lay sense), I still have no idea what problem Brian thinks he's solving here, nor do I have any idea what mechanism he's proposing to solve that problem.

Instead, both him and DIB are just chanting "mandated reporter" like it's a magic ****ing talisman.

Well hopefully they can convince you, cause if so they're onto something big! You're no yes man like me.

I'm well aware of DiB's posting in the drunk sex and rape thread, and enjoyed hearty lols with the RAINN stuff and all of that. I have no idea if Brian is aware of any of it or not. But it hardly matters for this thread, which is about mandatory reporting.

I realize that a lot of the reason you are posting so terribly in this thread is because of how terrible DiB posted in that one, but it's not as if bad posting justifies further bad posting. You have yet to make a single post in this thread that is worth anyone's time to read. Well I suppose correcting "reasonable suspicion" to "probable cause" is worth something.

In any case, Brian didn't sign up for the "side" you think he did, any more than I have, regardless of whether or not he's aware of DiB's prior posting. There is no reason to suppose, if the question is restricted to mandatory reporting for university employees, that the MRA side lines up in support of that, and reasonable people on the other. (Note I necessarily think the "reasonable" side is the non-MRA side, because lolMRA)

Of course, Brian shouldn't assume you don't believe rape exists or whatever but I assume he's just return-trolling you since you persist in making asinine assumptions about everyone else's opinion and being completely useless.

As far as trolly's question re: the usefulness of police investigations in the absence of cooperation from victims, I think it's already been acknowledged a few times that it's unlikely that in such cases reporting would accomplish much as far as a criminal investigation. The question is whether or not that by itself is enough to make the enterprise useless. And when trolly says that "looking at the bigger picture: the original complaint was that school internal review boards are acting as kangaroo courts by expelling dudebros based on flimsy evidence", I doubt that's the bigger picture Brian is concerned with. And that should be obvious

I have a problem with campus rape; specifically, I want law enforcement to be involved each and every instance of rape, because as it stands currently, 90% of campus rapes are committed by serial offenders, and 90% of the time the cops are not informed. That's unacceptable.

IDK what to tell you Fly. People are getting it, as evidenced by poll participation. Some people even get it and agree / strongly agree with the proposal of making relevant staff mandated reporters. TBQH, there's no way to simplify any of this more for you; like, it's already as dumbed down as it can get. You not understanding is 100% your problem & responsibility at this point.

I'm not a lawyer either, but the link mentions cops can use the totality of evidence and their own professional judgement when establishing probable cause, and that can include heresay and double heresay. So would something like this qualify?

After a wild frat party a rumor starts circulating that Bob raped Judy. Judy's friend Sue hears from her friend Amanda who was at the same party, and Sue contacts the police. After interviewing Sue and then Amanda, the police visit Judy. She seems upset and scared, but says she doesn't remember anything. They visit Bob, and he seems super nervous and hostile. They ask him to come down to the station and answer some questions and he refuses. Can they make an arrest? If so, do they in hopes he'll crack under interrogation? Do they think with him under arrest, Judy might feel safer and more compelled to remember the events from the previous night? Is Law and Order the best drama of all time?

I assumed that a reasonable person would understand that absolutely, without a question, I am proposing that when the police have probable cause to arrest to actually have no choice but to arrest. I made this assumption mostly because it is exactly what I have been saying all along.

I assumed that a reasonable person would understand that absolutely, without a question, I am proposing that when a school has reason to believe that a sexual assault has occurred that they should be mandated to report this to the cops. I made this assumption mostly because this is exactly what I have been saying all along.

I neglected to directly state in answer to Trolly's question: I couldn't care less about whether the school takes additional action based on their student code of conduct beyond what I am proposing.

That is correct - good catch.

When I was a therapist when I gave the cops information that I was mandated to it was considered probable cause to arrest. It fit the legal definition of hearsay.

It hasn't been acknowledged by the people pitching the idea. I'd love it if DIB or Brian would spell out exactly what they think the cops are supposed to do when the victim doesn't want to come forward.

idk about Brian or what exactly his deal is, but if you haven't been following, that is exactly what DIB has been going on about for some time now. He doesn't want universities to investigate rape cases because he considers them kangaroo courts.

It's always possible that DiB has stumbled upon a plausible idea despite his apparent inability to grasp that criminal law can coexist with school codes of conduct.

To be clear, at this point I haven't even passed judgement on the merits of DIB's idea, I'm seriously just trying to figure out how it works. It seems to be:

1. Student tells school counselor about rape.
2. Counselor is required to tell the cops.
3. ???
4. Rapist is punished.

You appear to be taking too narrow of a view. In some cases it's

1. Student tells counselor about rape.
2. Counselor is required to tell the cops (assume in the alternative no report is made)
3. Cops investigate, student cooperates, investigation leads to arrest and charges
4. Rapist is punished

In other cases it's just the same except all that would have happened anyway. In other other cases the first part of (3) happens but (4) does not for various reasons (insufficient evidence, uncooperative victim, etc)

The logic behind the proposal is

1) the idea that mandatory reporting will cause more rapes to be reported, which will lead to more rapes being prosecuted and convicted. DiB's drunken math about that may be wrong but the general principle isn't ridiculous.

2) the idea that mandatory reporting and the sort of infrastructure that schools will have to implement to support it will provide more support for victims that make it easier for them to feel safe reporting

3) the idea that mandatory reporting will provide some amount of deterrent to bad behavior

The logic behind the requirement that cops not ask if victims want to press charges does not have to do with coercing victims (as I think gizmo was inferring, maybe?) but with being sensitive to the psychological trauma inherent to the situation and avoiding having police take a line that might seem to put more pressure on victims. Hence the comparison to domestic violence. It's essentially a question of the tactics the police should use.

The success of the policy doesn't depend on each instance getting to step 4 via the criminal justice system, any more than the success of any other policy does really.

I don't always keep track of who says what where.

I am decidedly non-MRA.

Your assumption about me is spot on.

It wasn't obvious to Trolly. I should have clarified.

Important note: If you don't ask "do you want to cooperate?" or "would you like to press charges?" victims are more likely to cooperate.

LOL the #wellactually attempts to ****ing polish the turds here. Seriously, what is it with you people and this ****ing team effort to assume the best and fill in all the gaps and then get angry at people for not agreeing?

Note that Brian's bleating, incomprehensible new suggestion is ITSELF an attempt to fix DIB's idea. As well named notes, Brian decided that I was being too mean to DIB, and so now we're all furiously filling in the gaps. Hey guys if you brainstorm enough you'll maybe come up with, I dunno, an actual ****ing proposal? We're still waiting for that!

Like, well named, I get that you're deep in the fan fiction here, but are you telling me that the campus rape problem in this country is caused by students reporting rapes to "counselors" but not the police?

I know that's what it would take to manufacture a point for DIB and Brian. I'm asking about reality.

I'm not even going to get into talking about what exactly you guys mean by "press charges" because I don't really feel like teaching Crim Pro to an audience of skeptical and hostile morons, but think through what the **** you're advocating here.

You're trying to like, retroactively argue with me and Trolly about what Brian's proposal could be. Man, it could be ****ing anything! We're on page two of this thread and DIB and Brian have both explicitly refused to explain what the **** they mean by "mandated reporting on college campuses". Before we start lecturing me about being "useless", might want to turn a dose of that scorn towards the people who are literally refusing to explain themselves.

I'm not skeptical, and I'm only hostile because I know you are intelligent enough to actually contribute something to a discussion. Especially given the fact I'm sure you are better versed on the criminal justice system than I am. You've just gotten stuck on this one-note shtick. You are actually allowed to discuss politics in the politics forum, if you like.

For example:

I presume you are far too smart to think this is a reasonable characterization of the motivation behind a mandatory reporting proposal. If you google "campus rape underreporting" and skim a bit (this is the source of 99% of my knowledge about everything :P) it does seem reasonable to suggest that under-reporting is an issue. No one is suggesting that the majority of those unreported cases are reported to counselors, and yet one might suppose that if you are searching for a potential policy change to address the root issue, mandatory reporting for school employees might nonetheless be justifiable, if imperfect and incomplete, and more realistic than other possible ideas. It could be a marginal improvement.

I think I said this very early on, I realize I have very little reason to believe that such a policy would be that useful. What I said was it wasn't so obviously stupid as to deserve the level of response it's getting.

Post #19

I was imagining you could ask questions to fill in relevant missing details. Is this not a concrete proposal? I suppose it's missing consequences for failure to report, but that doesn't seem particularly relevant. What else is missing?

Other than the post where I was sloppy about describing it (and Brian corrected me), it's not clear to me at all what you think has gone horribly wrong here. I'm very teachable though! I am willing to be corrected. At the risk of again oversimplifying for the sake of brevity, I would describe the process as involving a victim filing a report (or complaint?) and a prosecutor (with an assist from a Judge or Grand Jury) actually making the decision on whether a case proceeds.

I like how cytri's post about how having specific people for victims in the military to talk to who are not mandated reporters (like their superiors) has coincided with increased reporting in the military has been largely and overwhelmingly ignored.

Fly's tone is obnoxious (then again, it is UNCHAINED, bitches), but he's right in that there's a substantial amount of after-the-fact workshopping to try to figure out what DIB's plan is. Brian's theory is that the cops will arrest rapists on suspicion and thereby harm their reputations. DIB won't tell us what the plan is.

Well Named's theory seems to be that mandatory reporting will possibly encourage women to press charges. That's at least defensible, but I find it hard to believe that cops will often be able to coax the victim to come forward. The downside is that it will place a chilling effect on women seeking help from school counselors, which I think is a huge price to pay.

I missed it the first time. My bad. It's a good point. It's the kind of data I was interested in.

To be clear, I give zero ****s what DiB's plan is. It's not as if posting is a team sport. I thought the topic was mildly interesting, and since you all were having some sport arguing about whether or not DiB posted a plan (and him saying the plan was obvious and google mandatory reporting blah blah), I just posted one to see if there was actual conversation to be had about it.

I think that DiB was probably right that the phrase "mandatory reporting" is well defined enough that you could pretty easily picture the rough outline, but as you said, it is unchained

The alternative approach is to provide information on, and easy access to, professional care and support that doesn't automatically invoke the authorities. As I understand it that's the approach In the UK. An extension of this would be sarc as other's mentioned and that could be mandated if need be - that is mandated reporters could have to report the suspected victim to sarc who would then speak to the suspected victim.

It's the above type scenario vs forced involvement of the police that I'd welcome your view on.

Oh, no, man. Then why are you mad at Trolly for being dismissive of Brian and DIB? You eventually provided a suggestion(which isn't really mandated reporting, more like duplicate reporting), but they didn't.

You'd think someone who went to law school would immediately see how that's not what mandated reporting does, but it's not like law school is hard to get into these days I guess.

1. Joe is out with Jane, they get to kissing and he ignores her desire to stop. He rapes her.

2. Jane realizes this is a he said/she said situation but wants him out of her environment and goes to the school.

3. The school takes her story and refers the case to the local police. With the case in the police's hands, the school halts further action.

4. The police investigate the crime and testing its winnability in court by anticipating the following and asking Jane, over and over,

5. The police decline to press charges, suggest Jane do her best to get over it.

6. Joe uses police decision as proof of innocence and threatens school against expelling him.

7. Word spreads of how these investigations rarely lead to charges, and even rarely to convictions, and the "real rape" myth is reinforced along with rumours of the prevalence of "false accusations."

8. Jane does her best to get over it.

LOL ikes trying to get on this train too.

ikes, you realize that trying to piece together the suggestion that Team Ignorance here has, it's something like:

1) Any time anyone has a suspicion a rape occured, a report to the police is made, which causes some sort of investigation

2) During that investigation, the accused is publicly shamed and suspended from school.

Like the suspension here can be triggered without even an accusation!

For a MRA rape apologist that seems to not be what you would want, in that you were allegedly mad about dudes getting expelled after being found guilty by a preponderance of the evidence by a review board where some level of due process was afforded.

PR- Excellent post. Especially this part:


Guys, I realize it's a fun game to pretend that you're so smart and everyone else is so dumb and that you know the bestest. But you need to think through the actual specifics before you get on your high horse and try to lecture actual ****ing adults who aren't agreeing with you.

Fly, I presume you are of the opinion that those questions from cross-examination are pretty brutal examples of the continued misogyny in our culture, right? I will agree that P.R. and the HuffPo article make a point well taken, but doesn't it seem ultimately a little self-defeating to argue that the idea fails because police investigations and court cases are vehicles for slut shaming and misogyny to the point where it's better for victims not to report? I mean P.R. may be entirely right, but that's pretty depressing if so. Even the article itself calls it a "searing indictment" of the justice system.

Also, where did you get this idea that I think I'm so smart and everyone else is dumb, or that I know best? Have you actually read my posts in this thread? I'm fairly sure like half of them include caveats that I think the value of the proposed policy may be dubious, and that I consider myself poorly equipped to judge. I'm also not clear why you think I was mad at Trolly. Possibly mildly irritated, but I can accept that as a failure on my part if you like. I can't really fathom why you think you're the one acting like an adult in this conversation.