this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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How would you propose fixing the justice system? What changes are necessary to make survivors of sexual assault feel safe coming forward with their stories? What does "justice" look like to you?
It isn't required to have a solution to a problem in order to point out that the problem exists.
I have ideas, of course. Better public defenders and reforms to the district attorney system to ensure that cases get tried in a timely manner and to ensure plaintiffs and defendants have access to good support regardless of how wealthy they are. Better handling of anonymity on both sides, restraining orders, and so forth. There's likely no one magic bullet.
But the solution is definitely not to legitimize vigilantism or deny the presumption of innocence. That way is giving up on the justice system entirely.
Very true, it is not required to have a solution, I myself only gave a couple of broad frameworks as alternatives, alongside a call for abolition.
But consider for a moment the people you're accusing of "vigilantism" here. These are people who very often did go through the so-called justice system, for example Aubuchon reported her case, completed a rape kit, then waited a year for nothing to happen. It was only after being utterly failed by the system that she posted on social media, with the intent of warning others about this creep. He does not deny having sex with her, on the job while he is in a position of power over her no less, but says it was consensual. Remember, she was only 18 at the time, and has no wealth to speak of. What else was she supposed to do in this situation?
Or take Longhorn's case, she followed all the appropriate channels, and got nothing but grief for it. An official complaint to her work led to harrassment, and her case was dropped by the prosecutor because he thinks she should have fought him off. Here we have a member of the justice system itself advocating what could reasonably be interpreted as "vigilantism" in favor of the official legal channels. According to Wikipedia: "Vigilantism refers to the act of preventing, investigating, and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority." Fighting off one's rapist would count as prevention, and she did not possess legal authority to assault him while in his home. Then he sued her, forcing her to pay legal fees before dropping the case. What should Longhorn have done differently in this situation? At what point did she ever engage in "vigilantism"? His defamation suit against her is not due to a social media post, but rather her talking to coworkers and contacting authorities.
I'm not gonna straw-man you here, but you might want to think about the implications of calling what these women did "vigilantism" in light of the actual actions that they took. Namely, contacting the authories.
But let's leave the survivor's personal experiences aside for a minute and talk about systemic change. How should people who have been systematically abused by a system try to change it? Would revealing it's failures on social media for all to see perhaps be a step in that direction? It's not as if the levers of power that can make the changes you suggest are terribly accessible to the general population. If fact, they are far more accessible to the very people doing the raping, powerful men. Posting about rapists on social media is a tactic to change the justice system, it's just one that those currently priviledged by the system are threatened by.
Insisting that we must change the system, while decrying the powerless' efforts to do so, doen't that seem a bit contradictory?
To address your last sentence, we should give up on the so-called justice system. It does not create justice, but rather perpetuates inequality. Please understand, this does not come from a place of rejecting the concept of justice. On the contrary, I wish to see a more just world, and I am unwilling to compromise that ideal. The "justice system" is unjust. There are promising, proven alternatives. Why don't we try those instead of the promise of reforms that have never once materialized?
There's an example of the sort of thing I'm calling vigilantism, right in the first paragraph of the article:
Even if it was 100% true, this is an example of someone "taking justice into their own hands." There's no way of knowing what kind of "punishment" her target is going to endure because of this. Will it be proportional, or restorative, or anything remotely positive? Who knows? It's not being done by any sort of regulated framework, like the justice system is supposed to be. Maybe he'll just be embarrassed. Maybe he'll get divorced and lose custody of his kids. Maybe he'll be brutally murdered by someone else taking justice into their hands as well. Now add in the fact that we don't know that what she posted on Facebook was true and we have a very poor approach to justice indeed.
Part of the solution is clear in the quote. She says she did this because she didn't think the police were going to pursue her case. That's what I was suggesting above - vigilantism arises in an environment where people don't trust the "proper" justice system to actually function correctly. Same with the Longhorn case you describe, "she followed all the appropriate channels, and got nothing but grief for it." The solution is to ensure that the appropriate channels work.
Where am I decrying the powerless' efforts to change the system? I'm decrying their efforts to pursue vigilante justice. That's not changing the system, that's bypassing it entirely.
And so you're advocating exactly that, too. What "promising, proven alternatives" are there to the justice system? Bearing in mind that I'm not advocating we should just carry on exactly as we are, I've already stated that I think reforms are needed to make things better.
Whatever form those take, though, they must never get rid of the presumption of innocence or the opportunity for the accused to defend themselves. That sort of "justice system" leads to very dark places.