The Colorado Legislature is considering – and should pass – a measure that would lift the state’s 10-year statute of limitations on filing sexual assault charges.
Sexual assault victims who report the crime, perhaps unique among those who have endured a violent crime, face a barrage of traumas long after their initial attack. Cultural, psychological and institutional systems have conspired to leave the majority of rape victims powerless to bring their attackers to justice. The numbers are stark: Just 32 percent of rapes are reported to police; only 7 percent lead to an arrest; just 3 percent are referred to a prosecutor, and 2 percent are convicted. When nearly 1 in 5 women and girls have been raped in their lifetimes, the disconnect between victimization and justice is abhorrent. While so many of the challenges to bringing rapists to justice are culturally complex – while nonetheless outrageous – limiting the time allowed to do so is not complex at all. It is simply an unnecessary and inappropriate hurdle for those already facing a too often insurmountable battle.
It is no wonder 68 percent of rape victims do not report the crime. The trauma of the attack, coupled with the confusion and ambiguity many victims experience – an ambiguity too often reinforced by a cultural and prosecutorial pattern of victim-blaming – makes reporting the intensely personal crime difficult, and the obstacles throughout the criminal justice process further challenge victims in their pursuit. Add to that the fact that a startling 85 percent of all rapes are committed by an acquaintance, all within a culture that with astonishing frequency minimizes or denies the crime’s frequency or even its existence, and the incentive for a victim to seek justice is minimal. Adding a time constraint further undermines victims’ agencies.
Colorado is 1 of 34 states that limits the window for filing sexual assault charges, and the bipartisan measure to lift it would simultaneously remove what could for some victims be the defining barrier to seeking systemic justice for their crime. Given the other requirements – police interviews, invasive “rape kits” used to gather DNA evidence, and bearing the social stigma too often applied to rape victims – a time constraint could be a further deterrent for those already disinclined to pursue sexual assault charges. It should be lifted.
The proposed measure was crafted at the request of two Colorado women who have accused Bill Cosby of sexually assaulting them decades ago. Beth Farrier and Heidi Thomas, both 56, allege the actor drugged and raped them when they were aspiring models in the mid-1980s. The women worked with JF Images, a talent agency, whose founder, Jo Farrell, was a friend of Cosby’s. It is not difficult to discern the power imbalances at play in such a scenario, and the accusers’ reticence to report the incidents when they are purported to have occurred. In instances such as these, time may serve as a useful buffer for victims too raw to take on the substantial emotional effort that seeking judicial relief requires.
Colorado should join the states that have removed that barrier and help move the culture toward one that supports victims of violent crime, rather than ostracizes them.
