A law enforcement officer in Idaho has made headlines after making shocking comments to a TV network about sexual assault.
Sheriff Craig Rowland was being interviewed about a proposed bill that seeks to create a system of tracking the physical evidence of sexual assault investigations.
As it stands, not every rape kit in the state of Idaho is sent off and tested. State law makers have advanced legislature that would mean police no longer decide what evidence requires DNA testing, instead handing the decision over to clinics.
But Sheriff Craig Rowland isn’t in favour of the bill.
What started out as an ordinary news report quickly turned into a flashback to the dark old days when he said: “They need to let us decide if we’re going to send the kit and when we send the kits in. Because the majority of our rapes— not to say that we don’t have rapes, we do—but the majority of our rapes that are called in, are actually consensual sex.”
Sheriff Rowland then evoked a hypothetical example of a 17-year-old girl who wasn’t raped, but just said she was because she was embarrassed that she had had sex. Sometimes, he says, “things just went too far and someone got scared”.
He then went on to explain how the rape kit itself is “not taken lightly” since it’s “very traumatic” to undergo.
You know what else is traumatic to undergo? Rape.
Sheriff Rowland’s comments are a perfect example of why this legislature is so necessary. The decision to test rape kits should not lie with a man who questions the validity of rape claims in the first place.
You can watch the full news story here.
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