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Illustration by Natalie Pryor, photograph by Felix Koutchinski at Unsplash
by Jerry Iannelli and Meg O’Connor, The Attraction
Final month, Glamour journal featured “Legislation and Order: Particular Victims Unit” star Mariska Hargitay on the cover of its “Women of the Year” issue. On Nov. 8, an avalanche of A-list celebrities — together with “SVU” co-stars Christopher Meloni and Ice-T, actress Melissa McCarthy, and #MeToo co-founder Tarana Burke — honored Hargitay at the Women of the Year Awards which was held at the Rainbow Room, a ballroom that serves as one of many epicenters of New York Metropolis high-society.
However Hargitay’s choice as one of many journal’s “girls of the 12 months” is an unlucky one, provided that she and everybody else concerned with “SVU” are complicit in what is probably going the only worst piece of pro-police propaganda produced over the previous couple of many years. “SVU” — the longest-running scripted primetime live-action present in U.S. tv historical past — has spent greater than 500 episodes laundering the popularity of the NYPD and its intercourse crimes division. In actuality, the NYPD has notoriously neglected its intercourse crimes unit for years, resulting in depressing outcomes for victims. Lately, detectives with New York Metropolis’s Particular Victims Division have repeatedly discouraged victims from transferring ahead with their circumstances, did not collect fundamental video and DNA evidence, and have, on more than one occasion, bungled a rape case so badly that alleged attackers went on to attack several more women.
The Attraction spoke with 5 girls who sought assist from the NYPD after being sexually assaulted. All the girls had shockingly dangerous interactions with the particular victims detectives assigned to their circumstances. A number of stated that the “SVU” present itself does a disservice to survivors of sexual assault: via its patently false depiction of police interactions with rape victims, SVU has helped create a public notion that police are mandatory and good at responding to intercourse crimes. This fraudulent image makes it tougher to alter the way in which police deal with intercourse crimes.
“‘Legislation & Order: SVU’ gave me the misunderstanding that this squad cared deeply about victims and their jobs,” stated Gina Tron, a author who reported a sexual assault to the NYPD in 2010. “The present is nothing greater than a fantasy, as an correct dramatization of the unit would depict detectives sitting across the station disparaging rape victims in entrance of their friends and pressuring them to drop their circumstances so they may keep away from doing work.”
Others stated the identical. “In actuality, it’s cops who’re inflicting probably the most hurt to victims and survivors,” stated Alison Turkos, a survivor and activist who’s suing the NYPD and Lyft over their dealing with of the kidnapping and assault she suffered in 2017. Turkos known as “SVU” “copaganda.” “The present is extra hurtful than useful, and it must be taken off the air. Survivors deserve higher.”
Racheal Stirling informed The Attraction that she had not seen an episode of “SVU” earlier than she was assaulted, however she did know the present largely featured excessive acts of sexual violence. So when her case was ignored by the NYPD Particular Victims Division — regardless of having a full confession from the person who attacked her — she assumed her case should have “dwarfed compared to their different circumstances.” She later realized that the detective assigned to her case merely did not bother to investigate it. Stirling, who was violently assaulted, stated the NYPD gaslit her into believing nothing had occurred to her. For weeks, the police uncared for to arrest the person who assaulted her and made an arrest only after he assaulted other women. Stirling later discovered that the detective assigned to her case had himself been accused of groping another rape victim whose case he was assigned to.
“If I had a greenback for each time I heard, ‘This will’t be true. Olivia Benson would by no means let this occur!’ I might have sufficient to cowl my hospital payments and remedy for my trauma,” Stirling stated, referring to Hargitay’s “SVU” character.
“SVU” posits a world the place cops like Hargitay’s Benson assist survivors heal, the place detectives observe leads and meticulously gather proof, and the place sexual assault investigators are knowledgable, well-trained, and communicate with empathy.
These attributes, as seemingly fundamental and integral to policing as they sound, are few and much between on the NYPD (and different police departments throughout the nation). On the Particular Victims Division, coaching has dropped precipitously final 12 months. In keeping with a 2020 survey of 20 anti-violence organizations and rape disaster applications that work straight with over 5,000 survivors of sexual assault throughout New York Metropolis, a powerful majority of suppliers stated the division shouldn’t be doing job responding to survivors. Almost all suppliers agreed that survivors really feel ignored by police.
In 2020, the NYPD cleared (or “solved” via arrest or distinctive means) lower than 30 % of all rape circumstances citywide — a smaller proportion than the 12 months earlier than. That already terrible quantity could also be artificially inflated, because the division has traditionally labeled an unusually excessive variety of rape circumstances as “unfounded” (false or baseless), which means these circumstances wouldn’t be included within the total statistics.
The NYPD shouldn’t be an anomaly: Native police departments around the country are routinely sued or criticized for failing to investigate rape cases and retraumatizing survivors.
Anny Crane, an activist and artist, reported her sexual assault to the NYPD the night time that it occurred in 2012. “The night time was a blur, so I can’t say what I anticipated, however it actually wasn’t being mocked by NYPD officers throughout a panic assault and left at the hours of darkness whereas navigating the system after reporting, right down to my court docket listening to and medical payments,” she stated. “I’ve joked that there was no Olivia Benson to carry my hand, however it’s true. Not solely does she not exist, the whole lot I encountered was the antithesis of how ‘SVU’ portrays sufferer advocacy. I wanted somebody however I by no means felt extra alone.”
The present additionally infamously steals plots straight from rape survivors with out their consent. Final 12 months, ballerina Alexandra Waterbury recounted in Marie Claire that the present fictionalized her assault with out consulting her in any respect. “This felt like they took benefit of me, which is a hell of a factor to do to a survivor of sexual violence,” she wrote.
Hargitay’s points lengthen to her off-screen persona as properly. Her Joyful Coronary heart Basis claims to combat to “finish the backlog” of untested rape kits sitting in police departments nationwide. However Joyful Coronary heart propagates the false narrative that the so-called backlog exists as a result of regulation enforcement wants extra funding to check rape kits. Whereas it’s true that there are a lot of untested rape kits throughout the US, they’re largely untested as a result of police didn’t ship the DNA kits to a lab for testing. Cash isn’t the problem — police selecting to not take a look at essential DNA proof is. The time period “backlog,” as former Appeal contributors Meaghan Ybos and Heather Marlowe have noted, implies that untested rape kits stacked up for causes out of the division’s management, when that’s merely not the case.
“Mariska Hargitay has constructed an excellent profession from ‘Legislation and Order: SVU,’ and constructed a sterling popularity as a sexual assault advocate from her group, the Joyful Coronary heart Basis,” stated JL, who requested to be referred to by her initials. JL reported a sexual assault to the NYPD in 2012. “Sadly, the precise sexual assault advocacy group has had the misfortune of seeing what lies beneath the Hollywood veneer of the Joyful Coronary heart Basis, its consultants, and its founder.”
In a softball interview with Glamour final month, Hargitay choked up with pleasure when she informed the journal that she enjoys being “of service” and helping “people heal.” It appears, nonetheless, that the best service she may present is quitting ‘SVU’ for good.
IN THE NEWS
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Folks incarcerated in Florida will now not have the ability to obtain bodily prints of photographs from the surface, and all incoming paper mail will probably be scanned into an digital format to be considered on a pill or through a kiosk. “I can consider many nights that I slept with {a photograph} of my household,” Laurette Philipsen, Florida Cares’ communications director and a previously incarcerated particular person, informed Miami New Occasions. “You may’t do this with a pill.” [Alex DeLuca / Miami New Times]
Almost 1,500 unhoused folks died on the streets of Los Angeles between March 2020 and July 2021, in accordance with a brand new report printed by UCLA, at the side of researchers from the unhoused group. County coroner’s data reveal that the commonest reason behind dying was unintended overdose. This quantity is probably going an undercount, as a result of the data didn’t embody people who died in shelters or automobiles, or whereas receiving medical care. [Sam Levin / The Guardian]
Two supervised injection websites formally opened in New York Metropolis final week. The facilities enable folks to make use of medication underneath the care of medical professionals, who’re available to reverse overdoses and provide entry to dependancy remedy and different companies. Though these assets have been working for many years in different nations world wide, they’re the primary such areas within the U.S. Officers say the employees reversed nine overdoses since opening. [Caroline Lewis / Gothamist]
A Tucson police officer will probably be fired after the discharge of physique digital camera footage exhibiting him fatally taking pictures a person in a motorized wheelchair. The person had allegedly brandished a knife after stealing a toolbox from Walmart. The police chief stated he determined to terminate the officer as a result of his use of lethal power constituted a “clear violation of division coverage and straight contradicts a number of points of our use of power coaching.” The officer was off responsibility and dealing a particular element at Walmart. [Amy Simonson / CNN] See additionally: The Nov. 9 publication, which appears to be like on the potential consequences of a crackdown on retail theft.
The Florida Supreme Court docket final week upheld a choose’s resolution to impose a most jail sentence for a defendant who maintained his innocence after being convicted in a firearm case. The choose cited the person’s failure to take “accountability” as a purpose for the tough sentence. In a dissenting opinion, one justice wrote that “punishing somebody until they confess guilt of a criminal offense is a violation of due course of and the proper in opposition to self-incrimination.” The conservative majority disagreed. [Jim Saunders / NSF via Orlando Weekly]
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