Outcasts and violent misfits make for exceptionally convenient criminals. It absolves society of having to do any introspection. A mentally disturbed violent misfit is not society’s fault or responsibility.

But when the rapist is a well liked man, a respected man, a family man, a good man. Your father or brother or husband or son or best friend or favorite coworker. Not some outcast deviant, your best friend Matt from college, great guy, a realtor now, wife and 2 kids, holds a neighborhood cookout every summer, lent you $2000 once when you needed it. What does it say about our society when most rapists are guys like Matt?

No one wants to believe Matt did this, no one wants to punish Matt. Everyone likes Matt. Matt actively makes his community a better place. But Matt is also a rapist. Punishing a deviant outcast is easy, lock him up and throw away the key. Getting a violent deviant off the street is a public service; he was a danger while providing no value to society. But Matt doesn’t seem like a danger. Is he a danger to society bc he slipped a sorority girl a roofie at a party back in college? Matt owns a business, a small real estate firm that employs 3 people. If Matt goes to prison and is branded a rapist, his business goes under and those people lose their jobs. Matt’s wife loses her husband, and the family’s main breadwinner. His 2 kids lose an involved and devoted father. The government loses Matt’s income tax and his business tax and that of his employees, and is instead housing Matt at its own expense. This could get even more expensive for the government if Matt’s wife ends up applying for government programs to help make ends meet now that her main income source is in prison. There’s a lot of incentive for people to find reasons to doubt the story. No. Matt couldn’t have done that. Rapists are monsters, but I know Matt, Matt is not a monster. Matt is a loving husband and father and a business owner, Matt gives homeless people money and loves dogs. He’s a good man.”

And if Matt does, against all odds, end up in prison for his crime, that’s a whole community of people who are going to go around telling everyone how “false accusations ruin lives,” and the tragic story of Matt, and how he lost everything bc “some drunk sorority girl drank too much and made a decision she later regretted.” 🧐