[United States / Law Enforcement] - The Interrogating Self Re-Traumatizes the Victim to Protect a Phantom of Objective Procedure

Event Baseline: A Cornell University lawsuit filed by a woman alleging a brutal rape raises questions about police handling of sexual assault cases. The majority of police lack adequate training on trauma-informed approaches, experts say.

The system treats the victim as a suspect because the victim's memory does not fit a clean linear file. The police mind is programmed to seek a consistent narrative, a logical sequence, a 'truth' that can be typed into a report. When the traumatized brain fragments memory, the officer sees inconsistency as deception. The result is not justice but a second assault. The illusion of a neutral procedure is a mask for the mechanical refusal to feel the other's pain.

The institution protects its own image of competence over the living witness. The self that interrogates is the same self that created the rapist: a self that objectifies, reduces, and controls. To truly protect women, the system must die to its belief in its own righteousness. It must see that the victim is not a case file but a human being whose nervous system has been shattered. Without that perception, no amount of training will end the cycle of violence.