In today's day and age, there consists of countless amounts of argumentative issues that have been at rise in the public eye, but there is one particular topic that has profoundly made its way in into highlights over the majority with this being the high concern around sexual assault in the United States.  The rise in sexual assault awareness within the United States has contributed to a movement that has placed an effect on many sectors, for instance our government, the criminal justice system, college campuses, and even political stances/views to a certain extent.  Even though sexual assault is a popular topic, a sector within these cases that gets overlooked by the bulk of the population due to its depressed representation towards the public eye is false accusation and false reports.  False accusation/ reports are considered to be a fine narrow line found within sexual assault cases that can affect males and/or females, and also it could play a major effect on how these cases are handled and even in the final outcome of a possible case.  The potential outcomes of being falsely accused or law enforcement not believing accusations condemns those who are innocent as guilty. This can lead to negative consequences insides and outside of the law.  False accusations/ reports from sexual assault cases are brought about is through the influence of law enforcement and the misconception in regards to the amendment of Title XI.  In proposal to prevent this fine line of false accusations in sexual assault and/or disbelief of reports when given, there needs to be changes made in the bylaws of handling sexual assault from the criminal justice system to avoid personal biases towards cases and to strongly enforce gender neutrality.  .  

The criminal justice system is in place to provide justice for the people of the United States of America to ensure maximum safety to all citizens. Just like the criminal justice system, police, case officers, and other forms of security are arranged to provide protection and aid to those whom may be in danger.  It is their optimum responsibility to abide by their roles, functions, and social responsibilities.   From the Merriam-Webster dictionary site, the definition of police states, "to supervise the operation, execution, or administration of to prevent or detect and prosecute violations of rules and regulations" (Merriam-Webster).  In addition to this, it is important that they must also investigate cases thoroughly and justly without using favor, unless evidence proves otherwise in conclusion to a case.  Therefore, it is understandable and common sense that police should not possess any form of bias when entering a case. Unfortunately, even though it is law enforcement's job to protect the civil rights and liberties of both parties, biases play a major role in how cases are handled.  This is why police officer's initial intentions in sexual assault cases can affect the outcome of false accusation/ reports.  In general, police and case officers provide a vital role in decide if a case is worthy of being a carried out or rejected.  

To demonstrate deeper on how police and case officer's definitions and perceptions on sexual assault cases from law enforcement contribute to false accusations/ reports is through a schema study that was performed on a police department in the Great Lakes region of the United States.  This particular study comes from a peer review article of Rachel M. Venema, "Police Officer Schema of Sexual Assault Reports: Real Rape, Ambiguous Cases and False Reports", which uses the schema theory and states its overall definition as, "A schema is the cognitive framework that helps organize and interpret information (Venema 877).  The schema theory is used in this study to identity how police officers view sexual assault and if their perceptions influence their responses due to prior knowledge.  The overall results from this study show that there were different patterns visible through the types of cases presented from officers that were used as an aid in describing sexual assault as well as their initial reactions to these cases.  The types of cases mentioned that effected the perceptions of officers for the schema include perceptions of false reporting, initial response to reports perceived as false, perception of ambiguous cases, initial response to reports perceived as ambiguous, perception of legitimate cases, and initial response to reports perceived as legitimate. Of these opinions, the perception of false reporting was most significantly present within the study in regards to permeated interviews with the components of real rape or ideal victim myths.   Venema states from the results that "According to officers, initial perceptions do not influence their procedural response; however, they do influence an officer's attitude toward the case," to indicate that officers think it's important to remain skeptical in sexual assault cases as well as ways in which can improve this practice (Venema 879).  On the other hand, this generally states that attitudes towards a sexual assault case are from initial perceptions on how they feel about sexual assault cases prior. Therefore, biases and initial interactions with reporting as victims do influence the course of a case, even officers justified that change needs to be made for proper handling of sexual assault cases to minimize false accusation/reports. This proposal statement is supported in the discussion where Venema states, "This study also presents police officers' assessment of the importance of the initial interaction with victims, and includes suggestions from police officers themselves to challenge schema-driven misattributions or faulty heuristics and instead respond without bias and preconceptions in every case" (Venema 891).  From the results of this study, they allow a broader view on why biases and perceptions entering sexual assault cases need to be more properly addressed by law enforcement. 

Another factor that is influenced by the police force and is in need of change, is how sexual assault and/or rapes are classified and reported.  A meta-analysis on false reporting rates was conducted by Claire E. Ferguson and John M. Malouff  to determine the actual rate of confirmed false reports in sexual assault that were. Through this analysis they emphasize why society needs to accept police classifications of sexual assault and rape at face.  These classifications do not accurately justify the occurrence of false accusations due to biases and classification error when they are not cases under the legal definition of sexual assault (Ferguson and Malouff 3).  From their research, the meta-analysis of false report rate is about five percent and states that " ... a small but significant number of sexual assault reports made to police are confirmed to be false" (Ferguson and Malouff 5).  This lower rate of five percent is different than rates proposed by others. The use of the conservative definition of false allegations of sexual assault does affect the overall rate in occurrence.  In the discussion, Ferguson and Malouff testify how this meta-analysis has significance in dealing with possible changes in the near future by stating "Convincingly demonstrating that rates of false reporting differ from these perceptions may help dilute these views, possibly making reporting sexual assault less difficult for victims and more difficult for false reporters" (Ferguson and Malouff 6).  Along with moderator result of this study, it showed how there is a trend where the United States has a higher rate of false reports than those of other countries through the different studies examined (Ferguson and Malouff 6).  Therefore, in conclusion this article supports and addresses that the changes in the classification coding system need to be made to prevent further occurrence rates of false accusations and false reporting.

A similar study "False Allegations of Sexual Assualt: An Analysis of Ten Years of Reported Cases" , in relation to the meta-analysis case, was conducted by David Lisak, Lori Gardinier, Sarah C. Nicksa, and Ashley M. Cote, that also supports the push for a better classification coding system towards sexual assault.  This analysis was conducted under a ten year period, 1998-2007, where a university in the north east of the United States provided case summaries' for every sexual assault reported to them, looks into the generalized ideals of false reporting by the police force.  During the study, a coding system was used that was broken up into three parts which include, "(1) a review of the literature on false rape reporting and a review of procedures used by police departments to classify rape cases, (2) discussions with senior members of the university police department regarding its methods for classifying and investigating rape reports, and (3) the IACP Downloaded from vaw.sagepub.com by guest on December 21, 2010 1328 Violence Against Women 16(12) policies on classifying rape cases, including its definition of a false rape report" (Lisak et. al. 1327-1328).  At the end of the ten year case study, they found that "When law enforcement personnel believe that half or more of rape reports are fabricated, their approach to victims can easily become more akin to hostile interrogation than to fact finding" (Lisak et. al. 1331).  The study analysis overall proves and agrees that police force's perceptions do affect their attitudes on how they are going to handle a case.  

Police contribute to the final decision that can lead to wrongly convicting a person of sexual assault through improper investigation as well.  The sponsor website SAVE, which is known as Stop Abuse and Violence Environments, is for interest groups around sexual assault and domestic violence interest groups that provide evidence based solution, which in terms of bias is low due to advocating for both sides of argument of those who are victim/survivors and the falsely accused.  SAVE analyzed the exonerations of sexual assault in the United States from the years 1989-2012 to determine the percentage of those wrongly convicted of rape or sexual assault within the analysis time period (SAVE).  They state that of the exoneration, thirty five percent were wrongly convicted of rape and other sexual assaults (SAVE).  Two-hundred and three adult persons were wrongfully convicted and possessed contributing factors under which placed a person under a specific section.  From their research, SAVE gathered the concluding results stating the percentages of the contributing factors that played a role in wrongfully convicting persons of rape or sexual assault.  These percentages within the contributing section of factors include, "Mistaken witness identification: 80%, False or misleading forensic evidence: 37%, Perjury or false accusation: 23%, Official misconduct 18%, False confession: 8%" (SAVE).  In the areas of false accusation and perjury, of the 203 adult persons wrongly accused forty-nine men that were convicted of sexual assault endured hardships that can never be taken back.  These include life sentences and severing in prison for at least 10.7 years before the exoneration (SAVE).  The research of exonerations that SAVE conducted helps aid towards how law enforcement's decisions can affect those who were innocent to be condemned as guilty through a improper form of investigation.  

To justify these findings from these two different studies on how law enforcement and the police force do contribute to false accusation and disbelief of reports, a recent podcast by Ira Glass, on WBEZ Chicago, was produced that covered the effects and aftermath of the police force disbelieving reports to classify them as false reports due to little evidence under the case story of an 18 year old girl named Marie back in August 2008.  Marie reported that a man broke into her apartment with a knife and mask in the middle of the night to blindfolded, gagged her, tie her hands behind her back with shoe laces, and had rapped her.   Not only did Marie report to the police, but two of her former foster mothers Shannon and Peggy as well.  After reporting to all three sources, each one doubted her story if she was actually raped and her behavior or it was for attention, though her former foster mothers felt terrible for doubting her in this situation.  The investigation was not only improperly done, but also traumatizing affecting Marie negatively and psychologically due to no one believing her and the police trying to get her to admit she lied about being raped.  In the interview, Marie stated "I just-- I'm still in shock that they didn't believe me. I was mad, too. I did pound my hand on the table and stuff like that. And the only way they would leave me alone is if I wrote a statement saying that it didn't happen", after all the interrogation she went through for police to prove that the rape did not happen, and that it was only a dream, though it that was actually a reality (This American Life).  Police did not believe Marie until there were several reports later from other females of the same rape incident that had happened to them. Not only did law enforcement and close ones to Marie who were involved feel extremely awful for accusing her of false reporting of a rape case that seemed absurd.  They also felt bad for having her endure the consequences of false reporting that deemed her as a liar in society and the negative psychological affects she faced from these consequences.  In addition, law enforcement also went against the amendment of Title IX where no person should be discriminated by sex in a case/ trial or denied benefits.  This amendment advocates and enforces gender neutrality when handling any kind of case given in law enforcement. Therefore, in all situations when handling rape cases, police and law enforcement should not contribute personal biases and lack of gender neutrality towards cases that will affect the outcome of an investigation.  

Title IX was introduced as a law in 1972 under the U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Officers during the Nixon administration and given the name Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972.  Under this amendment, the U.S. Department of Education justifies its importance by stating, "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under Federal financial assistance", implicating that Title IX should be considered gender neutral (Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972).  In recent years, Title IX has been considered as a notion for women's rights to where it confuses the actual structure of Title IX has been confused as for only women and not men.  Title IX is in place for both males and females to limit the discrimination against one sex or the other.  Lately, this has been ignored and has caused issues with police investigations where both sides of a case are not effectively being heard out.  

In colleges across the United States, they have taken a stand against sexual assault and even advocacy from different campus organizations.  Overall, this campaign is not gender neutral, rather it supports women and deems men as the monster.  Yes, sexual assault by males is higher than in females, but it is not okay to deem one side more than the other for the same unjust crime.  Title IX is supposed to protect the right of each individual until proven guilty, but from the start this gender inequality of segregating males is an opposition to the amendment.  This is why false accusations/ reports come about due to the ignorance towards gender neutrality that sways a case.  This matter was publicized on the Campus Safety & Student Development in the summer of 2015 to address that Title IX is subjected to both males and females, along with different cases that did not abide by gender neutrality.  Each case involved a male who was falsely accused of sexual assault by a female on a college campus.  Within the cases, the men expressed their rights through Title IX, expressed how they made false claims of Title IX against .them, and felt that the colleges disciplinary boards conducted the hearings in a sexist improper manner.  While this article is only applied to me, this article can also be applied to women as well.  This is why gender neutrality is needed when handling sexual assault cases and by hearing out each party with proper investigation before choosing sides swaying the final outcome of a case.  

The narrow line in sexual assault cases concerning false accusation/ reporting of those who are deemed as guilty are innocent, and those who are telling the truth but deemed as liars are the actual victims of the cases.  To eliminate this rise in discrimination of sex, to prevent false accusations/ reports when entering a sexual assault cases, possible flaws where gender neutrality is altered needs to be addressed from previous cases in the viewpoints of  both males and females  along with oppositional arguments to strengthen the credibility for this argument.  Gender neutrality in sexual assault cases is often minimal in the criminal justice system creating sexualization to favor one party over another.  This alteration is established through a case officer's initial intentions or thoughts when entering a case, how the Title IX misinterpretations effect cases as a whole, and the impact that those falsely accused or accused of false reporting encounter from the consequences and the negative psychological effects that take place in and outside the criminal justice system.

