Domestic violence is growing in numbers in America and there is one select group that is stereotyped for it more than others: athletes. It is a common belief that athletes are more prone to committing acts of domestic violence than the average civilian. While there is truth to that statement, there is one major cause for that stereotype. Athletes get away without charges from domestic violence cases at a higher rate than that of the average civilian. Why is this? Are athletes who are celebrities, of high status, and our role models above the law? As Jeff Benedict says, “Although the subject of athletes and sexual aggression is regularly featured in the media, it is rarely seriously studied” (Benedict 86). Benedict is saying that the public simply turns a blind eye when they see yet another athlete accused of domestic violence because it has become such a normal and common theme in society. These big-name athletes have the resources that they need to get away with these crimes with little to no punishment. Their status as role models and heroes also helps them to get the benefit of the doubt because they are looked at as athletes and not people. If they are an asset to the team winning, anyone can have bias to help him get off easy. There is also a lack of clarity when it comes to the policies and punishments that the leagues have about domestic violence. By looking at the scarce in-depth research of athletes not getting convicted of the domestic violence acts they were accused of, we see that it has been an ongoing problem for many years yet no one is doing anything to stop it because of athlete celebrity status. 

Statistics cannot deny the fact that athletes, when they are accused of domestic violence, have a much lower conviction rate than that of regular civilians. For all the arrests recorded of sexual assault between regular people and athletes, the conviction rate was only thirty-one percent in athletes compared to a fifty-four percent conviction rate for regular civilians (Benedict 87). College athletes compared to the regular students that also attend their universities are convicted at an astonishingly lower conviction rate than the students. Domestic violence is the most commonly accused crime in the National Football League, yet we rarely see any players sitting out a game for being charged of it. Athletes convicted of crimes at the University of Florida were not convicted fifty-six percent of the time, whereas regular students only had their charges dropped twenty-eight percent of the time (College Athletes and Crime). At Michigan State, there is even video of a football player punching and knocking out another man in a restaurant and there were no charges. There seems to be an excuse or reason to make every wrong a right. Starks, plays for the Titans, he was ordered to receive counseling and a one game suspension for fighting his girlfriend. Holmes, choked the mother of his children and slammed her into a door, the charges were dropped because he is participating in counseling (Schuppe). As the statistics show, this is an obvious problem that stems from many causes, including resources and money, lack of clarity of rules and regulations for consequences, inadequate accusers, and innocent until proven guilty to the extreme.     

Professional athletes and college athletes in big Division One programs have access to a seemingly unlimited amount of resources because of the money that their programs profit. From clothes, shoes, and apparel to a top-notch lawyer to get a crime expunged, these organizations have access to all of it. “When athletes are charged with sexual assault, prosecutors routinely encounter obstacles that impair their ability to prosecute” (Benedict 91).  The obstacles that these prosecutors face are the advanced legal teams that are hired by these teams and the money that they have to pay any fine. It is the sad truth that in today’s society, money truly can fix any problem no matter how wrong. In the ESPN study of the University of Florida, the police officers state that athletes get off easier because they have an easier access to legal help than the regular student. Jeff Benedict states, “We must remember that we are dealing with athletes as performers in the entertainment industry. As such they have at their disposal the best legal defense available, as well as institutions devoted to helping them maintain their images in the face of criminal charges” (Benedict 90). These legal resources at the athlete’s disposal will help to keep any athlete on the field with little to no consequence. 

Athletes are treated as role models and are often looked at as heroes by those who follow sports and have loyal support for a team. If they are continued to be looked at in this manner, many people will overlook the wrong doings and crimes as long as they are still performing on the field. Even a jury and a judge can have bias if they like the player or the team that the player plays for. Athletes feel that they are above the law because they feel as if they have the resources to cover their wrong doings. “Combine selective enforcement of the league’s policy and potential bias on the part of law enforcement and juries with the fame and glory of being a professional athlete, and we create a class of individuals who feel above reproach” (Withers). Withers describes that many teams almost ignore the off the field violence of the players on their teams just so they can continue to make profit off of the athlete. It is back to Benedict’s point that this is an entertainment industry and that is all it as seen as. All of these resources and money make the athletes believe that they can get away with anything especially when there are unclear expectations and rules from their teams and organizations.      

There is a common lack of understanding when it comes to the league’s policies and punishments of committing an act of domestic violence. The punishments for domestic violence vary from case to case, sometimes reflecting the quality of the player, other times based on what evidence is presented, and even based on the coach’s decision. This inconsistency of each case has been an ongoing problem in the NFL for years. “The cases, some dating back nearly a decade, reflect the NFL’s evolving and sometimes erratic approach to domestic violence. The league has struggled to balance justice, fairness and its obligations to the players’ union, but has failed to satisfy critics who say that, too often, the game fails to hold itself and its players accountable” (Schuppe). Technically, the NFL suspension policy for a minor domestic violence crime is to go to counseling and also to be suspended six games, yet we have not seen this six-game suspension be upheld for as long as the policy has been in place. As also stated earlier, there is often a direct correlation statistically between the fact that the higher quality the player, the lower the conviction rate, yet the NFL’s policy states, “if you would punish the fourth-string receiver, the starting quarterback should also be punished when involved in a similar incident” (Withers). The league policy also says it holds its employees and players to a higher standard than the public, which is directly disproven by many statistics mentioned in paragraph one. 

The policies of the professional sports leagues are so inconsistent that “Of the four major leagues – the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL – the NFL is the only one to have a specific policy on domestic violence” (Mandell). Even though the NFL has a policy, it is so unclear and inconsistent that many times cases are either dismissed without punishment or are given the wrong punishment because no one is aware what the expectations for the rules even are. Policies are often waived and forgotten about because of similar excuses like “We have higher expectations and standards, and it was a distraction to our team during an important time this summer” (Mandell). Danny Ainge who is the General /manager of the Boston Celtics, said this of Jared Sullinger’s conviction of domestic violence. Sullinger was only suspended for one game because it would have been too big of a distraction to do the right thing. Winning takes precedence over punishing players in almost every domestic violence situation, which is why the league rules and policies are so unclear. According to studies done by ESPN, when the University of Florida was in the midst of their national championship run, Chris Rainey had run ins with the law eight times, yet he only faced charges once. The policy for the NCAA was overlooked because Florida was on a run to the national title and Rainey was their starting running back. This inconsistency of league policies to convict athletes based on performance leads to other cases getting away without charges as well. 

For an athlete to be convicted of a crime, it is going to take someone who also holds a very high status and holds a lot of money. Often times, people are afraid to accuse athletes because of the backlash they would receive from the fans and community about getting one of the team’s best players suspended. “Bringing charges against a Cornhusker was sure to attract a great deal of negative publicity for the entire program” (Benedict 113). No one wants to be the one to make an organization look bad because of the reputation they will get after. In Jeff Benedicts book, he tells a case of a woman who was sexual assaulted by a Nebraska football player, and even though her dad was a lawyer, there was nothing that he could do to convict the player of assault because of the backlash from the community and the resources that the program had to fight back. The daughter ended up being more emotionally misdraught because of the threats and backlash from the community then from the actual incident. 

This woman was even named Miss-Nebraska, and even with that celebrity status she could not convict a Nebraska football player. That is why Benedict says, “It takes Miss America to convict an All-American” (Benedict 106). In a big college program like Nebraska, Benedict says, “If you wear the red and white, the law can’t touch you” (Benedict 111). Miss Nebraska found this out in her case, and realized that she simply did not have the status or the money to make the case even close to being guilty because of the community faith to the program and the resources they have. The reason that many athletes professionally and also in college do not get convicted of their crimes is because the person who reports them is a nobody. The community has the back of the athlete not the accuser. Communities that surround a big team will do anything to see the team win, so when a player is convicted, it is almost impossible to get a fair jury to try the case. This is the same for almost any big school that is in a power conference across America as well as any professional sports team in a big city. 

The NFL is just more of the same at the next level, except the players can even pay for themselves this time around. Being able to get away with domestic violence for many players starts in college and then is brought to the NFL. If players find out that they can get away with these crimes in college, then they know that nothing is stopping them from doing it at the next level. This needs to stop, and we need to start holding more college players accountable for their actions so they know it is not okay to do even in the NFL.  

Players seemingly get away with no charges when there is simply no evidence to support the claims. In almost every domestic violence case, there is no evidence except for the woman who makes the charge. When there is no evidence, the athlete who has status will get away with the crime more likely than not. One of the best types of evidence is video evidence. When video evidence is released to the public, it is very hard to overturn and say that the athlete is not guilty because if he gets away with it, then the organization will look bad. An example of this is the Ray Rice scandal, because there was video evidence of him knocking out his wife, he was convicted of domestic violence, where as, Hardy of the Dallas Cowboys beat his girlfriend and she had bruises head to toe, yet he barely served a one game suspension (Mandell). The use of a camera shows all the difference, because Ray Rice will most likely never play in the NFL ever again, yet there are athletes who have committed much worse crimes and acts of violence who are still playing and making their salary in the NFL today. 

Refutes to my claim comes from a CNN video called “NFL Stars and Domestic Violence.” This video talks about how it is often sometimes unfair to say that athletes are convicted at a lower rate than any civilian cases, because they are more targets than any other civilians. Two former NFL players bring their perspective and state that more women accuse star NFL players of sexual assault and rape to try and get attention and money. No woman is going to want to stage a rape on a infamous regular civilian person because there is nothing to gain out of it. This incident was seen in the Jameis Winston case when he was accused of rape, but the allegations turned out to be completely false. Another refute is that all of the focus in the media about NFL players is negative and is about domestic violence, while there is also a lot of good that the players do as well. They have non-profit organizations such as the Tim Tebow Foundation, help out the communities the best they can and food drives or maybe homeless shelters, and also give money to different organizations such as Children’s Hospital. Not every NFL player is an animal, although there are a fair share. The domestic violence makes all players look bad and all have a bad reputation. 

However, there are numerous instances where the good that an athlete does often stems from the bad. Many players get involved in these organizations and counseling to cover up their own bad deeds. Take Ray Rice for example; after he was convicted of domestic violence, he joined an organization to stand up against domestic violence. Players are told to join certain programs to make it look like they are on the path to recovery, when really the organization has no care for the character of the player, but instead only what their skill level can bring to the team. This may be wrong, but once again, it is an entertainment business, and that is the job of everyone in the organization, including the players.   

Athletes hold a celebrity status, and it is hard to accuse a big name athlete of domestic violence because of their status and the organizations that back them with endless legal resources. This has been a problem for many years, essentially as soon as sports became an entertainment business which made athletes into celebrities. The media is filled with reports stating that athletes are getting convicted of crimes left and right, yet they never show if they are going to be convicted or not. There is limited research on this topic, yet it is clearly a problem, because with each case of athletes getting away with domestic violence, then another one will think that they are above the law and can get away with it too. In order to fix this problem, we have to keep our idols, role models, and also our kids’ role models in check so it will not set bad examples. Athletes are only held to their value as players by their organizations, but that does not mean that they should be held to a lower standard of moral character. There is direct evidence that athletes get away with crimes at a higher rate than civilians, but we need to change this by putting the right people on the court to try the case, to make sure it is equal like every other trial. This is a hard thing to do because of the wealth that the organizations have, so this also may be a reason that explains why this has been a problem for decades. There is just no good way to try the case even if the judge and jury is fair because the athlete will always have access to the better lawyer. Money almost always wins, just like how rich people are rarely convicted of crimes and poor people are often wrongly convicted. 
