The mystery of investigation

One of the things that is most fascinating, and appalling, about the ongoing "manure show" that is the scandal surrounding Larry Nassar's crimes is the question of how over 80% of sexual assault complaints go nowhere with investigators--and that of the 31% or so where a complaint is actually made to the police.  For reference, about 18-19% result in an arrest, 3-4% result in an indictment, and about 2% result in a felony conviction involving jail time.  Conversely, about 2-10% result in the police deciding that it was a false accusation.


Speaking to this is this recent tweet by the attorney for many of Nassar's survivors, John Manly.  He notes that the documents he's read indicate that survivors were told that if they spoke up, it would endanger the police investigation--and this apparently kept many from going public with their complaints.


What this says to me is that a lot of people simply do not understand how the criminal justice system works--when told "there is an investigation", shouldn't our immediate response be "tell me who the investigating officer is and I'll be sure to talk to him."?  And if the person we're talking to hedges, shouldn't we just say "Well, the offence occurred in such and such town, I'll just give them a call right now."? 


In other words, despite our civics educations (or lack thereof), it appears that for a huge portion of Americans, the criminal justice system is a mystery.  Perhaps if we took things seriously and told people how they go from a crime to a complaint, and how a complaint becomes an indictment, and an indictment becomes a conviction, we would get somewhere.