This month, Start By Believing is observing its 10-year anniversary. SBB describes itself as:

• "The global campaign transforming the way we respond to sexual assault."

The question is, Has that transformation been good or bad?

Part of the answer comes from the National Registry of Exonerations, which has tracked all exonerations since 1989. To date, there have been 342 exonerations for wrongful convictions of sexual assault -- see the names of six of these persons in the image, above. You'll also notice that 5 out of the 6 men are Black.

342 wrongfully convicted persons represents 12.3% of all exonerations. If you click on the name of the persons, you'll see summaries of the case, how the men were wrongfully accused, and the difficult exoneration process. These are men who spent many years behind bars because of a flawed legal process.

Of course, Start By Believing takes of dim view of the whole idea of false allegations, as revealed by its 2020 report, "Raped, Then Jailed: The
Risks of Prosecution for Falsely Reporting Sexual Assault."

Of course, the discussion of this issue would be much easier if SBB started referring to accusers as "complainants," not "victims."

We're crossing our fingers.

Sincerely,

Edward Bartlett

P.S. We just reached 4,600 persons who have signed our petition....YAY!