What is Victim/Suspect on Netflix about?

Victim/Suspect is a new true crime documentary coming to Netflix. If you’ve ever wondered why people don’t report sexual assaults, this is for you.

“Why didn’t they say something sooner?” or “Why didn’t they make a report?” This is something you hear all the time when women finally come forward about rapes and sexual assaults. There is always the focus on the victim and not the person they say did the crime.

There are a few reasons for not coming forward. One of those is the way the police act when there is a report made. Victim/Suspect goes into that reason, making it loud and clear that there is a major failing in the criminal justice system, and it’s time for that to stop.

Victim/Suspect synopsis

The Netflix documentary sees Rae de Leon look into the various reports of women who have ended up becoming suspects of filing false police reports when they’ve gone to report a rape or a sexual assault. These are victims of a crime who end up being arrested for going to the people who are supposed to protect them.

Why? Well, because the officer they report the crime to doesn’t believe them. There are comments like “why didn’t you scream?” or “you weren’t held down, so you weren’t rape.” As if any of that really matters in the moment. Ask any woman what they’re going to shout if they’re going to call out for help when they’re being raped or attacked. It’s not “help!”, but “fire!” People don’t come when you should for help.

Rae has spent years putting together all these cases of women who have ended up with police reports against them simply because they’re not believed. It’s certainly worth the watch, and stop blaming the women when they don’t come forward. Why bother when this happens?

Check out the promo for Victim/Suspect below:

Victim/Suspect is available on Netflix on Tuesday, May 23.