Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town

I’m a huge Jon Krakauer fan. I loved Into Thin Air, Into The Wild and Under the Banner of Heaven. I am also a lawyer interested in social justice issues so I decided to read Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town even though I knew that the experience would probably not be a joyous one. I was not prepared for a horrific twist ending regarding the Missoula County Attorney’s Office,which left me shaken and disturbed. It is all the more terrifying because Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town is a nonfiction book involving a real town and real people.
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town looks at the situation from the rape survivor’s perspective, her family’s, the cop, the prosecutor and defense attorney, the university, and the rapist’s family and supporters. After reading Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, whenever I see a news story about people mourning the loss of a young woman’s life, I think, “If she was raped by a local sports hero, you would be heckling her instead even if he confessed.” Jon Krakauer chillingly stresses that Missoula is no better or worse than other college towns, but you would expect better from residents of a small town where everyone has known each other since infancy. Instead people take sides, and if humanity’s existence depends on proving our worth in these scenarios, humanity would get judged as the worst and not worthy of saving.
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town is a must read and is incredibly well-written, but even if you know plenty about the subject matter and no matter how prepared you are for the inherently depressing nature of this story, you will not be prepared for the fact that everyone seems willing to do better except those who exercise the most discretion.