A 28-page probation officer’s report completed in September of that year presented a broadly sympathetic portrait of Mr. Polanski and his behavior, even while acknowledging that the victim, Samantha Geimer (who has since publicly identified herself), had offered grand jury testimony of forcible rape.

Submitted by the acting probation officer Kenneth F. Fare, and signed by a deputy, Irwin Gold, that report, which recommended against further jail time, said “the present offense appears to have been spontaneous and an exercise of poor judgment by the defendant.”

In a further conclusion that appeared to shed blame on the victim, it said, “There was some indication that circumstances were provocative, that there was some permissiveness by the mother,” who had allowed Ms. Geimer to spend time with Mr. Polanski. And, in a conclusion that might particularly jar readers today, it pointed toward evidence “that the victim was not only physically mature, but willing.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/movies/11polanski.html?_r=1&bl

It’s very hard for victims to look into a mirror.  The reflection at first is black and white.  And then suddenly there are these shades of gray. I know because I’m a victim who looked into a mirror.  

Those shades of gray run from completely innocent to completely guilty.  They don’t make us less a victim nor do they make someone else less a victimizer.  But they are there. And everyone from the police to the prosecutors to the juries see the gray. That is reality.  The mob never does. But then our system of justice is such that we do not allow the mob to determine innocence or guilt. Or punishment.  Sadly, it times, the mob prevails just the same.

We as a society also have to look in the mirror. And we have to look at the grays as well as the black and white.