Harvey Weinstein

Making corporations much more vulnerable to suits, regulatory costs, and criminal charges for such behavior is long overdue.

What do they do now?

Coverups, intimidation, and payoffs.

And given that fear causes so many women to keep it dark for so long, the stories coming out all at once, as with Cosby, only after some straw breaks the camel's back, statutes of limitations that protect sexual predators and rapists for crimes not prosecuted fairly quickly should be revised.

Why is it so hard to prosecute this stuff? 

There is never any physical evidence and rarely corroboration for the accusations of any one victim.

A multitude of victims coming forward can easily convince us that there is a pattern and that it is much more likely than not that some, even most, and perhaps even all, of the accusations are true.

But that doesn't by itself make any individual accusation probable beyond reasonable doubt.

Still, there is no question of logical proof in a courtroom. 

Moral confidence, not mathematical certainty, is what is required and aimed at. 

But anything that is known to increase the statistical likelihood of the accused committing the crime in question at all does and should increase the subjective probability of his guilt in any particular case, helping arrive at moral confidence. 

Hence for some types of crimes, sex crimes among them, police look at known offenders. 

A multitude of accusations concerning separate occasions as well as any previous convictions should and does make any individual accusation more credible. 

But that is no guarantee that sort of thing is admissible evidence.

Maybe it should be. 

Ask any insurance company whether the past is a valid clue of the present and future. 

Ask any law enforcement agency about recidivism, repeat offenders, and professional or habitual criminals. 

Among them, for example, serial rapists. 

Once bitten, twice shy.