Former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s opinion piece in The New York Times on Harvey Weinstein’s appeal offers an excellent opportunity to interrogate the larger systems in the U.S. that enable violence against women. But Vance’s article excluded a critical piece of the story: his decision not to press charges against Weinstein in 2015 after Ambra Battilana Gutierrez presented a recording of Weinstein admitting to groping her breast.

Women who experience sexual and physical violence are often criticized for delays in reporting. But if institutional inaction and underhandedness are more common responses than not when women do report, then why would they?