Biden: Rape victims fear being 'raped again by the system'

At a fundraiser for the DC Volunteer Lawyers Project on Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden said that many sexual assault victims fear getting "raped again by the system," CBS News reported on Thursday.

"You'll often hear men say, why don't they just leave?" Biden explained. "I ask them, how many of them have seen the movie 'Deliverance'? And every man will raise his hand. And I'll say, what's one scene you remember in 'Deliverance'? And every man here knows exactly the scene I'm thinking of. After those guys tied that one guy to the tree and raped him, men raped him in the film, why didn't that guy go to the sheriff?"

"Why wouldn't you go the sheriff? The reason why is, they're ashamed, embarrassed. Why do you think who get raped, so many don't report it? They don't want to get raped again by the system."

The DC Volunteer Lawyers Project, which was founded in 2008, provides free legal assistance to low-income residents in the nation's capital, including handling low-income domestic violence cases. Biden said that the group was "doing God's work."

According to the DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the Metropolitan police department responded to 29,000 domestic-related crime calls in 2006, the equivalent of one every 19 minutes and D.C.'s teen dating violence rate is among the highest in the nation.

Watch the video, posted by CBS News.

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(h/t The Associated Press)

[Photo of Biden via DC Volunteer Lawyers Project's Facebook page]