Rape Myth #1: Women make false rape accusations all the time

[polimicks]

Bullshit.

According to the FBI, only 8% of all rapes reported in the US are "unfounded" but not necessarily false. (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/Cius_97/96CRIME/96crime2.pdf) 1997 was the last report in which they calculated that.
Figures in the UK bear this out as well. (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hors293.pdf)

Here's some statistics from http://www.rainn.org
Only an estimated 40% of sexual assaults get reported.
Of that 40% only 50% of those will even be arrested.
Only an estimated 6% of rapists will spend a DAY in jail. Not prison, jail.

On this page of the RAINN site: http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates
It shows a tree of the disposition of reported rapes.
If you want you can go see it. I did the math, it works out.

So, as a means of vengeance, false rape reporting has a really piss poor chance of coming to any fruition. I mean, there's only a 50/50 chance the victim of a false report will even be arrested. Seriously, there are way more effective and sure ways to get revenge.

Ok, now apart from the fact that it's highly unlikely to come to fruition, add into the equation that when a woman accuses a man of rape, her entire life is turned upside down and put under a microscope. Her entire sexual history will go on trial. She'll have to justify every sexual act she has ever performed with anyone ever. She'll be accused of being a promiscuous whore who wanted it. Her clothing will be scrutinized. Her comings and goings. Does she drink? Does she wear a thong? Was she wearing lacey underwear?

And if you thinks it's only adult women with suspect motives who are on the receiving end of these questions, just read the transcripts from a few child rape trials as well. Seriously, it will turn your stomach to hear defense lawyers and defendants telling a jury in all honesty that a ten year old girl wanted sex.

The US and UK legal systems are not friendly even to women who come to them with a mountain of evidence, how much less friendly do you think they are to someone with only a story? Even when the story is true, it's almost impossible to get a charge of rape taken seriously, even if you are a grandmother, nun or child, particularly without evidence.

Ok, so all that aside, of the 40% of all rapes, the ones that actually get reported, only 8% of that 40% are unfounded, not necessarily false, just lacking evidence. Some of those are victims who are bullied in recanting by their families and friends, or out of fear of the rapist or his family and friends.

Given how I've seen actual rape victims treated, pretty much with all the tact and sensitivity of raw liver, very, very few women would ever willingly put themselves through that to "get back at" anyone. Seriously.

Think about it.

Comments

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

My best friend's sister, whom I've known since she was three, is a police officer. When she was in the Family Protection Unit, she was taught that the majority of people who make rape allegations are lying. This shocks but sadly does not surprise me. I'm also aware that police departments are proud of themselves when rape convictions drop in number, because hey, that can't possibly mean that they're catching fewer rapists, it means there's less crime happening on their watch!

Those stats you quote are a lot more optimistic than the ones I've heard (UK here). According to a study quoted on the Rape Crisis (http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/stats.html) website, only 6% of reported rapes end in a conviction. Then we need to divide that by how many rapes are reported in the first place. 40% sounds incredibly high to me, I can't find them (and am in no mood to look right now, I'm afraid) but I've always heard figures more along the lines of 5% of rapes actually getting reported. That gives us 0.3% of rapists ending up behind bars. The link also discusses at what stage in the proceedings rape cases get dropped. I wonder why we're getting such different stats? I somehow doubt that the US is that much better than the UK at dealing with rape, it usually sounds about the same to me.

[polimicks.livejournal.com]

Maybe ours are more optimistic.

I've heard statistics as low as 15% of all rapes get reported, and as high as 50%.

The RAINN.ORG site is generally pretty good and reliable, which is why I went to them. I think the PACAR site says that 31% get reported.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

If The Wire is anything to go by, there's an awful lot of massaging crime stats over there. But then that probably happens everywhere.

50%? Yeah, right. Maybe if that's only including the women who were raped by a strange armed man leaping out from behind a bush with witnesses present. A hell of a lot of the people I know have been raped or sexually assaulted, but to my knowledge only one went to the police.

[ayeshadream.livejournal.com]

Thank you for covering this one. I can't even begin to say anything on the subject as I wouldn't even know where to start that isn't just insensible screaming.

[(Anonymous)]

ood post.

ps- love that you have mr. yuck as yr avatar. havent seen him for years.

You are trying to eliminate presumption of innocence

[(Anonymous)]

Polimicks,
You need to get into your head that "unfounded" is another term for "false" for all practical judicial purposes. If you cannot prove something in a criminal case beyond a reasonable doubt, you are lying. Accuser bears the burden of proof, otherwise charges are frivolous.
It's only natural if the accuser should be scrutinized. Because it's all about consent, which women are known to rarely ever exhibit explicitly. How many women state out loud and clear to a guy they just met at a party "I want to have sex with you right now"? Not a sober one, that's for sure, because it will make her look like a slut in everyone's eyes. If the accuser acts like she wanted it, was dressed to sexually attract, and has a history of such behavior there is much doubt she "didn't want it". It's the only venue left to determine existence of consent, because she'll never admit she wanted it, for then she becomes not just a whore, but a lying whore.
Contrary to common sense, rape shield laws have been passed that prevent accuser's sexual history from being used by defense in court. That is not the case for the defendant. Why? How about equal treatment?
And what is all this BS about 40% "getting reported"? If something is not reported, it cannot be considered a statistic. If so-called "victims" themselves did not bother to act who are we to say they should have? Oh, maybe by rampaging feminist standards where every sexual act must be accompanied by a written contract with a notary present? These "not reported" statistics are bogus and scientifically invalid. They are nothing but an attempt to play with actual rape statistics to make the issue bigger than it actually is, with a goal of relaxing burden of proof on the accuser. If we go that route, all that will be required to prove someone is guilty of something will be pointing a finger.
Can't allow that. Innocent until PROVEN guilty. Don't try to turn that fundamental principle of justice upside down.

Re: You are trying to eliminate presumption of innocence

[polimicks.livejournal.com]

No. "Unfounded" simply means "Not enough evidence to prosecute." False means false, troll.

When a rape accusation is demonstrably false, the prosecuter should file whatever charge covers that in their state.

Now either develop the testicular fortitude to sign/own your responses or fuck off.

Coward.

Re: You are trying to eliminate presumption of innocence

[(Anonymous)]

There, you said it, "not enough evidence". Since we have no power to know what really happened, we use evidence. Thankfully, there are judicial procedures in place to prevent foul-mouthed extremists such as yourself from making finger-pointing into "enough evidence". You are obviously promoting a system where a simple accusation is sufficient to imprison an innocent person.
The words "troll", "fuck off", and "coward" are not helping either. You are trying to compensate for your lack of valid arguments. Give it another shot and finally get that high school diploma, please.
"Polimicks" is just as meaningless as "Anonymous", it does not make you any better and has nothing to do with this discussion. I will sign the way I choose and there is nothing you can do about it.

Re: You are trying to eliminate presumption of innocence

[polimicks.livejournal.com]

Sigh.

No, not trying to eliminate presumption of innocence. By assuming that an "Unfounded" accusation means the woman is automatically lying, you are the one trying to eliminate the presumption of innocence.

No one is saying put the guys with the "unfounded" charges on a watch list, or sex offenders registry.

But neither should the woman be automatically labeled a liar either. If the police think it was a purposeful false charge and have evidence to back it up (and frequently when they don't) the woman will be charged.

And this lj links to my regular lj and also to an online column I write under my own name. Not going to do your homework for you, coward.

And I'm sorry if being foul-mouthed offends you. Wait, no I'm not. You're an anonymous troll. Don't like being called a troll? Don't act like one.

Idiot.

...

[(Anonymous)]

"false rape reporting has a really piss poor chance of coming to any fruition"

You don't need to win a trial to make a hell of a man's life. You don't have much sensitivity either if you haven't noticed that filing a police report and starting a rumor is enough to destroy someone's reputation.

Life isn't easy if everyone in your town suspect you of being a rapist.

Anonymous

[(Anonymous)]

A person doesn't need to go to jail to be damaged by a false rape charge. I've met women who tend to accuse every ex boyfriend they've had of raping them. I don't mean most, I mean every. And no, I don't mean they file charges. But some women do, out of anger, vengeance, frustration, or simply a need to "hurt" the man. Getting caught up in the legal system is hell. It's frustrating, costly, and no matter the outcome is damaging to a person's reputation. It gives them a record. A record that later in life, perhaps in a divorce, can be used against them. It causes permanent damage.
Yes, there are better ways of getting revenge, like having nut job friends stalk, attack, or attempt to kill the man. However, I tend to take legal accusations of a sexual nature, like those of a non-sexual nature. Assault for instance. If it wasn't caught on tape, wasn't witnesses by another party (hopefully objective to bare any weight), then the event didn't happen. (I make exceptions to instances where ruffies were found in a toxicology report, with obvious signs of rape._

If you feel this view point offers little to no protection to women from a legal stand point, then please, carry a gun. It's what they're there for.

Re: Anonymous

[polimicks.livejournal.com]

Bullshit, anonymous. Absolute bullshit.

Here's the thing, if people know one or two crazy guys, they say, "Wow, that (those) guys are crazy." When they know one or two crazy women, they say, "All women are crazy."

Seriously, social accusations of rape are not the equivalent of official accusations.

And unfounded accusation of rape, again UNFOUNDED, not false, make up less than 8% of all rape accusation, with demonstrably false ones making up about 2%, as far as the latest studies by the DOJ show. Yes, that bastion of Feminism, the DOJ.

Seriously, very, very few women are willing to put themselves through the HELL that is filing a sexual assault/rape complaint unnecessarily. Go sit in on a few rape/child molestation/sexual assault trials and see if you can figure out why that is.

Rapes

[(Anonymous)]

One thing that shocked me about UK rape statistics was that they are totally meaningless. In the UK every allegation is counted as a rape regardless of whether any allegation reaches court or not. This must distort the actual number of rapes taking place and hence give a very misleading conviction rate. Imagine, a 100 allegations and only 10 go to court, even if you end up with 10 convictions, that appears to only have a 10% conviction rate. But if the number of false were allegations were 90, then we have a 100% conviction rate.

I have no idea what the false allegation rate is, listen to some it's 2%, others say 90%. Some say no woman lies about rape because none would put themselves through that ordeal. Well that I disagree with. I know people in the police force and prison service who know that women indeed do lie about rape for any number of reasons. There is more reporting on these false allegations in the media and the police forces are beginning to acknowledge there is a problem. In the UK there is even incentive to lie about rape. Some women have been caught out making fictional rape accounts to gain compensation from the criminal injuries board - worth around £11,000.

Personally, I don't think anyone really knows how many false allegations there are or indeed the number of actual rapes. But one way to secure more convictions and deter false allegations would be to introduce tougher standards of evidence and polygraph testing of BOTH the man and woman.

Re: Rapes

[polimicks.livejournal.com]

Actually, figures on "Unfounded Rape Accusations" both in the US and UK are pretty consistently close to 8% as you'll see from the links above.

That would be unfounded. False is a smaller subsection of that, around 2-3%. I'm not going to keep repeating myself. Nowhere do I say NO women lie about rape. Just that it's not the epidemic rape apologists seem to think it is.

Just as child abduction by stranger rates have gone down since the 1970s, yet people think they've increased due to media coverage, the same with false rape accusations.

Being a cop does not magically grant one the ability to tell if someone male or female has been raped. Nor does it make them exempt from the conditionning endemic to our society about how rape is perceived.

Re: Rapes

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, but you can destroy a man's life even without him being convicted at the end of the trial. Your name won't be released to the public even if you're proven wrong, but the man will be labelled a rapist forever. Also, juries are male-dominated, so it is biased against male defendants. So it's one of the "best" way to destroy a man's life and I think women will go through with it.

Also, you said that the conviction rate was like 6% (?), so that must mean that there was not enough evidence to convict the other 94% who were arrested. So of the people who were arrested, most were proved innocent. However, ALL those men will probably have a 'rapist' label attached to them for the rest of their life, while rape shield laws and whatever other stuff you've got in America protects the false rapists who accused the innocent 94%. And remember, it's your statistics, not mine! :)

One more thing: the reason I am not going to put my LiveJournal ID or whatever in my comment is that I don't have one, and I don't intend to create one just to comment.

-Anonymous

Re: You are trying to eliminate presumption of innocence

[(Anonymous)]

Not enough evidence doesn't mean it didn't happen, I was one of those victims who s case was dropped due to lack of evidence. I have pictures to prove, my rape was brutal I ended up in the hospital and had to have a surgery I was drugged, but because I showered before I went to the hospital DA dropped my case, the justice is blind u can arguee both sides all you want, untill it happens to u, ur sister, ur mother, ur friend, then its real and raw in your face, and no one does anything about such crimes due to the lack of evidence. Think about it.

Re: You are trying to eliminate presumption of innocence

[polimicks.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry you had to go through that.

Thank you for speaking up here.