Numbers on false rape accusation ?

a-man-from-earth · 2022-01-13T00:52:04+00:00

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315728247_The_Prevalence_of_False_Allegations_of_Rape_in_the_United_States_from_2006-2010

According to that document the FBI classifies about 5.5% of rape allegations as unfounded (including false and baseless). But the vast majority of cases cannot be determined one way or the other. So the real number of false allegations is likely higher.

DekajaSukunda · 2022-01-13T03:48:03+00:00

I think limiting it to "rape" and court cases can be counterproductive. Nowadays the type of accusations most guys refer and are worried about happen within workplaces, college campuses, schools, etc. They aren't legal procedures.

Rockbottom503 · 2022-01-13T11:55:26+00:00

'The glass blind spot' on YouTube did a truly excellent video on this.

https://youtu.be/7e7T4BBKkXM

Imagine living on a street where the pavement is absolutely littered with festering dog turds. You witness several owners allowing their animals to deficate who then refuse to clear up after them, the dog wardens have never randomly been in your area, ever, so are never around to see it and issue the fines/take action but the literal evidence of the wrongdoing is all around. So, you figure you'll call the local authority to complain and expect something be done. Imagine if their response was 'sorry dude, we aren't going to clean up the street or send a warden out to cat h these people and issue fines.' you ask why and just get told 'well, our records show that not a single fine was issued in that area for dog fouling and our street cleaners have never had to visit that area before either so there clearly isn't a problem, maybe you're just imagining it'.

That's precisely what's happening with false accusations. Their official stance is that it is presumed to not be in the public interest to prosecute a false accuser for fear of putting off real victims from reporting. The authorities are now simply refusing to prosecute for all but the most blatant examples, and are then turning around when people ask them to clean up the neighborhood and saying 'no, there can't be a problem here, look at the drastically low number of prosecutions we've made! Nobody makes false accusations, it's not worth committing resources to such a rare crime' and so, the merry go round continues.

A pitifully low number of rape trials end in conviction, an even more pitiful number of reported rapes make it to prosecution. Why?!?! Because there has to be a realistic prospect of a conviction to get it to trial...... Evidence. It stands to reason that the majority of false accusations would be found here! The real issue though is that just having the accusation made against them and the police conducting a prolonged investigation, can be enough for men to lose livelihoods, families and homes even if it never goes to trial! Now, I'm not going to pretend that none of these cases aren't 'real rapes' but, equally, it's just as ludicrous to pretend that 100% of all rape cases reported must be real unless the accuser ends up convicted of making a false allegation!

The_Mura · 2022-01-13T03:22:41+00:00

Rape stats will pretty much never be reliable. Many of them go unreported. And it can be pretty hard to prove the ones that do. Some of them are regretted sex, likely influenced by alcohol. I wouldn't bother trying to use stats to prove any sort of point about rape accusations. However, you should make a distinction between sexual assaults and rape. Many of the stats you will read will reference sexual assaults, but this is actually a misleading way to report sex crimes. Sexual assault covers a very wide range of offenses that vary in severity, most of them not fitting the definition of "rape". I have had my ass grabbed by strangers twice, and once had a gay guy try to hold on to my wrist by force as I tried to pull away. In the most technical sense, I could say that I, as a man, have been sexually assaulted three times in my life. But none of these are rape, so when looking at stats make sure they are not shoveling in "sexual assaults" to boost their numbers.

RoryTate · 2022-01-13T17:20:26+00:00

Here is a link to one of the best breakdowns regarding the known statistics of false accusations. This one is especially good since the post refutes a "fact check" that false rape claims are "rare" (spoiler: it proves that false rape claims are not "rare" – and are actually quite common – once the details emerge).

If you don't have time to go through it in full, one of the most important details (IMO) in the post is the statistic that 17.9% of rape cases (from one of the most cited studies in the "fact check") were marked after police investigation with the disposition: "Closed as an informational report". This means the accusation did not meet the standards of a crime, and it was closed as a non-criminal report. That is about 1 in 5 cases. And these are false accusations, because ignorance of the law does not somehow mean "my truth" becomes "objective truth".

There actually exists a very famous example of this kind of case, to see exactly what is happening here. This is the Aziz Ansari situation, where he was accused of rape (and he lost employment and his professional reputation as a result of the accusation), but the details in her social media post did not meet the legal requirements for a crime. Indeed, it appeared from her own words that she pulled down his pants and actively performed oral sex on him, and that she was not drunk and possessed all of her faculties and autonomy when doing so, but later said she was uncomfortable doing these things and decided that she regretted them after she left.

If a police investigation occurred into this particular claim against Aziz Ansari, I am confident that it would be marked with the "Closed as an informational report" type of disposition. But do not let this clinical language fool you, these are false accusations just as much as the ones where the claimant deliberately lies about such claims (again, ignorance about the legal system is not a justification for what amounts to a dishonest claim), and it is certain that the 1 in 5 number for police reports is a lowbar when estimating the ones that are adjudicated instead by the mob (whether that mob exists on social media or university campuses or elsewhere). So what happens if as high as 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 accusations do not meet the criteria for a crime, yet those extreme claims are still treated as "rape" by non-law enforcement personnel? And then punished (here are the online search results for "Michael Fife death") as having been "rape"? Is this what we want in a fair and just society?

I know some people would say that this kind of mistake is honest and should not be considered "false" (indeed, the very criteria used in some ideologically driven studies for declaring a case "false" knowingly rules these out). And just to be clear, I'm not saying this directly to you, since you are asking us this question only because of the debates you have been in where you have taken up a contrarian position but aren't quite sure why you've done so, and you are not just trying to present counter-arguments by pretending to be "on our side" or anything like that, so just see this as the way to deal with people who would try to justify this type of dishonesty.

Let's just step back for a moment and consider an analagous situation with less emotional baggage than a rape accusation: I used to be a manager overseeing a dozen people in a mid-sized company. I often had to deal with tardiness and people leaving early, and other such behaviour. My boss – the owner – was very clear in that she felt these actions were the equivalent of an employee stealing from the company. And in a sense, they were, because the employee was stealing part of a paycheque for no time spent working. So she wanted us to treat it as such, and also had things she would constantly do to see who was still in the office, by calling other people to do spot checks on everyone else and more. Fine, I guess, that was her corporate culture. But here's the question: when I was getting called by other businesses to give references for former employees (and I had to do this at least a half dozen times over many years), would it be fair for me to say that the former employee "stole from the company"? Obviously, that statement has a much more significant meaning than just "they were often late for work". Yet, it was "just part of our culture" and the way we were made to work with those things. Well, it should be obvious that I never said any such damning thing about a former employee, because I immediately recognized the situation when talking with other businesses, and I would not pretend or delude myself into believing such an obvious lie. There are much better and more honest ways to present such information, especially when other people's lives and livelihoods are in your hands. To be so casual with such explosive definitions is enough to constitute criminal negligence at best, and it is extreme malicious intent in the majority of cases.

VincentPhil · 2022-01-13T21:06:44+00:00

This short video about how rape statistics are manipulated to get those results explains it in an elegantly simple way.

StarZax · 2022-01-13T09:49:06+00:00

Thanks a lot for your comments guys, it genuinely makes me think about how I could better talk about the subject next time I have the opportunity, I'll explore more but having different opinions was the thing I needed

BloomingBrains · 2022-01-13T20:53:39+00:00

Not to sound condescending at all, but does it really matter? What purpose does arguing about how often it happens serve? The exact rarity of a crime in no way correlates to how heinous that crime itself is.

Maybe its 5%, maybe its 10%, maybe its 30%. Who knows? The important question is what should be done about it. And currently, in most cases they don't prosecute false accusers. Even if its only .00001%, we should take it very seriously and punish false accusers to deter others from doing it.

No-Transportation635 · 2022-01-13T03:09:50+00:00

Why do you need to be "convinced yourself"?

You should convince yourself of what there is the most evidence for - in this case about 5% of rape accusations are fake.

Don't hunt for statistics to support your point of view - look for statistics so you can better understand the world.

rochesterslim · 2022-01-13T06:00:34+00:00

no way of knowing sadly. unless someone records it, you can know either way.

DavidKaczynski · 2022-01-19T00:45:12+00:00

I've read anecdotes from police chiefs who put the number around 50%, for stories that don't add up. It doesn't prove anything, but it's interesting to hear about in regard to the patterns the come up again and again. I don't have a link, but I can say they sounded like competent people who want to protect women.

Based on psychology, I would think it's even higher. Women who are actually raped are embarrassed and don't directly gain from prosecution. Just consider for a moment the number of cases that are reported to the media or a school instead of to police.

If we look at the definition of rape, entire classes of it ought to be thrown out. Date rape probably has an extremely high rate of fraud whereas forcible rape or statutory rape would be much lower.

When DNA testing became widespread, rape conviction rates plummeted. That means not only was there no rape, there wasn't even any sex, period. If you can find stats on this, you can extrapolate a portion of the fraud.

Rape has the highest rate of exoneration, convictions that are later overturned. It helps show the direction and degree of bias.

There was a woman in England who cried rape 10 times before they finally decided to give her a slap on the wrist. There are many incentives to lie.

Title	Numbers on false rape accusation ?
Author	StarZax
Upvotes	22
Comments	15
Date	January 12, 2022 11:51 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/s2kqx4/numbers_on_false_rape_accusation/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/numbers-on-false-rape-accusation.1095627 https://theredarchive.com/post/1095627

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