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False Rape Allegations - Official Figures From Bedfordshire Police - Requested Under The Freedom Of Information Act.

AntiFeministMedia

January 30, 2011

42 upvotes

/r/MensRights

http://www.bedfordshire.police.uk/access_info/foi/disclosure_log/2010/january_10/Response%20Letter%202009-00865.pdf

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Post Information

Title	False Rape Allegations - Official Figures From Bedfordshire Police - Requested Under The Freedom Of Information Act.
Author	AntiFeministMedia
Upvotes	42
Comments	27
Date	January 30, 2011 8:10 PM UTC (15 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/fby2u/false_rape_allegations_official_figures_from/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/false-rape-allegations-official-figures-from.1043719 https://theredarchive.com/post/1043719

Comments

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points11 points 15 years ago (23 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points6 points 15 years ago (8 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 15 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

All the unsuccessful prosecutions could have been allegations made by one single person as well... As well as a couple of the successful ones at least.

Also you realise that just because an allegation reached prosecution it doesn't mean that it is necessarily true, right? Also that a 'successful' prosecution, as it is called, doesn't mean that the allegation is true either.

But yes, the answer is vague. There could be another group of cases that wasn't mentioned. There could be cases where the police believed the alleged victim, but didn't prosecute anyway. There could also be cases where the police initially believed the alleged victim, prosecuted but then later realised that the alleged victim was lying.

There are still a lot of uncertainties with these numbers, but what they do show is that even at the most pessimistic interpretation, false rape accusations is a real and big problem.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (5 children) | Copy Link

All the unsuccessful prosecutions could have been allegations made by one single person as well.

No. Note that the prosecutions are listed by defendant, not per allegation. Someone who falsely accused 38 different people of rape would never get their case prosecuted.

what they do show is that even at the most pessimistic interpretation, false rape accusations is a real and big problem

Real yes. Big no. Without knowing the total amount of allegations per year these numbers say nothing about the size of the problem. When looking at crime statistics you normally look at many different years and come up with an average. We only have three years of incomplete data available.

However, judging by all sources I have previously encountered, I think that the estimate of 2-8% false rape reports of all total rape reports is probably fairly accurate.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

All the unsuccessful prosecutions could have been allegations made by one single person as well.

No. Note that the prosecutions are listed by defendant, not per allegation.

They're listed by exactly that, prosecutions.

Someone who falsely accused 38 different people of rape would never get their case prosecuted.

I wish that was true. I also wish that someone making 17 false accusations, as you suggest as 'possible', would be in jail by now and unable to make further allegations. Unfortunately the reality today is that serial false accusers are still taken seriously and are rarely punished for their crimes.

Real yes. Big no. Without knowing the total amount of allegations per year these numbers say nothing about the size of the problem. When looking at crime statistics you normally look at many different years and come up with an average. We only have three years of incomplete data available.

You're speculating on that the data provided is incomplete. If you start speculating in one direction, you should speculate in the other direction as well, as I mentioned in my previous reply. The linked PDF doesn't mention how many cases made it to prosecution and were then proven false, nor does it mention, in the case that your claim that some allegations are left out is true, how many of those allegations are false, even if the police couldn't prove it.

However, judging by all sources I have previously encountered, I think that the estimate of 2-8% false rape reports of all total rape reports is probably fairly accurate.

Care to cite those sources?

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

I'm not speculating that the data is incomplete. It's a fact. The document provided does not supply the total amount of allegations. And yes as you say, it does not state if any of the false allegations made it to prosecution though that is not really relevant to simply establishing how common false reports are in relation to real reports. The biggest problem is that we don't have a figure for total amount of allegations.

I would not guess that all the false accusations over the years came from the same person. Looking at these (unfortunately very limited) stats I would assume there is an average of 3-5 people falsely reporting rape in that community every year. And that the "peek year" probably has high numbers due to one person making a large amount of false reports during that year.

Now we don't know the total number of reports in that community, but if we assume based on the size of the community that there are around 100 reports of rape per year, the 3-5 person figure matches up with previous sources.

Care to cite those sources?

FBI is the most commonly cited one. I don't have time to look them all up right now but a quick googling showed me that there is a page on wikipedia about this nowadays. Hardly complete but it's something.

[–][deleted]1 point 15 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Again you are speculating only in one direction: Applying speculation in an attempt to minimise the problem. If you're going to speculate, speculate in both directions.

Applying your kind of speculation, I'd say that it is very suspicious that there is a year where the police claims there are 0 false rape allegations. I could then speculate that the police did a poor job at revealing or documenting false rape accusations, leading to a total of 0 false rape accusations in a whole year. So if we speculate that and adjust the numbers, assuming that the police made a screwup, we suddenly have 25% of all rape allegations which are false.

See, if you apply random speculation to available data, you can make up any number you wish. If you want a real debate on the numbers, you should avoid applying speculation to the data and using that speculation to support your conclusion. Especially you should avoid applying one-sided speculation to the numbers, as it just makes you look like you have a vested interest in making the problem appear as small as possible.

Care to cite those sources?

FBI is the most commonly cited one. I don't have time to look them all up right now but a quick googling showed me that there is a page on wikipedia about this nowadays. Hardly complete but it's something.

The US government has previously been proven as a poor source of information regarding false rape accusations, and the 'source' Wikipedia cites for FBI is just a book that claims FBI said so, listing a source I managed to track down, which just says "FBI says so" without any source.

Do you really choose to believe an "FBI says so" source over real, tangible numbers provided by a police department?

[–][deleted]0 points 15 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

My speculation isn't random. It is based on the data at hand and everything else I already know about rape statistics and crime statistics in general. There is corroborating data that suggests 2-8%, which means that it is probable that this data would show the same percentage. It is common knowledge when interpreting crime statistics that if you have one or a few years with very high figures, there is often another explanation to that than that the numbers of crimes actually increased.

If you have data showing that police "screw up" in x percentage of cases you could apply that too. But I'm guessing you're just making that up for arguments sake.

It is not suspicious that there is one year with 0 if the average is 3-5. But we simply don't know because we do not have enough data.

Do you really choose to believe an "FBI says so" source over real, tangible numbers provided by a police department?

This isn't a matter of belief. It's a matter of adding up everything we know and draw a conclusion from that, rather than assuming that one particular source is the only and true source because it fits the explanation we would prefer to be true.

The wikipedia page states several sources. 8%, 9%, 5,9%,1,5-90% and 41%. Most figures seem to point to a number between 1-10%, so that is what seems most likely.

[–]blind_firefox_fanboy2 points 15 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

My speculation isn't random.

No, it's not random. You have a preassumed belief that false rape accusations are at a certain maximum level globally, and from there get to the conclusion that anything that disproves your currently held belief must be wrong, and from there begin to make up speculation as to why said data is then 'wrong'. Not random, it's actually far worse.

If you have data showing that police "screw up" in x percentage of cases you could apply that too. But I'm guessing you're just making that up for arguments sake.

As much as you're making up your speculation. I'm just trying to show you that your speculation is completely one-sided, and that you begin with a conclusion and then make the evidence fit your conclusion rather than going the other way around.

I'm sure that next time you have an argument about false rape claims, you'll cite your "everyone knows it is 2-8%" claim again, and say that everything you've seen so far agrees with that, completely disregarding all data that doesn't fit your world view.

It is not suspicious that there is one year with 0 if the average is 3-5. But we simply don't know because we do not have enough data.

So now it is not 2-8% anymore, but 3-5%?

But I agree with you on one point: We don't have enough data. False rape accusations is a seriously underreported crime.

Do you really choose to believe an "FBI says so" source over real, tangible numbers provided by a police department?

This isn't a matter of belief.

It is a matter of belief when you're unable to cite any real sources for your claims, other than "he said that they said". Then it's pure belief.

It's a matter of adding up everything we know and draw a conclusion from that, rather than assuming that one particular source is the only and true source because it fits the explanation we would prefer to be true.

Except that you disregard every source you disagree with based on the idea that they must be wrong because they don't agree with what you believe already, and thus everything that claims your beliefs are right must obviously be right.

[+]AntiFeministMedia[S] -6 points-5 points-4 points 15 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]AntiFeministMedia[S] 1 point2 points3 points 15 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

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[–]InfinitelyThirsting1 point 15 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

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[–]Dan_G 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

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[–]AntiFeministMedia[S] 3 points4 points5 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link