/r/askscience: [Crime Statistics] False rape accusation rate

2013-07-10T02:11:02+00:00

According to Feminist "Logic" which only considers convictions when calculating false accusations, 93% of alleged rape victims are liars because only 7% of accusations result in convictions.

2013-07-09T23:23:22+00:00

A lot of studies find that at least ~2-3% of accusations are false. Conviction rates are ~7-10%. So, 2-3% are false, 7-10% are true, and 87-91% are "unknown." The problem is, when people say the rate is low, they automatically assume all of the "unknown" are true. Take the FBI one for example. First, not all of the 8% are false necessarily. But more importantly, just because a rape accusation is "founded" does not mean it is not also false. Pretty much any accusation that officially has charges pressed by the prosecutor is going to be deemed "founded." Doesn't mean it's true, it just means that there is a minimum amount of evidence where it MIGHT be true; ie, there is some "foundation" for believing it. But many are still undoubtedly false. For the record, the Feds have stated that the unfounded rate is not meant to be interpreted as a false accusation rate. A lot of studies that seem more comprehensive find around 10-12% false, but this is little more than just educated guesswork. We really can't get much beyond the bolded numbers above, and even that's a bit of an estimate. As for the higher numbers, a lot of the studies finding 40%, 50%, etc false have pretty bad methodologies and started with a lot of confirmation bias. They just badger the women until they "admit" they lied. A note about anecdotal stories, keep in mind that pretty much every time you hear about a false rape accusation, there is some hard evidence (video, confession, solid alibi, etc) that it was false. I think it's safe to assume that the vast majority of false accusations do NOT have hard evidence to prove the man's innocence (think, can you actually prove that you didn't rape the last woman you had sex with?). Imagine if the only time you ever heard about rape was when there was a videotape, etc of the rape proving that it happened.

This is more along the lines of my thoughts on the subject. I detest how misused the FBI numbers are, as if the entire gray area are just rapists who've escaped justice.

IAMULTRAHARDCORE · 2013-07-10T07:08:53+00:00

Why was the post removed?

dakru · 2013-07-09T22:36:14+00:00

I generally go with this number:

"While most of the good studies converge at a rate of about 8 percent to 10 percent for false rape charges, the literature isn't quite definitive enough to stamp out the far higher estimates. And even if we go by the lower numbers, there's the question of interpretation. If one in 10 charges of rape is made up, is that a dangerously high rate or an acceptably low one?" [source]

Title	/r/askscience: [Crime Statistics] False rape accusation rate
Author	_________lol________
Upvotes	9
Comments	8
Date	July 9, 2013 10:15 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1hyrek/raskscience_crime_statistics_false_rape/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/raskscience-crime-statistics-false-rape-accusation.1169131 https://theredarchive.com/post/1169131

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