Triggery Example of How Harsher False-Reporting Laws Increase the Likelihood of False Reports of Sexual Assault-Might want to check this out Pierce.

PierceHarlan · 2011-09-15T11:56:35+00:00

Trollking, thanks for posting this. I do not read politicized opinion blogs very often, especially that particular blog. When I've looked at it, it's raison d’être is completely elusive to me, and it seems more of the same old morally elitist ranting by extremists (left or right, doesn't matter), without furnishing any information, that I have no time for. So thanks, I otherwise would not have seen this.

I noticed this quote in the main post: ". . . the laws both in favor of perpetrators and, increasingly, against accusers meant she had to be incredibly foolhardy to come forward without the kind of concrete evidence it takes to be taken seriously even after a violent sexual assault."

Two points: this assertion is posited with no authority beyond the writer's serene, and likely politicized, ipse dixit. I am aware of no support for it, and to my knowledge, it is not even a widely recognized rationale for underreporting. For instance, here's Amanda Hess's summary of Scott Berowitz's (RAINN) testimony before Congress last year about underreporting:

"On reporting: More victims may not be reporting their rapes, but the reasoning has changed over the past few decades. 'A generation ago," the reasons were things like, "fear of not being believed; fear of being interrogated about and blamed for their own behavior, and what they were wearing. In short, they feared that they would be the one on trial.'

"Today, 'the perception of many victims has evolved.' Now they don't report for these reasons: 'they don't want their loved ones to know what happened; they're ashamed themselves; they just want to put it all behind them.' Today, 'fear and shame of how the police wil treat them' has moved down on the list of reasons victims provide for not officially reporting the crime." http://www.tbd.com/blogs/amanda-hess/2010/09/uninvestigated-rapes-live-blogging-senate-hearing-on-rape-in-the-u-s--1734.html

Second, the post is an example of a distasteful fear mongering that does a grave, indeed unpardonable, disservice to rape victims: it suggests that it is hopeless to report. Of course, it absolutely is not hopeless to report, but we are seeing this sort of fear mongering more and more by persons who claim to be allied with rape victims. It has gotten to the point where I, the founder of a blog dedicated to giving voice to the wrongly accused, find myself in the peculiar position of urging rape victims to ignore these Chicken Little hysterics and to report their rapes. A very recent example that I think is important: http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2011/08/womens-advocates-do-disservice-to-rape.html

I am not the only one who thinks that extremist activists and angry radical feminist bloggers ostensibly allied with rape victims are hurting rape victims with fear mongering. Here's a famous example: last year in the UK, the Stern Review said that it is a misrepresentation to insist that rape is not taken seriously, and that such insistence might actually put women off from reporting. The Stern Review explained the basis for its assertion: in the UK, for a long time, when discussing the success rate in prosecuting rape, the Home Office and politicians allied with anti-rape activists have cited the attrition rate for alleged rape, which is the number of convictions as a percentage of number of reported crimes. That rate was 6% or slightly less. But, the Home Office, and everyone, uses the conviction rate, the number of convictions secured against the number of persons brought to trial for that given offence, for all other crimes – murder, assault, robbery, and so on. In fact, the conviction rate for rape is 58%. Stern Review, see page 45. (Need I say that the chasm between 58% and 6% represents dishonesty of Biblical proportions. The result of such dishonest advocacy has made it appear that law enforcement is terribly, and uniquely, ineffective when it comes to rape.) Importantly, the Stern Review noted that use of the attrition rate instead of the conviction rate "may well have discouraged some victims from reporting." Id.

It is well to add that these activists, ostensibly allied with rape victims, are the ONLY ones fomenting fear about reporting. Police, judges, and, yes, even False Rape Society, are urging victims (not false accusers) to report.

I doubt that I will be visiting that blog on my own any time soon.

thetrollking · 2011-09-15T06:56:49+00:00

It may just be cause I am dead tired but I can't figure out what the feminist/masculist figleaf is getting at. I have read it twice and this line just confuses me:

With the result that to the extent we’re able to encourage victims to step forward we’re almost certain to see what will look to outsiders like an equally unacceptable increase in false accusations. But to the extent one recognizes how desperately underserved male victims also are by current attitudes towards reporting, one can scarcely take the position that it’s better that ten guilty people go free than one innocent be falsely accused.

Either way, whether traditionally gendered or genuinely gender free, the other side of destigmatizing and decriminalizing accusations by all victims will be a far more realistic, far less artificially induced ratio of true to false accusations against all assailants.

What we’re doing right now isn’t working. Time to try something else.

thingsarebad · 2011-09-15T07:35:35+00:00

I'd just let Pierce know yourself, downvoted because nswatm is a bigot, I don't know what the bitch is saying, and I would like to limit her blog traffic.

Title	Triggery Example of How Harsher False-Reporting Laws Increase the Likelihood of False Reports of Sexual Assault-Might want to check this out Pierce.
Author	thetrollking
Upvotes	2
Comments	13
Date	September 15, 2011 6:54 AM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/kga4p/triggery_example_of_how_harsher_falsereporting/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/triggery-example-of-how-harsher-false-reporting.1034614 https://theredarchive.com/post/1034614

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