I’ve been insanely busy with class and work lately (UGG! My finals are in a MONTH!), so in an effort to contribute to my duties as a blogger and still keep my life spinning, I’ve decided to do a cop out post. This post will not be moderated, beyond the automatic spam (or if you are REALLY bad).
False Rape Accusations, while unfortunate, are not on the same level of rape. The current system that we have in place is sufficient to dissuade people from filling them, and false rape accusations should not have penalties beyond any other false reporting of a crime.
Go!
Shira: Why exactly should women be treated differently in rape cases if false accusers should be treated just like in any other crime? If rape is so special that we need to remove legal protections of the accused and prosecutorial discretion from the legal system, why is it that special conditions can’t apply in other ways? Because it makes some women “feel afraid”?
Who the hell ever called for removing legal protections from people accused of rape? Because that’s the exact opposite of what I said, indicating to me that you are not someone worth arguing with.
It is not a violation of a suspect’s rights for Joe Blow on the street to assume anything at all, nor is it a violation of a suspect’s rights for the police to assume anything at all, as long as their personal opinion of a suspect doesn’t prevent them from treating everyone involved ethically. You don’t have the right to be assumed innocent by people who show up at your funeral. You don’t have the right to be presumed innocent by cops. You DO have the right to be presumed innocent by a jury in court, and by the judicial system at large. You do have the right to be treated ethically and fairly. You don’t have the right to keep working as a nurse if your employer feels you are a danger to patients. Are we clear?
Just so I’m clear does that also apply to rape victims? You seem hellbent on trying to say that its okay to be suspicious of suspects but to be suspicious of victims is a grand no no.
I assume you were challenging this:
So rape victims getting bad and negative reactions from saying they got raped means that alleged rapists deserve to get bad and negative reactions?
Which was followed by this:
I suppose you are one of those people that thinks that since women are treated badly based on gender men deserve to get treated badly based on gender…
I was trying (albeit badly) to show how when it comes to rape gender (as well as which side of the accusation) has an effect on what kind of shit you’re treated like.
Which leads to:
Being treated like shit because you’re being investigated with/charged with/ convicted of rape is also not the same as being treated like shit because of your gender.
True but they are connected.
I do agree that education is the key. Along with what you say everyone should be taught what is rape and what is not and demand that everyone has a fair shot at justice.
The statistics come from the FBI and other policing agencies. The FBI stats are that 8% of reports are “unfounded”. These stats include cases where police could not proceed because of a lack of evidence, where victims decided not to proceed with prosecution, and a whole range of other reasons. That rate does include false allegations as well, but they are only part of the picture. British research estimates that perhaps 3% of cases involve false allegations.
When you consider that perhaps 1 in 10 sexual assaults is actually reported to the police, and that only 1 in 10 of those generally goes to trial, that’s an extremely small number of cases. In most cases of false allegations, the case never goes to trial. And there are many, many cases where the victim is telling the truth but there is not enough evidence for a conviction.
In that light, the number of wrongfully accused offenders going to jail is incredibly small. Yes, it happens, and when it does, it’s awful, but I don’t think that justifies the way victims (regardless of gender) are treated by the system and by people around them.
You want to talk about suicide? Come spend a few shifts on a rape crisis line. We get suicide calls on a regular basis. Sexual assault can have serious emotional consequences, and the additional trauma caused by a society that does not believe or that blames people for what someone did to them is truly horrifying. And it’s not only clear suicide. The effects can kill people in other ways too–addictions, prostitution, high-risk behaviours, increased risk of revictimization–the list is long.
And never mind that people’s poor understanding of what constitutes sexual assault means that many perpetrators claim consent, even in a case where it was clearly not valid. I’m pretty sure the man who assaulted me (drug-facilitated) figures he did nothing wrong at all, and neither would most of his friends–which might just be part of why I’ve never reported it to police. Because as much as people might question him, many more would assume that I was just making it up or regretted what happened or somehow deserved it because I had consensual sex with him in the past and had an ongoing flirtation with him or because I was puking and passing out and didn’t outright say no that it was somehow consensual. I’d rather just deal with what happened and try to live on than face that.
If rape is so special that we need to remove legal protections of the accused and prosecutorial discretion from the legal system, why is it that special conditions can’t apply in other ways? Because it makes some women “feel afraid”?
Lean back a bit Factory. I’m pretty sure Shira doesn’t mean to say that protections should be removed from the accused. I do get almost the feeling Shira is saying that if by chance the accused is treated unfairly then so be it as long as the victim is treated fairly.
Also, like many MRA’s, I blame policies and “education” of the public by feminist entities for much of this mistreatment.
Feminist backed entities perhaps. Now I could be wrong on that if those top level polititicans do claim the title of feminst. In fact I notice that feminits and MRAs both are blaming the top level policy makers but there is one big difference between the two. From what I see of feminists they seem to think that the connecting thread is that most of those policy makers are male and from what I see MRAs think that the connecting thread is that most of those policy makers are greedy, corrupt, and elitist.
Is the dictionary the only place where feminism concerns itself with equality for all?
I assure you that is not the case. Some of them seem to think that resolving the issues of women first will magically resolve everyone else’s issues but I think that a good portion of feminsts do want equality for all.
Just so I’m clear does that also apply to rape victims? You seem hellbent on trying to say that its okay to be suspicious of suspects but to be suspicious of victims is a grand no no.
It’s ok for the police to be suspicious of suspects (isn’t that the point)? When it comes to Joe Blow, or perhaps more pertinently, Jane Unrelated Rape Victim, well, that’s their choice, too, and while it sure sucks for the person wrongfully accused, it would suck more for JURV if she stuck around to find out firsthand whether the accusation was true.
Being “suspicious of victims” (of what? What crime are they suspected of committing?) compounds the trauma of rape, and, barring a rational basis for that suspicion (for instance, in the case of the person accused -firsthand knowledge that you did not actually do the rape in question), is based on bigotry against women in general, bigotry against men in general, and bigotry against victims in general. When the false reporting rate is so incredibly low (as it is for all crimes), and when the social and psychological consequences for saying “I was raped” are so high, it’s not only bigoted to be suspicious of victims – it’s just plain baseless. So yea, I think “suspicion” (which seems like a euphemism for base victim blaming in order to draw a false equivalence between being under suspicion of committing a crime, and being treated like an archetype for all negative stereotypes about rape victims) against victims is pretty fucked up, not to mention a source of retraumatization.
I was trying (albeit badly) to show how when it comes to rape gender (as well as which side of the accusation) has an effect on what kind of shit you’re treated like.
No kidding. But as I’ve said already, when it comes to people accused of rape, most likely, that shit is deserved – although I think it’s prudent to not treat someone like shit when you don’t know for sure. I hate the way the media sensationalizes rape cases, because I think it’s always harmful to the case and to the people involved, and rarely if ever helpful to anyone. That media attention would be much better focused on fighting the rationalizations of rapists and fighting victim blaming (huge overlap between these two categories). The best antidote to miscarriages of justice are ethical policework free from bias and prejudice against anyone involved. The worst thing we could possibly do to solve these problems would be for police to treat a woman filing a rape report as a crime scene in and of itself, and investigate it with the intent of proving what a lying liar she is.
Fighting against the stigma of being a victim IS something we should do. That helps all victims, regardless of gender. When it comes to someone saying “I was raped,” which again, is most often does not involve a police report or an investigation at all, the rules are different, because the likelihood that someone would expose themselves to the kind of shit victims of rape are routinely subjected to, just for funsies? Not very high. The likelihood that a person accurately accused of rape would say “I’m innocent – I was falsely accused!”? I’d say damn close to 100 percent.
True but they are connected.
Only because men do pretty much all of the raping, even when they’re raping other men. You won’t change that by arguing with feminists. You’ll only change that by educating other men and fighting the rape culture that teaches men the rationalizations that enable them to rape while still thinking of themselves as not-a-rapist.
Also, one other huge difference between the problem of rape and the problem of false accusations:
Women are cajoled to, and in fact as a rule, do, structure our whole lives around the threat of rape: where we go, what we wear, how we get there, who we date, who we sleep with, how fast we walk, whether we push our keys through our fingers, and on and on. It’s always at the back of our minds. We’re told to do this under the guise of “prevention,” and we know, whether we ever articulate it to ourselves or not (and I did not until faced with a situation I never thought I’d be in) that we should do these things because if we don’t, they will be used against us if we are ever raped. They will be cited as reasons we either deserve it or are lying about it (or, for extra fun, both!)
Men do not structure their lives around the threat of false accusations. Men are not taught what not to do if they don’t want to be accused of rape (although they should, with the focus not on avoiding accusations, but on avoiding raping someone, but I digress). Men don’t have to alter their lives in any fundamental way because false accusations exist. This is true regardless of how much equivalence you want to draw between the impact on the life of the person accused, wrongfully or rightly, of rape, and the impact on the person raped.
This is why rape is a collective injustice towards women, on top of the individual injustices against individual women, and why it has no analogue with false accusations, which are not a systemic injustice against men but rather individual instances of malice by one person (or more commonly, incompetent, biased policework) against another.
The best antidote to miscarriages of justice are ethical policework free from bias and prejudice against anyone involved.
I can dig it.
No kidding. But as I’ve said already, when it comes to people accused of rape, most likely, that shit is deserved – although I think it’s prudent to not treat someone like shit when you don’t know for sure.
That’s what I’m trying to say. At least get some damn evidence before people start proclaiming guilt. A past criminal record, some physical evidence that links the crime to the suspect, a witness. Something.
I’ll agree that perhaps suspicion is the wrong word. Open minded maybe. What I’m trying to say is that a rape claim in and of itself should be worth nothing more than, “Okay a claim was made. We have to investigate if its true and if it is we must find who did it.” But it usually ends up starting off with “Okay I know this person was raped and we have a suspect. I have to build the best case I can and prove this person did it.”
The worst thing we could possibly do to solve these problems would be for police to treat a woman filing a rape report as a crime scene in and of itself, and investigate it with the intent of proving what a lying liar she is.
That would be a terrible thing. The problem with many investigations is that they are trying to prove something. The point of an investigation is to find out if the crime happened and if a suspect comes up find out if further investigation leads to the conclusion that the suspect did it. When you start with assumptions on either side bad things can (and usually do) happen.
Only because men do pretty much all of the raping, even when they’re raping other men. You won’t change that by arguing with feminists. You’ll only change that by educating other men and fighting the rape culture that teaches men the rationalizations that enable them to rape while still thinking of themselves as not-a-rapist.
So now you’re saying since men do most of the raping (which is true) it is okay to attach gender based stereotypes to it? The reason those stereotypes exist is because people buy into them be it man or woman. Hopefully a part of that education you speak of would be to teach everyone to get quit buying into those stereotypes. And thanks for the word in bold (emphais mine).
Danny darling, you are conveniently ignoring context, so let’s go over that, shall we?
It is women who are discriminated in this culture on the basis of their gender. Amazingly enough, this discrimination pervades it’s way into even victim blaming of rape victims — the vast majority of whom are female.
http://abyss2hope.blogspot.com/2008/09/29-percent-of-utah-women-surveyed.html
http://womensspace.wordpress.com/2007/04/25/one-of-two-norwegian-men-believe-flirtatious-women-are-to-blame-if-they-are-raped/
It is non-logical to contend the following: While victim blaming of rape victims continues to be a huge problem, men are the ones being “discriminated” against and so we should make every effort to eliminate the “discrimination” against men.
Let’s be clear: that is what you are asserting as a logical argument. It is my contention that this is non-logical.
Under the “reasonable doubt” standard currently in use, a female must either have an outright confession of guilt from her attacker, or be so badly beaten up that no reasonable person could say she “consented”. Under this scenerio, it is highly probable that many rapists go free. Knowing this, it is correct for the general public to assume that an accusation of rape is valid, even if it can’t be proved that a rape occurred “beyond a reasonable doubt”.
——————————————————–
Rape is an everyday occurrence. Research published yesterday by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Home Office Inspectorates estimates that of the 50,000 rapes thought to occur each year, between 75% and 95% are never reported. And almost a third of reported cases recorded by police as “no crime” should have been properly investigated as rape.
If a man commits a rape, then he has, on average, a less than 1% chance of being convicted.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,,2003228,00.html
——
Only an estimated 20% of rapes are ever even reported to police (Walby and Allen, 2004)
——-
Malamuth, Sockloskie, Koss & Tanaka (1991) reportedthat 1 out of 13 men report having sexually assaulted a woman, and that approximately50% of college males self-report that they would sexually assault a woman if they knewthat they would not get caught for the offense.
——
The consequences of sexual abuse are all made all the more problematic since there is evidence that only about 2%-8% of undergraduate females who have been raped seek help from a crisis center, counselor or a physician(Koss, 1988; Pirog-Good & Stets, 1989).
I should put all this on it’s own page, since I have tons more where this came from.
PERCENTAGE WHICH HITS PROSECUTORS DESK
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_02/html…ared/03-NC.html
The article above shows that the clearance rate is defined by getting a case to a prosecuter, not even a conviction.
“Forcible rapes had a national clearance rate of 44.5 percent during 2002. Collectively, the Nation’s cities cleared 43.4 percent of forcible rapes, with clearance rates ranging from 40.4 percent in cities with populations of 25,000 to 49,999 to 46.2 percent in those with fewer than 10,000 residents. The Nation’s largest cities, those with populations of 250,000 and over, cleared 44.0 percent. Rural counties cleared 49.8 percent of the reported forcible rapes in their communities, and suburban counties cleared 47.0 percent. (See Table 25.)”
————————————————————————–
————————————————————————–
REASONS FOR CASE DISMISSAL
Home Office Online Report 20/06
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/rdsolr2006.pdf
Sexual history evidence also enters criminal trials through the route of third party disclosure applications,8 which in some jurisdictions are increasingly frequent (Busby, 1997; Feldthusen, 1996). Some researchers also suggest that such applications are being used by lawyers as a form of intimidation to encourage withdrawal (Busby, 1997; Feldthusen, 1996).
*
One of the tactics traditionally employed by defence counsel to discredit the complainant (C) in sexual offence trials has been to bring up her past sexual history. In the nineteenth century, certain rules appear to have crystallised in England and Wales so far as such evidence was concerned (Temkin, 1984). Evidence that C had had sexual intercourse with other men in the past was considered to be relevant to her credit: that is, it
tended to show that she was not a trustworthy witness. Evidence that she was a prostitute or had a bad sexual reputation in the community17 or had had previous sexual intercourse with the defendant (D) himself18 was considered to be relevant both to credit and to the issue of consent. In the twentieth century these rules were still being applied.
Heilbron Report
In 1975, the Heilbron Report expressed concern “about the extent to which, in a rape trial, the personal history and character of a rape victim can be introduced”, and declared that such evidence not only caused distress and humiliation to the victim but was also “inimical to the fair trial of the essential issues” (Heilbron, paras.89,
92). A further possible consequence of its use is that it may deter victims from reporting the offence. It was also suggested in a Home Office report that one possible reason why women who do report rape to the police subsequently withdraw their complaints is because they are “deterred by the prospect of cross-examination in
public on their previous sexual history” (Home Office, 1998, para.9.57).
*
It is very easy to allege that the complainant has made false or unproven complaints of rape in the past. There is some evidence that barristers and police officers are keen to find out whether previous complaints have been made to the police or others (see Chapters 7 and
and to raise this matter in court. Those who have been raped or otherwise sexually abused may well have had this experience more than once. But rape is hard to prove, complaints of rape are frequently withdrawn and rape prosecutions often fail. This does not mean that the allegations were false. In Michigan it has been held that a defendant may cross-examine the complainant regarding prior false accusations of a similar nature.30 However, the Michigan courts have made it clear that they require concrete evidence that any prior accusation was indeed false and the relevance of
the evidence will need to be demonstrated.31
. At least get some damn evidence before people start proclaiming guilt.
Testimony from the victim is evidence. What you mean is “corroborating evidence.” It’s this presumption that the word of a woman is meaningless that is so offensive to me. This unexamined bias is actually law in many countries, and it’s bull. The testimony of a victim of any crime is evidence that a crime occurred, no matter the crime. The fact that some people file false car theft reports for insurance money is no reason to start systematically disbelieving people who report a car theft.
So now you’re saying since men do most of the raping (which is true) it is okay to attach gender based stereotypes to it?
I said nothing of the sort. I said that IF there is a connection between being treated like shit because you’ve been accused of rape, and being treated like shit because of your gender, it’s because of the fact that rape is an INCREDIBLY gendered crime. Which you admit. Stereotyping rapists (typically as men who lie in wait in bushes and attack upstanding Christian girls being chaperoned home from after completing their purity pledge) is incredibly damaging to most victims, including male victims of female rapists. When police rely on stereotypes in lieu of an actual investigation, everyone loses.
Hmmm, there are other sources that say otherwise as to the 9% FBI figure.
You may be interested:
http://www.newswithviews.com/Sacks/glenn12.htm
Or this:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,194032,00.html
It’s this presumption that the word of a woman is meaningless that is so offensive to me. This unexamined bias is actually law in many countries, and it’s bull.
A woman’s word should be enough to trigger an investigation. When it does trigger one yes it is being declared meaningless and you’re right its bull. I’m talking about when it goes from woman’s word to sentencing.
The fact that some people file false car theft reports for insurance money is no reason to start systematically disbelieving people who report a car theft.
And the fact that cars are stolen is no reason to assume that all car theft reports are true. A car theft report is a reason to find out what happened to the car, nothing more.
When police rely on stereotypes in lieu of an actual investigation, everyone loses.
Agreed. Stereotypes and assumptions are not investigative tools
I’m talking about when it goes from woman’s word to sentencing.
That’s why God invented the fifth amendment.
“That’s why God invented the fifth amendment. ”
Which has been trashed to unrecognizability by the “Rape Shield Law”…
Factory, you are repeating flawed and misused data as your proof that the rate of criminal police reports of rapes are higher than the rate for other crimes.
In Kanin’s study the police dept. used or referenced polygraphs for all those who reported rape and all of the reports classified as false involved confessions by the woman who reported rape. None of the allegedly false reports were proven to be false through police investigations.
There is clear research that confessions can be coerced and tools such a polygraphs are effective aids to this coercion. That means that the number of confirmed false reports in Kanin’s study is a big fat zero.
Investigators have gotten false confessions from both crime victims and from those wrongly suspected of committing a violent crime. And they’ve used both types of false confessions to charge someone who committed no crime.
Your quote about the FBI 25% suspect mismatch is also meaningless when it comes to determining the rate of fraudulent reports. Identification is a separate issue. The quote you use even mentions this.
I know that. I was simply illustrating that no one, and I mean no one, seems to have any idea how prevalent this problem is.
As for my data being erroneous….well, just because it disagrees with your take does not make it erroneous. What the quote says is basically that this problem could be anywhere from 2-60% of all reported rapes, but is most likely around 20% of all cases that proceed to trial (Innocence project numbers), and possibly 60% of all reported.
In any case, this is not a negligible number….at all.
I left the parts of the quote in that spell out the limitations because, well, there’s limitations to the data. I do, however, note that the FBI information (as incomplete as it is) is the figure quoted to me as the “true” number of false reports.
I think multiple studies that find the same thing have more weight than some person sticking fingers in their ears ’cause people are saying what they don’t want to believe. Call me crazy, but that’s just how I roll.
If you have info on this subject (ie, know of a study conducted) that shows more accurate info, I’d be delighted to read it.
So, since you don’t like the FBI’s statistics, you have to commit to simply not knowing how frequently false rape accusations happen. Which means that you obviously don’t know what circumstances are likely to bring them about, you don’t know what structures in the justice system contribute to the process, and what combination of errors (if any), conspiracy (if any), and systemic bias (if any) brings about false convictions.
And yet, somehow you have the solution. Incredible.
Why do you believe severely increasing the penalties for perjury would be effective in reducing false convictions?
The Innocence Project—which, I think you’ll agree, has an enormous amount of experience with these matters and is certainly committed to reducing the false conviction and imprisonment rate—doesn’t name it as a priority reform, instead naming a number of structural changes to investigative procedure. What are they missing?
Asking a woman, particularly a rape victim as Jim suggested, “Would you rather be raped, or ?” is threatening. Particularly so when you are advocating laws that would make it inevitable that would guarantee that some women get to experience both.
I swear, it’s like MRAs read feminists saying of rape trials, “It’s as if the survivor is on trial,” and thought, “What an excellent idea!”
Violet oines:
”
Factory replies: Only if you misconstrue nearly everything told to you. The reasoning is thus…IF we need a special law that protects the identity of the victim from being published, then we also need that law to protect the accused until / unless they are found guilty. That should be common sense…yet it was not included. If we also place the burden of proof upon the man to demonstrate that said sexual intercourse was indeed consensual (or that a reasonable person would think so), then the consequences for placing this burden on him maliciously should be severe. Defending yourself on rape charges is VERY difficult to do in the days of “I was raped three days ago and just realized it now” prosecutions.
In short, a rape accusation can be made at any time, for as simple of a reason as regretting doing something stupid while you were drunk, and the legal system leaps into gear, grinding up accused men. The media makes headlines out of it if they can, the man’s life is ruined….and if it turns out she was lying after all this…what, 90 days in jail max? Come on.
The existence of extraordinary measures to protect women (rape shield law) demands either similar protections for the accused, harsh punishment for misuse of laws deliberately written to enhance the prosecution’s ability to incarcerate accused rapists, or both. Want the same punishment as perjury in other crimes? Make the laws surrounding rape the same as other crimes.
Violet says:
Actually, what I objected to was the misrepresentation of the FBI data, since the available statistic is on the exclusion rate of cases referred to them, a rate of approximately 25% as per the above quote, and not only the rate of “false accusation” The FBI does not keep statistics on this. So how Bird can say:
is sort of beyond me. I am, however, quite interested in getting accurate information on the subject, so I follow all (new) arguments as much as possible.
So I take it you don’t have any reason to believe that increasing the punishment for perjury will decrease the false conviction rate. But you still think it would be a good idea. Somehow.
That’s instructive.
There are numerous laws specifying what kind of evidence is allowable and what isn’t. Preventing the publication of victims’ or defendants’ names is much rarer because of free speech concerns—indeed, laws protecting survivors’ names from publication have generally been found to be unconstitutional in the U.S.
And as it happens, “She was a slut,” and “We’d slept together before,” are just not material to the crime of rape. This does make the defense’s job harder than if they were—alas, like hearsay, they are not.
On the issue of stats, CIUS 95 mentions an “unfounded” rate of 8% for forcible rape. While this is the ceiling for false accusations, there are reasons to believe that some substantial percentage of these reported crimes actually happened and are being misrepresented as unfounded for various reasons. Presumably the British researchers Bird mentions did a series of independent audits or somesuch to arrive at their conclusions.
Who is CIUS, is there more than one category of “sexual assault” in the data collected, what were the criteria for collection of the data, what is the sample size…..you see where I’m going? You disbelieve and call suspect the sources of data I go by, I similarly hold that feminist researchers have done much to discredit themselves with the advocacy propaganda passed off as research in the last few decades…so I hold them in little esteem.
Because of this, I am not arguing the validity of either set out of respect for the simple truth,….that no one knows. The only studies I am aware of that have studied the issue find percentages of false reporting (NOT prosecutions of false reports, which is a SUBSET of false accusations, not a superset) somewhere between 20-60% of cases. The 8% referenced is “unfounded” cases that have gone to trial…and only a certain percentage of those…not to mention the actual statistic is 25%, with a further 25% “inconclusive”……
So far, the only thing said to refute it is a reference to FBI numbers that either don’t exist, or (if the wrong data is mistaken for “proof” of how rare it is) don’t match.
False accusation is a serious problem in my view, and the view of thousands of others (at least). Your disagreement (and based on nothing but assumptions and prejudice, so it would seem) is not refutation. Neither is quoting a columnist with a similar ideological axe to grind (unless that columnist actually references something other than opinion).
The false dichotomy feminism forces on the world, especially in the case of rape trials, is anathema to justice. We do not either have to believe every word of a “rape victim” or never believe a word she says. The law does not have to be written to protect only one of the people involved…the lack of specific protections is a backdoor way to punish the accused, even if found innocent. There is NO other reason to allow it….if free speech doesn’t apply to victims, it doesn’t apply to accused either.
Of course, once someone has actually been found guilty of a crime, their name is on the public record, and I have no problem with the publication then.
Violet says: “So I take it you don’t have any reason to believe that increasing the punishment for perjury will decrease the false conviction rate. But you still think it would be a good idea. Somehow.”
Oh no, I’ll come right out and say it. The purpose of the harsher penalty is definitely to discourage facetious claims of rape. It is expressly to punish those who misuse the justice system for their own nefarious ends, those who waste taxpayer money to inflict pain on a man for whatever reason. For the record, any “chilling effect” this may have is tough titties, men deserve equal protection under the law…even IF it sometimes makes women uncomfortable.
In short, the punishment is for the exact same reason we punish people for any other crime…to discourage the behaviour and to mitigate social harm.
Why do you have a problem with that? Is it because it really only harms men…?
“Presumably the British researchers Bird mentions did a series of independent audits or somesuch to arrive at their conclusions. ”
Almost missed that. Yeah, you’re right, I suppose it’s logical to presume the British researchers did something like that.
Cause it would be wrong to “presume” that they’re lying to further an ideological agenda. Cause that’s never happened before…especially not in areas of research that are so politically dull as rape and false accusations.
Yeah…I should just take her (and them) at her word.
Sure.
“Asking a woman, particularly a rape victim as Jim suggested, “Would you rather be raped, or ?” is threatening. Particularly so when you are advocating laws that would make it inevitable that would guarantee that some women get to experience both.”
Another one I missed. Go back to the OP…all the way up to the top, and read this…
“False Rape Accusations, while unfortunate, are not on the same level of rape.”
So, to ask someone “Would you rather be raped, or spend 15 years in prison for a crime you didn’t commit, possibly being raped and/or beaten every single day?” is not only NOT threatening, it is DIRECTLY on point, and a clarification question that continues the discussion on the path that Antigone had set it on.
So, while it is good shaming language….I totally disagree with your approach.
A woman who helped send her former partner to prison for 10 months after lying in court has escaped with 50 hours community service….
read the rest here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10540632
It happens all the time.
I’m talking about when it goes from woman’s word to sentencing.
That’s why God invented the fifth amendment.
So the laws aren’t good enough for accusers but the accused should just shut up and be happy with the little bit of legal protection they get right?
CIUS 95 is the FBI’s Crime in the United States publication for 1995. I don’t think I’ve critiqued any of your data sources. Mostly I haven’t seen you bring any up.
But we don’t know that’s a problem.
Literally. You have said, repeatedly, that you have no idea what the false accusation rate is. So how on earth can you know this is actually an issue?
And even if it turns out that it happens to be an issue, given your total failure to understand the problem, how do you know your proposal will be effective?
And if it’s effective, why limit it to rape cases? Presumably, accusing someone of murder or kidnapping or assault without grounds is also a terrible thing that ought to be punished.
Layered on top of which—we do know that rape underreporting is a problem, a problem that this seems likely to exacerbate, if it does anything at all.
Violet…to restate Yet Again…(sigh)
There are studies referenced in two quotes above where the problem actually WAS studied, directly (as in talking to people, not looking at crime data), and in these studies it was shown that false accusation rates as high as 60% were ascertained. But nothing “definitive” has been done to protect men from the abuses SPECIFICALLY ALLOWED because of the special laws fought for by feminist groups to protect rape victims. These laws exist in NO other crime, making rape law “special”, which renders your “make every crime like that” response, well, silly really.
You suggest I have no idea what I’m talking about based on my statement that we don’t know how widespread the problem is. I suggest that your unwillingness to believe this crime is even possible, or if so that this crime is exceedingly rare, based on nothing but a disinclination to believe men might be disadvantaged, or that women are capable of (and DO commit) false accusations of rape for purposes other than justice, a tad suspect.
It happens regularly enough.
ie, Duke LaCrosse.
As for whether or not it’s an issue…if they are as little as 1% of all accusations, the punishment for misuse of the system should be there. In fact, if the rate is as low as 1%, the effect of this law on women coming forward to claim rape will be negligible.
I’d like to see your proof that underreporting is a problem…at all.
Nope, never happens, and the consequences are definitely in line with the accused has to go through…
Yeah, right.
At least it’s not limited to North America…..
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10540632
No, it isn’t. The CIUS data set is constructed from police report statistics, not trials. That’s why sometimes the number of cases in a given month will be negative—crimes that were reported in the previous month are investigated and found to be unfounded in the next.
I support the Innocence Project, and think they’re doing really good work. Likewise, I tend to agree with Angela Davis’ and other writers’ critiques of the criminal justice and incarceration system in general. Specifically, I don’t think our criminal justice system produces just—or even, in the mains, helpful—results most of the time. I think it’s a vector of violent oppression directed primarily at poor communities of color.
Which is yet another reason I find your approach here really bizarre.
Wait, you’re talking about rape shield laws? How does defining the complaining witness’ sexual history as immaterial unjustly harm defense?
(It’s probably worth noting that all manner of things—particularly various aspects of accounting bookkeeping and personal relationships—have been defined as immaterial to various crimes. Sometimes this is done by statute, sometimes by jurisprudence.)
But why should it be different from that applied to other crimes? “Because defense can’t call her a slut,” doesn’t work, obviously. Defense can’t do lots of things. If you think defense ought to be able to do that, you’re making a different argument.
Her accusation wasn’t found to be false. Notably, she wasn’t tried for filing a false police report, or for perjury, and if they thought they could show it, certainly the D.A.’s office had reason to press such charges, given how embarassing the case was for them.
Factory wrote: “Nope, never happens, and the consequences are definitely in line with the accused has to go through…”
Nobody you are arguing against has ever claimed that fraudulent rape reports never happen. They do happen, but there is zero credible evidence that they happen at a higher rate than non-sex crimes.
If you choose to believe that the data in Kanin’s study of false rape reports which came from recantations must be accurate then you must believe all confessions of having committed rape and/or murder are accurate.
Confession = guilty.
Only it’s been proven that it doesn’t.
You make the false claim that all a woman has to do to get a man charged with rape is walk into a police station and say, “He raped me.” But this is provably false and makes all your claims about how the criminal justice system works non-credible.
Actually, and this really IS the last time I’m going to restate the EXACT SAME THING again…(sigh)
The rules of evidence, and the process by which investigation, trial, and allowable defenses has been altered specifically in the case of a rape/sexual assault accusation. Because of these laws, specific to the crime of rape, are indeed specific to the crime of rape, necessitates and justifies treating the abuse of said laws differently from any other crime. Because rape is different.
I don’t know how much more plain I can get than that. Maybe this way…
because the crime of rape is “different”, it “required” special laws. Because it has these special laws, it requires special laws… get it?
Cause I don’t know how else to say it…
Kanin’s study was of the whole (all of the accusations, including those that never amounted to charges), police statistics on this subject are not tracked to my knowledge. At all.
I’ll take a study specifically designed to ascertain the level of occurrance of false accusations over interpretation of government statistics any damn day of the week. I’ll certainly take several….and outside of quoting dubious statistics (which don’t say what you are trying to tell me they say), nothing has been said to refute the possibility that these accusations reach as high as 60%.
nope.
Must be lies.
Or distortions.
Cause women NEVER lie about rape….right?
My point is, if something can be done with a law, it WILL be done with a law. The potential for abuse of the legal system surrounding such crimes as sexual assault is astronomical, and the potential for punishment is essentially zero. You may disagree that this is so, but I contend your disagreement is predicated on a social bias I have personally never seen any evidence of…and therefore doubt it’s existence. There is AMPLE evidence, however, of men paying enormous personal costs due to false allegations, and the assumptions of society based on those allegations.
I’ve been to the CIUS webpage and see no information on this…can you link?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this looks a lot like the ridiculous assertion that even those who confessed to lying outright were probably really raped, but were “afraid” to come forward….
What exactly are they “afraid” of? They’d already made the accusation. All that’s left is telling the story. hell, she doesn’t even have to take the stand. So, what’s so scary at that point?
How does that compare to having the cops come to your work to tell you that the girl you hooked up with on the weekend is charging you with a crime second only to murder (and even then, only in some people’s minds)? That unless you can PROVE the sex was consensual, you’re going to jail for 25 to life….?
Witness the “rapist” who was convicted because he waited 5…yes FIVE seconds after she said stop. It should be noted that they were several minutes into the act when she changed her mind. His apparent slow reflexes made him a rapist.
But no, rape is no different from, say, B&E in the eyes of the law….
Get. Real.
As for the simplicity of ruining a man’s life…why don’t you enlighten me as to how difficult it is….
You do in fact keep saying that. What you haven’t done is explain what you’re talking about, or why whatever it is you’re talking about is particularly relevant to perjury in rape cases. I’ve asked, for example, “how does the existence of statutory restrictions on the materiality of a complaining witness’ sexual history imply that there ought to be vastly stricter penalties for perjury?” Only to receive the same response: “It just does.”
There are ways in which the FBI’s statistics are dubious, as they’re based on police department self-reporting. I have yet to see anyone credibly suggest their unfounded rate might be too low. I mean… why?
“And some of the studies are obviously limited. Kanin of Purdue warned against reading too much into his examination of the small midwestern city: ‘Certainly our intent is not to suggest that the 41 percent incidence found here be extrapolated to other populations, particularly in light of our ignorance regarding the structural variables.’” — Columbia Journalism Review
Where you’re getting 60%, I have no idea.
“You make the false claim that all a woman has to do to get a man charged with rape is walk into a police station and say, “He raped me.” But this is provably false and makes all your claims about how the criminal justice system works non-credible. ”
WRONG.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-493352/Woman-falsely-cried-rape-EIGHT-times-spared-jail.html
Factory wrote: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but this looks a lot like the ridiculous assertion that even those who confessed to lying outright were probably really raped, but were “afraid” to come forward….”
Okay, you’re wrong. This is the assertion that police can and do coerce confessions from both those accused of rape and those who have been raped.
When a fact is presented in a way that supports your bias you believe it. When that same fact (false confessions can be coerced) is presented in a way that goes against your bias you reject that same underlying fact.
Sorry, you can’t have it both ways.
In the 5 second delay case are you talking about the “My Turn” rapist who after his buddy raped the woman gave her the choice between rape and consent? The one who wanted her to let him hit it because he didn’t want to [violently] rape her?
Your focus on the time of the crime to prove wrongful conviction means that all criminals who actions last only 5 seconds have been wrongly convicted. Striking someone in the head with a tire iron can take only 1 second.
mjaybee citing the police response to one woman’s actions doesn’t disprove my statement. You accept the reality of reporting because it supports your bigotry and ignore the more pervasive reality of reporting because it contradicts your bigotry.
http://www.sexcriminals.com/library/doc-1002-1.pdf (warning – PDF)
Archives of Sexual Behavior Feb 1994 v23 n1 p81(12)
‘With the cooperation of the police agency of a small metropolitan community, 45 consecutive, disposed, false rape allegations covering a 9 year period were studied. These false rape allegations constitute 41% the total forcible rape cases (n = 109) reported during this period. These false allegations appear to serve three major functions for the complainants: providing an alibi, seeking revenge, and obtaining sympathy and attention. False rape allegations are not the consequence of a gender-linked aberration, as frequently claimed, but reflect impulsive and desperate efforts to cope with personal and social stress situations.’
abyss2hope seems unable to acknowledge facts. That’s fine. You’re allowed to retain whatever opinion you like. We are aware that you seem unable to change your opinion, retgardless of objective evidence to the contrary.
If there’s an epidemic of false rape accusations, honestly, I haven’t noticed it. I have never known anybody who was falsely accused of rape.
In the course of a custody dispute, in various affidavits entered in ex-parte (one side only) hearings, I was falsely accused of rape, domestic violence, and attacked in those affidavits as a potential child molester.
There was no evidence attached — no police reports, school reports, doctor/nurse/health care reports, nothing from neighbors, there was no evidence.
Just a signed affidavit.
On the basis of those affidavits in those ex-parte, one side is present only hearings, I have had several temporary restraining orders established against me. Those restraining orders were all later overturned, but not before doing their damage, setting the anchor points of visitation very low.
Not only were they overturned, but the ex has demanded on several occasions psych evals — each of those evals (apart from the last) recommended I share joint physical custody with my ex. The last was never concluded, because it was obvious to my ex the direction it was going, so even though she got one court to order it, she got another court to set it aside.
I have discussed this at Amanda’s site, and of course:
- I was called a pedophile and a wife beater and a rapist
- Amanda banned me for upsetting her theories
Amanda’s hate and illogic aside, I think what a lot of “MRA”s are upset with is the gaming of the family court and the refusal to punish the perpetrators.
If you folks were truly interested in justice, you would be interested in justice.
Hey, I’m curious, any of you folks ever take basic statistics?
If so, did you learn about Type I and Type II error?
Type I error is the false positive and is what MRA’s are sensitive too.
Type II error is the false negative and is what MRA’s and Feminists and everyone else is sensitive too.
MRAs want to keep down the falsely accused.
Everyone wants to make sure that actual rape gets reported. That false negatives are kept low to zero.
But these kinds of errors are linked.
If you strive to reduce Type II errors to zero, you will necessarily increase Type I errors. That is, if you make the screen or filter of a test much more sensitive, than while you detect more cases that pass that test, you necessarily increase the number of cases that pass the test that should not have passed the test.
The feminist demand to reduce false negatives to zero, coupled with their claim that false positives are not a real problem to be concerned fly in the face of what we know about testing and processes. It’s not reality based. It’s not justice based. It’s not civil liberties based. And it has led to the ruination of lives.
I assert the reverse-onus nature of a rape charge warrants special consideration in regards to misuse of the law…I’m told I make no sense, and that I’m arguing something else.
I say that the few studies that exist into this phenomenon (note, these are actual studies, not interpretation of data gathered for other purposes) report rates ranging from low 20′s to 60-ish percent (indicative of a problem), and that I tend to believe it’s a problem based on the admittedly limited information we have….and it is asserted that I must be an idealogue because even I admit we have no real idea.
I claim that asserting a statistically significant number of these false accusations is really coercion by the police to recant is utter hogwash, especially given the refusal to acknowledge the feverish zeal in prosecuting men for “sex crimes”, and I’m told I have no grasp on the realities of law enforcement.
So, seeing as how I have put my arguments forward yet again…can we at least please refrain from rehashing the same mischaracterizations? I’m getting tired of typing the same thing over and over…
“In the 5 second delay case are you talking about the “My Turn” rapist who after his buddy raped the woman gave her the choice between rape and consent? The one who wanted her to let him hit it because he didn’t want to [violently] rape her?”
Factory responds: Actually, yes…that one. The article is VERY hard to find for some reason, but here’s the quote…
Let’s take a closer look…shall we?
Let’s see, he is faced with a group sex type situation (although it is weird, I have more than once been involved in “caught up in the moment threesomes”, and yes, they were consensual, so it DOES happen), asks her permission, explicitly stating that he doesn’t want to be a rapist, obtains her permission contingent on the fact that it doesn’t “hurt” (I wonder if penis size is germaine here), and he took 5 to 10 seconds to remove himself after her objection.
None of the parties involved dispute these facts. The “victim” freely states that the sex was consensual “unless it hurt too much”. Anyone familiar with a larger than average penis (either as owner or receiver of) knows that sometimes there’s a period of adjustment. While I’m not about to characterize this situation as such, it is plausible that he has an inordinately large penis, she was curious but fearful, decided the pain was above her tolerance, and he hoped (possibly due to prior experience) that she would “get into it” but complied reluctantly when asked to stop.
Again, no one disputes the situation, or the facts of this case. Not the victim, not the perpetrator.
It was purely, and expressly, the 5 second delay that made him a “rapist”.
And the denormalization and demonization of heterosexual male sexuality continues…..
mjaybee wrote: “abyss2hope seems unable to acknowledge facts. That’s fine. You’re allowed to retain whatever opinion you like. We are aware that you seem unable to change your opinion, retgardless of objective evidence to the contrary.”
I can acknowledge facts but I can also distinguish the difference between proven facts and allegations presented as fact. I can acknowledge that there is a difference between what the police declare to be true and the actual truth behind those declarations when they declare that someone who reported rape is guilty of filing a fraudulent police report.
You can’t or won’t do the same while demanding that we assume that all police assessments indicating that the person accused of rape is guilty are incorrect assessments.
From the PDF you linked to: “Regarding this study, 41% (n=45) of the total rape cases (n=109) were officially declared false …”
Declared false isn’t proven false just as declared to be guilty of rape isn’t proven to be guilty of rape. Kanin made the fundemental mistake of assuming that recantations are never coerced from people who were actually raped and who therefore made a true rape allegation. That incorrect assumption invalidates his study results.
Your interest in fighting injustice is highly selective.
anon wrote: “Type I error is the false positive and is what MRA’s are sensitive too.
Type II error is the false negative and is what MRA’s and Feminists and everyone else is sensitive too.
MRAs want to keep down the falsely accused.
Everyone wants to make sure that actual rape gets reported. That false negatives are kept low to zero.”
Actually, MRAs are only selectively interested in Type I errors. They want to keep down the falsely accused of raped but show no interest in keeping down the falsely accused of filing a false police report.
Feminists want to keep down all genuine false accusations while respecting the rights of victims and suspects. Most MRAs want changes which would inject injustice against rape victims in the name of fighting all injustice.
Opposing the desired changes put forth by MRAs doesn’t mean opposing justice for those genuinely falsely accused. Most MRAs refuse to understand this basic fact.
From my perspective, you don’t care at all about all the men having their lives ruined on what amounts to nothing more than an accusation sometimes. Sure rape is a terrible thing, but so is murder, for example.
Again, the “specialness” of rape demands “special” laws to prevent misuse IF that law has been changed to make things easier for the prosecution or the accuser….WHICH IT HAS. Why is this such a hard concept to grasp. There is NO other charge that is reverse-onus (which, incidentally, goes against the basic principle of justice in both our countries…ie, “innocent until proven guilty”.
Refusing to acknowledge such basic, undeniable truths, does little to bolster your position.
hey want to keep down the falsely accused of raped but show no interest in keeping down the falsely accused of filing a false police report.
Abyss2hope, what does this mean? I have no idea what you are saying, would you please clarify?
Would you also please address my actual post: that basic statistics theory states that as you drive Type II error down you increase Type I error which is why all such drives to reduce Type II to zero have to take Type I as a real, serious issue, and do what can be done to address it and not just dismiss it.
“[So] are you going to let me hit it?” he said, according to police. “I don’t want to rape you.”
The victim testified in Montgomery County court that she agreed to sex “as long as he stops when I tell him to.” As he began, she told him to stop because he was hurting her, but he kept going for five or 10 seconds, she said.
I read this very differently. This is a clear threat: say yes, or I will go ahead and rape you anyways. Consent obtained through coercion is not valid consent. If I was faced with the choice of being violently raped or non-violently raped, I might very well make the same choice this woman did. Activists have worked hard to establish that it takes more than the word “yes” to validate consent–otherwise saying yes at knifepoint would count as consent.
One thing that has been found by people studying perpetrators is that many of them have a poor idea of what constitutes consent. They think if the victim didn’t actively scream and fight them off, they can claim she or he wanted it. But just as in any other crime, ignorance of the law is not an excuse.
Of course perpetrators claim consent. Police find this on a regular basis: the difference between the offender’s story and the victim’s account is that the perpetrator claims it was consensual sex. Sometimes, the police can’t tell whether or not consent was given, so they count that as an unfounded report. That doesn’t mean there was no sexual assault, just that there is not enough evidence to show one way or the other. This is particularly true in cases of acquaintance assault where the victim may not fight back, or when drugs or alcohol were used to incapacitate the victim, or when a survivor froze from fear. No bruises, no tears, no witnesses, no clear evidence one way or the other. When it comes down to those cases, perpetrators often get to walk away again and again.
I’d like to point out that 85% of assaults are committed by someone known to the victim. In child sexual abuse, this rises to 95%. Chances are, you know an offender and think he or she is a nice person. Offenders are people we often know and trust. But that doesn’t change the crimes they commit.
I’d like to throw out the question again: why do we question whether survivors are lying, but when we know someone who is accused of assault, we’re supposed to immediately believe that person and assume that the victim is lying? That’s some kind of sick loyalty there.
Bird, I am an MRA and Glenn Sacks fanboy, but I agree with you on how you interpret “I don’t want to rape you.” That’s a threat. (At other times, but not in this case, I think the 3 second/5 second/30 second rule is nonsensical.)
Regarding your question though, I think you’re being unrealistic, ahistorical, unacknowledging of the human condition, and downright unamerican.
It’s not just in rape, but humans have a long history of lying. Of lying and playing victim. Of playing on other people’s sympathies and using that to abuse others/bully others/manipulate the system/start wars.
I don’t know anyone who assumes survivors are lying, or immediately believes the accused is innocent. Just the reverse in fact, which is one reason false accusations are so damaging.
“Where do I go to get my name back?” said (some political flack falsely accused of criminal accusations and shown to be innocent.)
In the US, there is a tradition, well founded, on believing in innocent until proven guilty. Which crimes do you think that should be the principle, and which crimes do you think the reverse should be the principle?
There is a distinction between whether or not an assault happened and whether or not the right person has been charged with the crime. One may believe that a person has been sexually assaulted, even if he or she (or the police) have incorrectly identified the perpetrator.
Also, a finding of not guilty does not necessarily mean that the accused was innocent, rather that there was not enough evidence to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.
At no point have I claimed that false reporting never occurs. But it only happens in a very tiny number of cases. There is also a percentage of cases where there was indeed a sexual assault, but the wrong person was accused of the crime. But considering that only 8% of sexual assaults are reported to the police at all (Statistics Canada, 2004), that’s a minute number of the total number of sexual assaults that occur each year.
And reporting rates are going down partly because survivors know how small the chance is that there will ever be a conviction. Trust me, those of us who’ve lived through sexual assault know how much the deck is stacked against us when it comes to being believed. Hell, I know of one woman who was drugged by a bartender at a club, was raped in the parking lot, the whole thing was caught on a security camera, and the police officer taking her report refused to do anything because he claimed it looked consensual to him. She was so traumatized by the experience that she just gave up. That’s a far more common story than that of a person being falsely accused of assault and the case going to trial.
We know people don’t believe survivors. The average child will attempt to disclose sexual abuse five to seven times before she or he is believed. The stats for adults aren’t clear, but they are likely similar. Many people give up before they ever get to that point. Our therapists at my office end up trying to pick up the pieces for those survivors down the road.
Oh, and if I come across as “unamerican”, that’s because I am not an American. That cheapshot insult doesn’t work on me.
Was she raped by the Bartender?