.6 percent.
A new study shows that women aren’t lying about rape as often as prevailing rape culture tells us they are — at least not in the UK they aren’t.
Back in 2010, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, Keir Starmar took it upon himself to do something about the abymsal prosecution and handling of rape cases in the UK. In a December 2010 article published in The Guardian entitled “Rape: Justice Will Be Done,” Starmar outlined the ways in which he planned to make the UK a safer place for women and girls:
So what are we going to do? As prosecutors we need to reinforce the so-called ‘merits-based approach to rape cases. They should be judged entirely on the merits of the evidence: myths and stereotypes have no place in a criminal justice system underpinned by basic human rights. We can and should challenge them wherever we encounter them, whether that is during an investigation, among our fellow professionals or in court.
Over the past few years, Starmar has worked with CPS to improve the way CPS handles and investigates sexual offenses, to great results. The conviction rate rose to 73 percent from 60 percent over a 6 year period, and CPS has worked closely with police and rape/domestic violence specialists to ensure that what he calls “ingrained practices” don’t further victimize women and girls.
Under Starmar’s stewardship, the CPS has also worked to train prosecutors on how to properly handle retraction cases (cases where a woman retracts a rape allegation, thus opening herself up to liability for “perverting the course of justice or wasting police time”). Starmar’s stated goal for the CPS and the criminal justice community writ large has been to dispel the prevailing “misplaced belief” that women lie about rape.
To address that oft-heard myth, Starmar spent 17 months reviewing cases involving false allegations of rape and domestic violence and commissioned a report (the first of its kind at CPS) on the number and nature of so-called false allegations of rape. During the course of the study, Starmar required that “all cases involving an allegedly false allegation of rape, domestic violence, or both” be referred to him personally for consideration.
The results of the report, published on March 13, may surprise you: .6 percent is the magic number.
.6 percent.
Only .6 percent of rape allegations are false.
From the report entitled “Charging Perverting the Course of Justice and Wasting Police Time in Cases Involving Allegedly False Rape and Domestic Violence Allegations”:
This report outlines the key findings from the review of those cases and the steps that we plan to take. Importantly, what it shows is that charges brought for perverting the course of justice or wasting police time for such “false” allegations need to be considered in the context of the total number of prosecutions brought for those offences. In the period of the review, there were 5,651 prosecutions for rape and 111,891 for domestic violence. During the same period there were 35 prosecutions for making false allegations of rape, six for making false allegation of domestic violence and three for making false allegations of both rape and domestic violence.
Furthermore, the report shows that a significant number of these cases involved young, often vulnerable people. About half of the cases involved people aged 21 years old and under, and some involved people with mental health difficulties. In some cases, the person alleged to have made the false report had undoubtedly been the victim of some kind of offence, even if not the one that he or she had reported.
The report provides some insights about how to better serve women and girls in the UK, and discusses the need for a national debate about the best approach for investigating and prosecuting these crimes:
This review has highlighted the complex nature of these cases. Prosecutors need to look critically at the behaviour and credibility of all those involved, not just the person making the complaint. In addition, the events of the last year have demonstrated that there is an urgent need for an informed national debate about the proper approach to the investigation and prosecution of sexual offences. That debate needs to extend well beyond the CPS and the police.
As you sit on Twitter discussing the Steubenville guilty verdict (and as you watch in horror as CNN anchors grieve for the rapists while showing no concern whatsoever for the victim) think about Keir Starmar and the CPS’s efforts to make the UK a safer place for women and girls.
Think about what we could do in this country so that Steubenville verdicts become more commonplace.
Think about how nice it would have been to wake up this morning confident that the Steubenville rapists would be convicted, instead of thinking (as I did) “Pfft. They’ll get off. They always do.”
Think about what we can do and what law enforcement can do so that “but she was drunk and she’s a liar” becomes a less commonplace defense for rapists that violate a young girl like Jane Doe, who didn’t even know she was assaulted until she found out via text message the following day.
Think about all the young women who might be encouraged to speak out if they felt they could do so without being slut-shamed and victim-blamed.
Read the Crown Prosecution Service report. Look to the Brits.
Rape culture tells us that women lie. But as the CPS report shows, we almost always don’t.
.6 percent. That’s almost nothing. Even if that percentage were doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled to account for the fact that maybe American women lie a whole helluva lot more than British women, the end result would still be less than 2.5 percent.
And that still is almost nothing.
UPDATE: I am terrible at math. It’s less than 2.5 percent if quadrupled (I originally wrote “the end result would still be less than one percent” because math and I aren’t friends). But that’s still a very small percentage. And I feel it necessary to point out that I agree with the CPS report:
At the outset it is important that we acknowledge the very damaging impact that a false allegation of rape or sexual assault – be it either malicious or misguided – can have on the person falsely accused. Reputations can be ruined and lives can be devastated as a result. Such cases will be dealt with robustly and those falsely accused should feel confident that the CPS will prosecute these cases wherever there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest to do so.
[via The Guardian]
[cross-posted at ABLC]
Alison
And yet and yet and yet…MRAS and misogynists and others of that nasty ilk will still trot out false rape not just as a terrible terrible thing done to the poor menz, but also as a way to prove women don’t really have it so bad, and will still insist being “falsely accused” of rape is just as bad as being raped.
I try to have hope that we can get past this shit, that we can foster a culture of yes-means-yes, of non-victim-blaming, etc. But even the tiny bit of bullshit I let myself see in reaction to Steubenville just makes it so hard to hold onto that.
And all I can think of is that poor girl, and what her life may be like, and I just hope she has all the love and support she needs to make it something livable.
Cargo
But Reddit tells me that all women lie about rape all the time for casual revenge or perhaps just for fun! Women are never raped and if they say they were they’re just trying to put some hapless innocent nice guy in jail for absolutely no reason! Are you saying MRAs are lying!??!
Baud
@Cargo:
I like reddit but it has a disproportionate number of teenage boys and libertarians (but I repeat myself).
smintheus
Does the report assume that all men prosecuted for rape were guilty? In other words, that none of those prosecutions involved false allegations?
Xecky Gilchrist
@Cargo: But Reddit tells me that all women lie about rape all the time for casual revenge or perhaps just for fun!
There’s a good reason I call that site Reddflag.
Dee Loralei
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I never would have known about the study otherwise. We have got to change the rape culture in this country. And it’s going to take strong men and women speaking out and prosecuting more rapists. And we need to make it anathema to victim blame.
kwAwk
I don’t know that a lot of people are worried about lying about rape as much as the expanding definition of rape. If a woman goes out drinking and voluntarily sleeps with someone they didn’t want to when they were sober, I’m not sure that should be considered rape.
aimai
The steubenville horror show clarified for me something that I think is important to understand. Culturally speaking our society believes that
When men are drunk their responsibility for their own actions is diminished
while
When women are drunk their responsibility for the actions of others is increased.
This is basically because male violence and drunkness are seen as quite normative, while female drunkeness and sexuality are seen as degraded and pathological. You could also add that Male lives are seen as having value while women’s lives post sexual activity are seen as not having value.
El Cid
If women would stop worrying so much about their feelings and psychic integrity and humanity and life paths and control of pregnancy and physical well-being and the fortunes of sisters and mothers and daughters and so forth, this wouldn’t be such a big problem.
Unsympathetic
This isn’t a problem if Republican males are doing the raping!
You silly person, IOKIYAR.
Alison
@kwAwk: This is part of the false rape bullshit mythos. Women aren’t going out, having a drink or two, choosing freely to go home and sleep with someone, and then waking up and willy-nilly going “Eh, think I’ll call it rape instead.” That’s a vanishingly rare occurrence that rape apologists treat like it’s common as air.
And the word “voluntarily” there is the thing. In a case like Steubenville, where the victim is so intoxicated she can barely stand/walk/speak/whatever, there is no “voluntarily”. It’s diminished capacity. And people who prey on someone like that know what the fuck they’re doing.
scav
@smintheus: Because errors as gross as that in govt research are that entirely invisible until revealed here. Got it. Oddly enough, there’s a link to the report but that does rather infuriate a subset of poster’s on ABL threads.
My favorite detail is that weeping appologized for the photographs but nothing else. Such contrition! Oh yes, there was the mention of that wasn’t his intent. Um, given that one rarely rapes on in a fit of absence of mind and then later posts about in the same fit of non-intent and then attempts to cover it up while amnesic, hell, I have now idea what he meant. Must be he didn’t intend it to go to trial.
Xecky Gilchrist
@kwAwk: Yay, another square on my bingo card.
This is exactly the kind of thing of which there are 0.6%.
smintheus
@scav:
Oddly enough, I did read through the report (did you?). Thus my question. It does indeed give the impression that proven cases of false allegations were being compared to all prosecutions for rape, without any attempt to verify whether those were (a) successful or (b) truthful.
Your sarcasm however is precious.
Shalimar
@kwAwk: Who does think that situation should be considered rape? For it to be considered rape, the woman in that situation would have to go to police and lie about having consented. Do you seriously think this ever happens?
“I shouldn’t have slept with that loser last night, so I’m going to report it, lie about it, and have to remind myself of my mistake for the next 6-12 months while the investigation and trial goes on, during which time I will have to repeatedly sit in front of numerous people including the loser and lie about what happened.”
Yeah, that happens every day.
scav
@smintheus: As we speak. Lots of case studies. I’m thinking it should come from a larger sample before being really generally applicable, but still indicative. But if you’ve actualyl read it, then I call bullshit based on the tone of your Cavuto questions. You’re grinding axes
smintheus
@scav: Ha ha, so are you insinuating that I didn’t in fact read it? Or just kicking dust because you took a dumb pot shot at me earlier?
Suzanne
@aimai:
Oh, that’s not fair! Women’s lives once they have sex TOTALLY have value!
Once the baby comes out, though, THEN it’s done.
scav
@smintheus: dimwit. I’m saying that if you read it and were sincerely concerned, you would have conveyed the caveat that you didn’t see a clear definition of what constituted verified rape, rather than the cavuto crap you pulled.
lojasmo
@kwAwk:
What a bullshit statement.
lojasmo
@smintheus:
If you had read it (and comprehended) you wouldn’t have asked that braindead goddamned question.
GFY
Ecks
I’m very sympathetic to the argument that false rape allegations are rare, but with my social scientist hat on, it’s not entirely clear to me that this report shows that. Based on the description given, there aren’t very many cases of false accusation that are PROSECUTED, but that’s not the same thing as actually occuring. We know that rape is wildly underreported to authorities, and part of the reason we know that is that we can go and interview lots of women from the population at large and ask them about sexual assaults they have experienced, extrapolate it out to the whole population, and do a little mat. Lots more women report having been sexually assaulted than you see cases in court. LOTS. You can’t really do that with false accusations. You can’t ask lots of people: “say, have you falsely accused anyone.”
So the number of cases they have there will be an underestimate. How much of an underestimate we have no idea. Probably not nearly so much of one as actual rape cases, but by how much… who knows.
So anyway, the headline on this is almost certainly right (it’s rare), and if the .6 number is one of the few sticks we have for beating asshats who need badly need the beating then that makes it socially useful figure. But maybe best to have half on eye on being caught on an over-claim.
@efgoldman: Er. Fraud? You have to prove you’re a victim of that. And extortion. And being threatened, or any assault which doesn’t leave much physical damage. There are quite a few crimes where you have to prove you were a victim.
@aimai: Solid point, and an underrated one at that.
CarolDuhart2
@kwAwk: That’s why you treat your partner like a human being and get clear understanding and consent beforehand. Let’s put it another way: two people get drunk, one of them lifts the other’s checkbook and writes checks on the basis that that person “wouldn’t really mind”. Is that not theft? Most of us would consider it theft. The owner didn’t give consent to the use of their funds, and even the notion that he/she was “feeling generous” wouldn’t relieve you of the charge of check forgery.
Why is rape different in that regard?
realoldguy
Who cares about rape? In America, there’s nothing more important than FOOTBALL!
trollhattan
In which (just shoot me, now) I agree with Kathleen Parker.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-mariska-hargitay-helping-rape-victims-get-a-shot-at-justice/2013/03/15/4e76ede4-8da6-11e2-9f54-f3fdd70acad2_story.html
smintheus
@scav: Ah, so I have lied about reading it? Please proceed: Where does the report analyze the truth of the allegations in rape prosecutions?
scav
@smintheus: Go read definition of Cavuto dick waver.
smintheus
@lojasmo: ‘braindead question’? Do tell? It’s a basic question of method, one that the report doesn’t address…one so basic that scav assumed it could not possibly have been let slip.
geg6
@kwAwk:
I don’t know a single person who would define that scenario as rape. No one. Zilch. Nada. Rape means no consent or no ability to consent, so I’m more than a little puzzled as to what the hell you mean by even posting about such a scenario.
And Smitheus should go and read the link Kathleen Geier posted over at the WaMo of the study RAINN did based on FBI and police rape cases. That they even had many prosecutions to look at is a fucking miracle, let alone whether the rapists are convicted or, if convicted, actually spend time in jail. This very thtread is testimony to why women and girls so often don’t report rape. The insinuation that women lie about rape more than even scientific studies can detect, apparently because we’re evil liars who are happy to ruin our own lives and reputations as long as we can lie some man into a rape charge. Love all the manslaining, too.
As a rape victim myself and one who wasn’t strong or mature enough to press charges for fear of how it would ruin my life (little did I understand how being raped had already sent me a long way down that road at age 15, same age as the Steubenville victim), I just like to say a hearty fuck you.
smintheus
@scav: If you have a fallback accusation to make, having failed in your first, then make it in plain English. I don’t watch Cavuto and cannot guess what point you think you’re scoring against me.
Alison
@smintheus: So…what is your exact concern? That there are people prosecuted and convicted of rapes they didn’t commit? Or situations that “weren’t rape”? Because…how do you think that would happen? It is notoriously difficult to get a conviction in rape cases even with a metric fuckton of evidence. You can have DNA, bruising, an outcry witness, video, etc etc…and yet still, many many times, there’s an acquittal or a hung jury or whatever because, eh, he said/she said, look at her clothes, she flirted, whatever. So in a situation where, say, the rape charge was totally fabricated, and thus there would be no hard evidence…do you really think convictions in those cases are likely? If it is literally down to the victim;s word against the accused and nothing else…trust me, that ain’t going to lead to a conviction.
smintheus
@geg6: I’m sorry about what you suffered.
I don’t accept your characterization of what I addressed, which is a central problem in any attempt to specify exactly how common/uncommon false rape allegations are. This study is presented as having done that; I don’t think it has succeeded.
scav
@smintheus: ok, you’re here to discredit, not to contribute or critique or evaluate the research in question. Evidence. The was you phrased your question despite allegedly knowing the answer. Additional evidence. Your behavior since.
smintheus
@Alison: I explained it in my first comment. The report seems to compare things that are not directly comparable (proven false rape allegations vs. the sum of all rape prosecutions). To get the number 0.6, you have to assume that all allegations are true merely because somebody was prosecuted. That’s the mentality of a police state.
scav
@smintheus: So if it’s not exactly 0.6 it’s not a problem? How many rape convictions are you assuming are mistaken?
Alison
@smintheus: And I would say, even getting to the prosecution stage in a rape case is incredibly difficult and often doesn’t happen. Rape cases are immensely hard to win, so a lot of DAs don’t want to even try, especially if they don’t have a solid pile of evidence. Actually getting to the stage of a criminal trial far more often than not only happens if the prosecutor feels he/she has a good, strong case that is winnable.
smintheus
@scav: Not what I’d describe as plain English, but whatever. I thought there was a gap in the report’s logic and asked whether others thought so too. I notice that you haven’t discussed that question or evaluated any aspect of the report, just continued to take potshots once your first shot ricocheted back at you.
Yutsano
@trollhattan: Even Parker couldn’t fuck up material as awesome as Mariska.
CarolDuhart2
@smintheus: Given the difficulty of getting to court, let alone a conviction, it’s one of the crimes, short of murder where the ratio of allegations/convictions is pretty high.
Also, in a scientific study like this, things are likely gone over in even greater detail than the original conviction itself in order to really weed out errors.
geg6
@smintheus:
Actually, I did address it but you choose not to see it because you’re all hung up about numbers and data. How about using some logic or probability? What do you suppose the probability is that a woman’s accusation of rape is false given the low prosecution rate, even lower conviction rate, and even lower rate of prison sentences for convicted rapists? Also given the way victims are treated: accused of lying, accused of asking for it, accused of dressing to be raped, accused of drinking too much and deserving it, accused of being a slut (especially if you’re not a virgin), and having your entire personal life being picked apart and put into the public record? Will there be a few psychos who do this? Of course, but the number would be vanishingly small.
smintheus
@Alison: Yes, that’s true and needs to be taken into account when trying to answer what is actually a very complex and difficult question to pin down. But there are a lot of other complications as well that aren’t addressed in this fairly narrow report. For example, a lot of cases that aren’t prosecuted are dropped even though the police/prosecutors believe the allegation they can’t prove, but a certain number are because they suspect (but can’t prove) that the accuser is lying in part or in whole.
How in the world can you find a way to pin down exactly how common false allegations of rape are made, when there are layers and layers of problems interpreting different kinds of statistics?
smintheus
@CarolDuhart2: Well, I’d refer you to the report to decide whether that was done. It’s goes in detail into the methods used to determine which prosecutions for making false allegations were justified. But it says nothing about any attempt to analyze or investigate the prosecutions for rape. As scav’s original dismissive comment implies, that would be a huge methodological gap to overlook.
Alison
@smintheus: I’d be curious to know just how common you think they are. Because the main reason I could see for someone to fret and stew so much over this is if you think it’s actually way higher than it’s said to be.
And I don’t know you to put you with this group or not, but I’d just point out, that’s rape apologist thinking. When you start JAQing off and wringing your hands about how there might possibly maybe just actually be way more false accusations than we know, and what about those, and we need to find out, and oh dear oh dear…you know, especially on a post about this case, some of us really don’t want to hear that bullshit.
JoyfulA
ABL, please put a zero before any number beginning with a decimal point, just for the sake of clarity and, on a small screen, visibility: 0.6% rather than .6% (easily mistaken for 6%).
Thanks!
smintheus
@Alison: Comparing me to a rape apologist is pretty damned nasty. I’ve pointed out what look to be logical problems with this report’s use of evidence. That’s no reason for ad hominem attacks.
I have no way of knowing how common false allegations are. To make the determination, I’d need to see the right evidence carefully and rigorously examined – one that faces up squarely to the problems of the evidence. I still haven’t seen a study that does that. I’m not going to just make assumptions based upon my experiences and observations of the world.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I watched the clip at the link, the clip about the thing in Steubenville. And, well, yeah, you do kind of feel bad for a dumbass 16 year old kid whose life is now shit. But I feel a lot worse for the girl. Unlike the two rapists–and the who knows how many other dumbasses raped her, too–she couldn’t choose whether her life was going to turn to shit. If those two fuckwads had chosen to behave decently, they wouldn’t have been standing where they were, learning that they’re going to jail until they’re 21 or whatever.
And, while I’m glad that at least two of the rapists are going to jail, it pisses me off that (for now, at least) nobody else is; I don’t know, maybe there are going to be more trials. I hope so. And the “grownups” who were plying these kids with alcohol, why the fuck aren’t they on trial?
And, really, I’d like to kick the whole fucking town in the groin. I know you can’t indict a whole town for being soulless dickheads, but, shit. These assholes were pissed off at the girl for getting raped? That’s what upset them? That, because this girl got raped, and had the bad taste to go to the police about it, the town’s football team was going to suffer? That whole fucking town deserves to fall into a great, gaping sinkhole to the middle of the Earth.
Well, maybe not everybody. I guess there were some who were pissed off about the rape itself, and not the bad grace the victim showed by lousing up the high school football team’s season. It would be nice if the sinkhole spared them. But the rest of these fucks? Fuck them. I hope the whole town dries up, withers and blows away. Oh, yeah, and CNN, too. They can go fuck themselves with a blowtorch.
scav
@smintheus: Huge? ! With the number of cases involved? Only to the perpetual hunters of the perfect platonic statistical ideal, less so to those trying to get a grasp of a complicated reality in this sub-lunar world. But yes, by all means, let’s not do or assume anything until those global climate models are perfect and we’ve chased down our last possible significent digit in a model.
OmerosPeanut
@Unsympathetic: What if a black republican rapes a white woman?
Inquiring minds want to know what Scott Terry thinks on this subject.
Alison
@smintheus: I’m not comparing you, the person, to a rape apologist. I’m saying the questioning and thinking you’re engaging in is similar. And if that’s not who you are, I’d think you would want to know if you’re sounding that way. It’s not surprising given the culture we live in that plenty of good-intentioned people do sound that way, because that kind of thinking is pervasive and taken as serious and logical.
And my point is just…people who are so so very concerned with wanting to know how common false allegations are just rub me the wrong fucking way. Whatever the exact number is, we know it is way way way lower than the number of valid accusations, which itself is way way WAY WAY lower than the number of actual rapes that happen in this fucking country, or this fucking world, on daily basis. You know what number we’ll never know? How many rapes happen that the victim never breathes a word about, because he or she is ashamed, thinks they brought it on themselves, is terrified of what people will say, can’t stand the thought of being ridiculed or disdained or called a liar or a slut, can’t take the invasive examinations, physical and mental, knows they’re likely going to get treated like shit during the investigation – if there is one – and the prosecution – if there is one – and the aftermath, which will be awful no matter what the facts of the case. I want to know the number of victims who get no justice, no support, no acknowledgement whatsoever. THAT’S the number I’d like to know.
CarolDuhart2
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Not only that, but maybe if football means so much to them, they can just go intratmural. Kick them out of the conference for a decade or more: nobody from that team should ever again play a single game.
As for CNN, screw them and their sympathy for those two creeps. What about the victim? Those guys will eventually get out of prison. What about her? She has to live there until she’s old enough to leave (if she can afford to), with those horrible pictures floating around the internet, and with the memories of what was done to her. That won’t end in a couple of years like the perps’s sentences.
Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)
Even discussing these numbers seems like the wrong way to go about it. I mean, how often do eyewitnesses lie in murder cases? Does this mean we shouldn’t prosecute murder?
cmorenc
@smintheus:
Don’t get me wrong: rape tends to be an under-reported crime for which the instances of convictions is but a fraction of the instances of actual bona fide offenses.
However: exactly where did the researchers deduce this “only 0.6% of women lie about rape” figure from?
What sort of conclusive evidence did Starmar use to arrive at his conclusion that only 0.6% of women were lying, beyond simply his opinion of whose story was truthful and whose was not (remember: his job involved INCREASING the number of convictions; he’s not some disinterested academic). In other words, that 0.6% figure he pulled straight out of his ass, for all we can see of his methods. I say that even though I agree with the overall notion that truthful claims of rape by women are likely far more frequent than false claims of rape.
OmerosPeanut
@Ecks: This is only stronger evidence for the rate of false accusation being vanishingly small.
If a large percentage of rapes are never reported, then what the report has shown is that 0.6% (+/- error range, fairly small at a sample of over 5.5k) of all reported rapes are false accusations. If, to throw out a number, half of all rapes are not reported then if that changed and all rapes were suddenly getting reported the percentage of false accusations out of all accusations would be 0.3%.
In other words, by putting on your social scientist hat you made the report’s conclusions stronger, not weaker. Somewhere in your post you decided (and I’m not sure why) that there is such a thing as an unreported false accusation, and that such a thing would start to be reported if unreported rapes were reported more often.
Are those unreported false accusations similar to Donald Rumsfeld’s unknown unknowns?
TEL
@smintheus: I rarely bother getting into these discussions, since they tend to escalate, and make people (and by “people, I mean smintheus in this case) even more determined to prove that they are right, but here goes: You seem to be searching really hard for some sort of evidence to indicates that false accusations are common, to the point that you’re searching through a pretty clear cut study and picking nits to try and support this. Have you thought about why this is? What is it about a report like this that is pushing your buttons?
I actually do statistical analyses as part of my job, and while it’s true that you can pick apart almost anything and look for holes in the hypothesis behind any particular study (sometimes correctly), at a certain point you have to think about the actual likelihood of what you are proposing. This study was on the number of falsely reported rapes. When the CPS looked more closely at rape cases documented to be falsely reported they found a number of these cases were not falsely reported. It was suggested this occurred because the original investigations were problematic, and when the cases were reopened and investigated properly, it was found that far from being falsely reported, what they were was improperly investigated. To suggest that there is a large number of cases not pursued because of “false reports” (that go undocumented, since they investigated the documented cases) takes a bit of a leap of logic when even in cases that were thought to be clear cut enough to document as “false” the numbers were lower than suspected.
I have also worked for a number of years for various rape crisis hotline/advocacy organizations (I’m the person who meets the victim/survivor at the hospital, as well as manning the hotline when I’m volunteering for a shift). When I had my first legal training, one of the big eye openers for me was the DA telling me that false reports in his over 20 years of experience were almost nonexistent. This has turned out to be true for every city I’ve volunteered in. When you find out just how invasive and traumatic a rape investigation is, and how much more so an actual trial is, you find out why this is the case.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
The back and forth on this thread saddens me. I can’t believe we’re even debating this bullshit about women faking rape. What the fuck is wrong with this country? Let me just answer it once and for all: Women don’t lie about being raped. O.K.? They just don’t.
Now, yeah, there are 300,000,000 million people in this country, about 150,000,000 of whom are women, and if you go picking through all those 150,000,000, you might sooner or later find somebody who seems to be fucked up enough that she might make up a tale about somebody raping her. You might even find a woman who did do that. Or two. Or even 20 or 59 or 117 or 677 or some other random small number. But what you are not going to find is a whole industry of women weaving rape tales out of whole cloth.
Let’s just get this out of the way here, can we? Women making up rape tales is not something we need to be worrying about. It isn’t. Not in the U.S., not in the U.K., not in Namibia or Tonga or Guatemala or Estonia or Paraguay or anywhere else. It isn’t. Rape, though, is something we need to be worrying about, here, in Britain, Guatemala, Estonia, Paraguay and every other fucking country on Earth. Is that clear enough?
Why the hell are we wringing our hands over how often some woman lies about somebody raping her (which is, statistically speaking, never), when the big thing that’s right before us, staring into our eyes, shaking us, or trying to, into wakefulness, is rape? Why? Rape is the problem here. Rape is what’s wrong. 34 women a year or whatever it is wrongly charging some guy with rape is not the problem here.
One thing I’ve brought up here in ABL’s threads is that when an African American tells a white person that something is racist, it is. That’s the beginning and the end of it. People who have been on the wrong end of racism their whole lives know what’s racist and what isn’t. I don’t. And along those lines, when a woman tells you she’s been raped, she has. O.K.? Don’t fight with her. Don’t tell her how it wasn’t “really” rape. And really don’t do that if you’re a guy, since we know fuck-all about what it’s like living our lives knowing that we’re always just one fucked up situation away from some psycho raping us.
Why are we even talking about this? I can’t believe anybody has to spell this out. And, yes, I realize that I couldn’t put this as well as an actual, bona fide, 100% organic woman could, so I’m sorry for whatever hamhanded shit I might have drooled out while trying to make this point.
Mo
No matter what the percentage of women who lie about rape is, the fact remains -one hundred percent of the men who rape lie about it. It’s amazing how the “but women lie” crowd don’t even have an answer for that.
The problem with counting “women who for kicks willingly sleep with a dude and then cry rape the next day” against actual rape victims with that WWFKWSWADATCRTND should be measured against the number of women who willingly sleep with dudes rather than the number of women who are raped. So the false accusation count is astonishingly small.
The best way to avoid being accused of rape – enthusiastic consent and if really worried, take an abnormal psychology class to make sure you only sleep with mentally healthy women who enthusiastically consent. It amazes me how unwilling many men are to recognize that the classic femme fatale is basically a personality disorder with lipstick on.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Hear, hear. Thank you.
CarolDuhart2
@Mo: Simple. While you are both sober, ask and get a clear answer first. If you are drunk or impaired and in doubt. Don’t do it. Wait until you can get a clear answer. If you do that, there will be a next time. And perhaps another. Waiting is what a mature person will do when in doubt.
Sam
I don’t understand what everyone is needling smintheus for — he’s made a very simple point, which is that there are two data sets: total accused rapes and convicted rapes, and that the 0.6% figure comes from examining the latter (which is far smaller). Since the researchers didn’t actually look at all accused rapes, only convicted rapes, they have already applied some fairly extreme criteria to cut the data set down. That’s obvious.
And for the person who called him a rape apologist and then said she didn’t — you did, and you are an idiot. You should be ashamed of yourself.
themann1086
Out of the women I know who have been sexually assaulted (which requires more than 1 hand to count), you know how many reported it?
0.
No one I know reported their assaults.
So excuse me if I don’t give a fck about the low false report rate for rape. I’ve never seen any decent data to indicate it is any higher than other major crimes, and most indicates it is lower, but we never talk about the false report rate of other crimes do we?
Ted & Hellen
So are we now using the word “rape” to include everything from an unwanted breast grope to a finger bang to multiple forced gang fucking while being beaten to within an inch of one’s life?
Did I miss a memo instructing us to avoid the term “sexual assault?” If so, why is that exactly.
I would think being fingered against one’s will is pretty horrible, but not as damaging or vile as being subjected to forced intercourse and beaten senseless…doesn’t it minimize the latter to equate it with the former?
I’m curious as to the ongoing language change…
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
For Christ’s sake… I ask one last thing on this thread: If you are a guy, then, for the love of God, shut the fuck up about it now, all right? Let it go. Trust that women know just a little bit more about this than you do. ¿Por favor?
Ted & Hellen
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.):
Wow.
Is it your belief that all women everywhere hold the same opinions?
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
@Ted & Hellen:
No, but they know a shitload about rape than I, and almost every other guy alive, ever will. I think it’s sick to see guys blundering in here spouting off about how women lying about rape is really a big deal, and how rape really isn’t something we need to be thinking about as much as the lying women. (That last part is, I confess, not something I saw anybody make in so many words, but a lot of posts this thread have the distinct smell of that bullshit position.)
geg6
@Ted & Hellen:
Yeah, being violated by fingers is TOTALLY different from being violated by a pen1s. Totally.
And the kids liked it, too, right? You have no credibilty on this subject. You truly are a rape apologist and you need to just butt out of this discussion.
Ted & Hellen
@geg6:
I asked an intelligent, very pertinent question. For some reason you are unwilling to attempt an answer. Why?
So if a raging drunken asshole penetrates you digitally and then thinks better of it, he might as well go ahead and take it all the way because it’s all the same?
WTF? Really?
Ted & Hellen
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.):
Pretty sure I didn’t write that…no, I’m positive I didn’t write that.
So apparently you have a penis but are here pontificating yourself while telling other men to shut up. Interesting.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
scav
@Ted & Hellen: Depends entirely on the number of years he wants for his sentence. From the perspective of the law identifying and condemning him as a rapist instead of a bloke engaged in legal intercourse? That Rubicon is likely in the rear view mirrors.
aimai
@smintheus:
No, that’s the mentality of a professional police force and prosecuting system that generally refuse to take cases *at all* unless they think they not only have a real case but one that they can win. There have been decades of research on this topic. The police won’t even bother to take a case that they believe is real if the victim doesn’t fit the bill for a winning case-in the infamous words of a republican “she was a virgin who was saving it until marriage.” Women who are professional prostitutes, drug users, or drunk rarely have their cases taken at all even though the police and prosecutors belive they were raped–because the prosecution of a case happens, in most cases, when the police and prosecutors think they can get a conviction.
aimai
@Sam:
Of course he’s a rape apologist. He is attempting, for no other reason, to cast doubt on the study in order to argue by implication that there are lots of false rape accusations. The stance that there are lots of false rape accusations, rather than a vanishingly small set of rape accusations in the totality of actual rapes, is rape apolgist school 101.
And, like many women, I know plenty of women who have been raped but none who ever took it to the police or even told many people. Rape happens. A lot. And very few women choose to be revictimized by telling their story over and over again to a hostile audience.
So fuck off, and fuck off Ted and Helen. We didn’t get up today to hear your uninformed asshole opinions about rape terminology.
Vince
@Ted & Hellen: And all people of color apparently all agree on what’s racist as well.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
@Ted & Hellen:
And I specifically wrote that I hadn’t seen anybody say that “in so many words.” But that’s what it smells like.
@Vince:
Oh, and, douchebag, that isn’t what I wrote. I wrote that they know a shitload more about racism than I ever will, and they know it firsthand, and therefore, when they say something is racist, it is. I never said they all agree on what is racist, only that they know what the fuck they’re talking about. But I think you already knew what I was saying, and were trying to be oh-so-clever. Well, you fell on your face there, asshole. So, fuck off.
liberal
@Alison:
Is it really vanishingly rare? I mean, I’ll buy “rare,” but vanishingly so?
Seems it happened in my neck of the woods just the other day.
AHH onna Droid
@trollhattan:Wow, I had no idea Mariska Hargitay was as awesome irl as the characters she plays, but go actress! One sobering aspect of clearing the kits, aside from the horror of all the false convictions, especially white victim black perp cases is that the perp was usually a suspect already. And that this only addresses the kind of stranger rape cases that the authoritarian sorts consider worthy, not the vast majority where the perp is known to the victim.
Phoenix_rising
@cmorenc:
The key data point here is not what you seem to think.
His job involves increasing convictions. So if he’s got a slant to his views it’s toward knocking cases that won’t be ‘made’, e.g. accusations that are unlikely to result in a conviction regardless of their truth, out from investigation.
If you take his motives into account, it’s worse, not better. It would be in his best interest to raise the bar on what ‘credible’ and ‘worth charging’ mean, to lower rates of failure to convict once charged.
I’m +4 so I’m not explaining this well but you definitely have it backwards. Prosecutors who want to raise conviction rates for rape typically do it by undercharging rape, through narrowing the def from [statutory def. of rape] to [white 16 year old virgin violated by a pack of thugs, on film].
To go back to the outrage of the day: It would have been notable if the 2 footballers whose pictures were taken in the act of rape had not been convicted. The outrage is that one couldn’t be sure, even with the act itself recorded and distributed to the perp and victim’s peer group.
Desmond
I have no doubt that the total number of rapes/sexual assaults is severely under-reported and under-prosecuted. But looking at the article cited, it really does seem like this report is making an apples to oranges comparison.
It cites “35 prosecutions for making false allegations of rape”. Just as we know that not all rapes are prosecuted, we can also ask: Are all false allegations of rape prosecuted?
Ted & Hellen
@Vince:
Gasp!
liberal
@Desmond:
Yeah, I’m wondering that myself, having just reskimmed the stuff at the top of the post.
Of course, I would assume that nearly all rape accusations are not false, but I wouldn’t think that false accusations never occur.
kay
@Ted & Hellen:
The crime is rape because penetration in Ohio is rape. Obviously, the crime you’re describing is also rape. If the victim was beaten there would be an additional charge because beating someone is a crime.
A sexual assault without penetration is gross sexual imposition and it’s a felony
Where you’re headed with this, the idea that there’s “real rape” and then lesser rapes that somehow define “real” rape down Is a discredited approach, because the beating was tied to consent, ie, the victim had to be half dead or it wasn’t considered “real” rape. In the bad old days they wanted physical evidence that the victim was overpowered or it wasn’t “real rape”
We don’t do that anymore.
polyorchnid octopunch
An enormous number of douchebags on this thread.
Yutsano
@polyorchnid octopunch: It’s ABL. They ALWAYS show themselves on her threads.
Gretchen
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
My cousin lived in Steubenville briefly for job reasons. He always referred to it as “Stupidville” and was thrilled to be transferred out.
Wally Ballou
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I wonder if Steubenville is a sister city to State College, PA?
scav
@Desmond: No, in part because we know that whoever it was asked for any case in which a person who was said to have made a false complaint of rape and/or domestic violence was being considered for prosecution. So there was clearly some weeding and evaluating of cases beforehand unless they automatically prosecute everyone that changes their mind about making charges or accuses someone where not enough evidence is found to charge the accused. The report is about the 159 charging decisions made over a seventeen month period between January 2011 and May 2012. I would guess those were whittled down to the 35. Not a big enogh study to be accepted as perfect and definitive in all ways but if a new drug could get early results like these, there might be a just little excitement. I’m also not entirely sure the report is really about getting to the 0.6% result that is being pushed. The conclusions seem content to point out the cases of false rape accusations are not “rife” and then spend as much time talking about the complexity of deciding such cases. That last jibes with the rather exhaustive coverage of the details of individual cases — oh, and that stats used seem to be simple descriptive ones at best. It seems to be more about informing the police the kinds of things and complications they should be considering when thinking about these charges (with frequencies for some details) and not a crafted study to statistically fine tune the actual frequncy of false rape accusations.
gwangung
I think you’re showing that you’re ill equipped to analyze the study because you’re criticizing the study for something that it simply is not designed to study.
And, pardon me, your agenda is showing.
Sebastian
The sanctimonious douchebaggery on this thread is unbelievable.
As a victim of a false domestic violence accusation (those two were mentioned in this report which btw is not a study. Shame on you ABL for so obviously trying to bend the facts your way) I am fucking livid about the attempts to shut up those who want to examine the numbers. Nooo, you are not allowed to look at this “study”!! It validates our beliefs! How dare you!
Switch “rape” for global warming and the behavior is the same like on the right wing when confronted with facts. You are disgusting.
It must not be true, repent sinner, repent. Fucking zealots. I wish you the nightmares being accused falsely so someone could keep you away from your children and squeeze more money out of you. All while knowing that the fucking deck is stacked against you because courts will believe women 99% of the time.
I was lucky because I kept a meticulous journal, had witnesses, and because she tried to push her luck and blackmail me which ultimately backfired.
You should talk to family lawyers, cops, and PIs because they will tell you that the overwhelming majority of domestic violence and domestic rape accusations in divorce cases are about gaining custody and money.
gwangung
Given that this kinda contradicts the study cited above, which is also law enforcement based, I wonder what to think exactly.
scav
@gwangung: In the subset of custody battle based disputes, the ratios may be different. But there’s no way he can debunk the larger population of rape accusations based on his personal experience of a single case.
Desmond
@scav Yes, that’s what I took away from it as well.
This report is not to be confused with a rigorous statistical analysis of how common it is for accusations of rape to be false. That being said, is such a thing even possible? Given the complexities involved in prosecuting rape, and separating false claims from claims that are simply unprovable, it likely is NOT possible.
I think the main point is sound, that in any discussion surrounding rape, those with an anti-woman agenda tend to exaggerate the number of false accusations, and a report like this should shed a little light on the truth.
But I would be a little careful about waving this around as some kind of proof that only this or that percentage of rape allegations are false.
Sam
Listen, you should be angry at ABL, instead of me and smitheus — she posted a discussion of a statistical study. People who respond to those things often discuss aspects of statistics — if you argue that discussing aspects of statistics is rape apology, then you should really blame the people who do the studies; if they can’t be discussed, why do them? If they can be discussed, but not critically, then why do them? Just making the obvious point that the study depends on cutting a large sample down to a very small sample, before beginning, is not rape apology. At least for me, maybe smitheus sees it as such.
I understand that for someone who has been raped or has had unhappy experiences with the justice system, this might seem infuriating — but it’s what people do, with statistics. They discuss them, and it’s really weird to see such anger on a thread that began with a statistical article. I wouldn’t post my opinion of this study on a thread about the recent crimes in Steubenville, it would be totally inappropriate; I wouldn’t post it in a thread on jezebel about rape culture; but I don’t see the harm in discussing it on a thread begun with an article on statistics.
smintheus
@aimai: And there it is! Point out that the study in question has methodological problems and you become automatically a “rape apologist”. Pathetic.
Sam
And aimai . . .
As someone who’s taken a great deal of classes in the social sciences, as well as statistics, it might be that he’s trying to cast doubt on the study because that’s what he’s trained to do. That’s what educated people do with all sorts of studies, often they do it badly, but it’s a first instinct — “is the study strong?”
Usually in academia it takes a bit more to be labeled a rape apologist, than questioning the data collection design.
scav
@Desmond: Exactly, it’s this sub-lunar world in instances where we can’t really run controlled experiments. Still, I’d be fairly comfortable with going for ‘not rife’ and even ‘not rampant and uncontrolled’ Heuristically thinking about the probable biases and the teeny v. fairly big number looks good enough to be convincing. Probably might be the media that is co-mingling their fruit.
liberal
@smintheus:
Agreed. Pathetic. Especially because “this study has problems” does not logically or empirically imply “yeah, lots of women lie about rape.”
liberal
@Sebastian:
Sadly, I was speculating to myself before you posted that this was probably the class of instances in which false accusation was the most likely.
Sebastian
@scav:
Yeah, sure. Funny how every single acquaintance and coworker who got divorced went through the same experience. Step one: file restraining order against him to gain legal advantage.
The “study” is from the UK by the way. Completely different legal procedures than here, esp. California. Did you know that there is no such thing as perjury in family court? You can lie your ass off without consequences. There are only upsides in accusing the other of rape, violence, neglect, etc When I asked if someone is going to prosecute her for provable lies, false accusations, and even blackmail I only got tired laughter and hand waving. Don’t even bother.
Also, even if the woman initially does not want to file trumped up charges, her lawyer will convince her. It is after all in his/her interest because once a restraining order is filed, the estranged spouses have no chance of reconciling or coming to an amicable agreement. From that moment on all communication goes through the lawyers which increases their fees and that’s all that counts.
The law and legal system hands women a loaded gun right in the moment when they want to get back at that asshole who “stole their best years” or “wronged them” somehow.
Spare me your bullshit. We have a two tiered justice system. The poor (as in no money) women get shafted because they do not dare report the crimes committed against them and the well-off women who misuse the laws created to help the helpless. And this is not some stupid exception but the majority of all cases.
scav
@Sebastian: Did you miss the bit where I said divorce cases were likely different? All i said was you can’t take these experiences and that context and extrapolate to all cases. There are perjury charges in other courts and, if the all courts are so incredibly stacked in women’s favor, why are women not involved in divorce/custody cases (evenwell off ones) so loathe to file claims?
ricky
How often do the studies say I think women lie about rape?
Is it broken down by generation? Are boomers on the high or low side of thinking women lie?
Ted & Hellen
@Yutsano:
You’re a fucking liar as always.
I skip 90% of ABL’s threads. But don’t let that get in the way of your self-pleasuring fantasy.
cmorenc
@Phoenix_rising: I think you missed my point also. It’s indeed likely that the percentage of genuine versus false rape claims by women are somewhere comfortably greater than 90% – however, the exact percentage is inherently unknowable to anything remotely close to permitting a claim of such a precise to tenths-of-a-decimal point figure such as 0.6%, unless he’s artificially skewing his selection of cases in some manner. It’s not necessary to disagree at all with the proposition that the proportion of women falsely claiming rape is quite small relative to those making truthful claims to be suspicious of how he comes up with his claimed statistics.
And if his goal is to find ways to increase the conviction rate in rape cases, I sure hope no court ever permits his kind of “statistical” evidence be admissible for any consideration whatever toward conviction of any defendant, as opposed to actual testimony and evidence about the incident itself. If OTOH he simply means the substantial preponderance of truthful claims indicates that alleged victims need more considerate, supportive (and better-supported) treatment by law enforcement and medical authorities etc. to encourage them to go forward – then that would be a proper, justified end.
noabsolutes
Yeah to echo Zapruder whataisname, I can’t really put up with people who see data, and the data confirms what oppressed people have been saying all the while, who respond, with no data of their own, but I might still be right listen to meeee, and continue, without being able to dispute the data, to cast aspersions on the purveyors of bad news. I appreciate the bit about how a disinterested scientist wouldn’t be invested in prosecuting rapists. Right. Because only a hysterical, man-hating feminist would do that, and we all know their constitutions are too delicate for science.
Aussiesmurf
@Sebastian: I’m a family lawyer of over 13 years experience, and your comment is wrong and stupid. Regardless of your personal experience anecdotes don’t equal data
Joey Maloney
Am I dumb because I just realized that the “A” in MRA is supposed to stand for “Activist” and not “Asshole”?
g
@Alison:
Indeed, how very very concerned are we in general for accusatons of false burglary? False robbery? False embezzlement? Are we all certain that there are a host of so-called financial crime victims out there just itching to false-accuse someone so they can reap some benefit?
In fact, it’s pretty rewarding to claim false burglary – you can defraud your insurance provider. What of the grass-roots hue and cry over this? Frankly, I think the victims of insurance fraud are treated with more humanity and consideration that the victims of rape.
A Humble Lurker
@Ted & Hellen:
My goodness, someone’s self-absorbed. No one even mentioned your name. Or is this you admitting you’re a douchebag?
@Sebastian:
You’re not seriously comparing global warming to rape, are you?
cheese
A woman writes who doesn’t understand maths, writes an article about application of statistics for the purpose of dispelling myths and stereotypes about women. Hahahaha…
That aside, I’m sure there is lots of truth in this article.
P.S. Most computer operating systems come pre-packed with a calculator app btw XD