Why is rape not being taking seriously?

[Ana the Ist]

This is so incredibly typical. A thread about rape and the response to it turns into a thread all about false rape accusations and how common and bad that is and how we should deal with that. Never mind the much larger issue surrounding actual rape; let's just talk about how so many of these victims are actually just liars.



It was the first link Jade posted. She saved me the trouble of going and looking for it.

Thank you!

Man's rape conviction overturned after DNA testing : Wsj

Innocence Blog: DNA Evidence Clears Missouri Man in Rape Conviction

New DNA testing frees convicted Colorado rapist, killer - U.S. News

DNA clears man convicted of rape | UTSanDiego.com Mobile


Man wrongly convicted of sexual assault is freed after 17 years in jail | UK news | theguardian.com

One of.the problems with anecdotal evidence is that it gives a false impression of "what's common". By the five articles I just listed, you might think that false accusations are a huge problem. I guess that depends on what someone means by "huge", but they're still a smaller problem than actual rape.

Similar problems occur when trying to use one woman's negative experience at reporting a rape and claiming her experience is "common" or the "norm"....there's no reason to believe that. Was she treated unfairly? Maybe...without hearing the detective's side we'll never know. Obviously some of their practices were unjustifiable...but can anyone think of a reason she was treated this way?

I can. The most likely reason is that her story changed. The clue there is the constant telling and retelling of her story. That, along with the multiple questions regarding her mental health would indicate her story may have changed multiple times.
We'll never know. What's misleading about this story is the title...how does she know her case was added to any statistic, let alone a false rape statistic?

 

[yasic]

EDIT:

DELETED due to point already being addressed.

 

[yasic]

This is so incredibly typical. A thread about rape and the response to it turns into a thread all about false rape accusations and how common and bad that is and how we should deal with that. Never mind the much larger issue surrounding actual rape; let's just talk about how so many of these victims are actually just liars.

It was the first link Jade posted. She saved me the trouble of going and looking for it.

The OP brought this issue up, namely with the articles which accuse institutions of wrongdoing by not assuming guilt over innocence in the case of rape.

Your complaint would be akin to someone posting a thread about how abortion is wrong because its against God's will, and people start debating the nature of God will, and then you complaining why are we discussing God's will in an abortion discussion.

 

[yasic]

Quite easily - removal of presumption of innocence in one case would also set a worrying precedent, and I'd love to know how people pushing for this think it definitely won't return to bite them in the posterior at a later date.

Removal of this would actually make us more likely to end up in the kind of society described by those in objection to such a move - one where it is simply sufficient to make an accusation in order to get someone convicted.

You would be increasing the number of innocent people punished by the system, which is what presumption of innocence works to minimise. It is a fundamental right of most democracies, and asking that it be removed for one group alone is not equality. It is entitlement.

And as a side note, given that most people arguing for removal of presumption of innocence think rape is a gendered crime (i.e. it being something men do), I don't see how one can argue that demanding removal of presumption of innocence in rape cases is anything other than sexist.

There are of course problems with the prosecuting of rape, but that doesn't justify increasing injustice in some misguided attempt to compensate for it.

Fact is, we already have a level of guilty until proven innocent, namely in our 'bond' system. Under our current system, a person may be temporarily jailed via bond depending on the severity of their crimes (And bonus points for economic warfare where the ultra-rich are able to evade such jailing). Would you be for abolishing such a system and ensuring everyone gets the same treatment: Jailtime before trial regardless if the crime is murder or reckless homicide?

Also, as you pointed out, the purpose of the idea is to reduce the prison time of those innocent. My point is, IF the claim many (such as the articles in the OP) are making, namely that women almost never falsely accuse another of rape, was true... then this is already taken care of as we would know that the vast majority of men jailed over this would be guilty?

 

[Gadarene]

Fact is, we already have a level of guilty until proven innocent, namely in our 'bond' system. Under our current system, a person may be temporarily jailed via bond depending on the severity of their crimes (And bonus points for economic warfare where the ultra-rich are able to evade such jailing). Would you be for abolishing such a system and ensuring everyone gets the same treatment: Jailtime before trial regardless if the crime is murder or reckless homicide?

That has nothing to do with guilt. It doesn't involve any level of conviction, merely that one be a suspect with an impending trial at a later date. The suspension of presumption of innocence would occur at the next stage - the actual trial.

I would also hope that someone who reaches that stage of the process has more evidence going against them than "well, the victim said they raped them, they can't prove they didn't do it."

Also, as you pointed out, the purpose of the idea is to reduce the prison time of those innocent. My point is, IF the claim many (such as the articles in the OP) are making, namely that women almost never falsely accuse another of rape, was true... then this is already taken care of as we would know that the vast majority of men jailed over this would be guilty?

I'm not willing to let anyone fall through the cracks of "almost never" if I can help it. And (if we will insist on using the framing of the articles in the OP that this is primarily going to be a privilege given to women) I'm definitely not willing to presume women are so sweetness and light that it's worth overturning presumption of innocence for. They are human. They can lie. They are not so oppressed as a class that they merit unique and disproportionate treatment in this regard. In my opinion, no-one is so oppresssed as to merit suspension of presumption of innocence, and such a suggestion is profoundly, stupidly dangerous - even to the people suggesting it who feel they are entitled to it.

The very fact that false rape cases exist is reason not to overturn a fundamental principle of the law. Even if they are a minority of cases, so what? We do not make laws based on how likely we are to utilise them. Stealing is still wrong, and should be enshrined in the law even if stealing falls to lower than expected levels. The same argument applies to perjury, which is what a false rape accusation would necessarily entail.

I'm all for creation of more sympathetic evidence-gathering, stronger incentivisation of processing rape kits, more sympathetic treatment of rape victims, stricter control on irrelevant lines of questioning in trials, etc. One can proceed with all these things without having to suggest silly things like the effective suspension of the presumption of innocence.

 

[yasic]

That has nothing to do with guilt. It doesn't involve any level of conviction, merely that one be a suspect with an impending trial at a later date. The suspension of presumption of innocence would occur at the next stage - the actual trial.

I would also hope that someone who reaches that stage of the process has more evidence going against them than "well, the victim said they raped them, they can't prove they didn't do it."



I'm not willing to let anyone fall through the cracks of "almost never" if I can help it. And (if we will insist on using the framing of the articles in the OP that this is primarily going to be a privilege given to women) I'm definitely not willing to presume women are so sweetness and light that it's worth overturning presumption of innocence for. They are human. They can lie. They are not so oppressed as a class that they merit unique and disproportionate treatment in this regard. In my opinion, no-one is so oppresssed as to merit suspension of presumption of innocence, and such a suggestion is profoundly, stupidly dangerous - even to the people suggesting it who feel they are entitled to it.

The very fact that false rape cases exist is reason not to overturn a fundamental principle of the law. Even if they are a minority of cases, so what? We do not make laws based on how likely we are to utilise them. Stealing is still wrong, and should be enshrined in the law even if stealing falls to lower than expected levels. The same argument applies to perjury, which is what a false rape accusation would necessarily entail.

I'm all for creation of more sympathetic evidence-gathering, stronger incentivisation of processing rape kits, more sympathetic treatment of rape victims, stricter control on irrelevant lines of questioning in trials, etc. One can proceed with all these things without having to suggest silly things like the effective suspension of the presumption of innocence.

Emphasis Mine

I will respond to the rest of your post, it just hindges upon this question if you don't mind:

Under our current system, a decent number of innocent persons are locked up in exchange for locking up a larger number of guilty persons. Would you be for or against a reform to change "Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" to "Guilty with sheer overwhelming evidence" and ensuring the jury understand their job is to declare guilt if they the evidence is so clear cut there isn't even a smidgen of doubt?

 

[Gadarene]

I will respond to the rest of your post, it just hindges upon this question if you don't mind:

Under our current system, a decent number of innocent persons are locked up in exchange for locking up a larger number of guilty persons. Would you be for or against a reform to change "Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" to "Guilty with sheer overwhelming evidence" and ensuring the jury understand their job is to declare guilt if they the evidence is so clear cut there isn't even a smidgen of doubt?

An assertion of guilt by another party is not evidence. I am scarcely demanding "sheer overwhelming evidence" - I am speaking against the notion of being satisfied with no evidence whatsoever to justify sentencing and imprisoning someone.

Yes, our system is currently bad. It is currently imperfect. What this notion of removing presumption of innocence with respect to rape accusations entails is using the current level of imperfection as an excuse for making the system even worse and even more imperfect, just to satisfy the biased, baseless expectations of ideologues.

And yet again - this is before we get to the issue of what kind of precedent this might set.

This is, simply put, a massively, humongously dumb idea.

 

[yasic]

An assertion of guilt by another party is not evidence. I am scarcely demanding "sheer overwhelming evidence" - I am speaking against the notion of being satisfied with no evidence whatsoever to justify sentencing and imprisoning someone.

Yes, our system is currently bad. It is currently imperfect. What this notion of removing presumption of innocence with respect to rape accusations entails is using the current level of imperfection as an excuse for making the system even worse and even more imperfect, just to satisfy the biased, baseless expectations of ideologues.

And yet again - this is before we get to the issue of what kind of precedent this might set.

This is, simply put, a massively, humongously dumb idea.

So again, this is working with the hypothetical that the number of false rapes accusations are very low. Earlier in this thread a 2-8% was suggested, let's work with the low end of 2% for the hypothetical. Let's also say that in general, the percentage rate for false positive guilty verdicts is 5%.

Under this hypothetical, if we automatically assume a guilty until proven innocent idea for rape accusations, the number of people imprisoned for rape would actually have a lower error rate than for other serious felonies by more than 100%.

Essentially you would be saying that you would be ok with a 5% error as long as 'innocent until proven guilty' is kept sacred, however an improved 2% margin would not be worth it?

I mean what is more important, to have a higher percentage of guilty rapists in prison, or to uphold principles such as 'innocent until proven guilty'. Personally if we really could identify with 98% certainty guilt of a crime by accusation, then this would count as evidence for me much more than most other forms of conventional evidence. Is 2% error rates not a price we can pay to get most guilty rapists off the streets?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Fact is, we already have a level of guilty until proven innocent, namely iwhich can be our 'bond' system. Under our current system, a person may be temporarily jailed via bond depending on the severity of their crimes (And bonus points for economic warfare where the ultra-rich are able to evade such jailing). Would you be for abolishing such a system and ensuring everyone gets the same treatment: Jailtime before trial regardless if the crime is murder or reckless homicide?

Also, as you pointed out, the purpose of the idea is to reduce the prison time of those innocent. My point is, IF the claim many (such as the articles in the OP) are making, namely that women almost never falsely accuse another of rape, was true... then this is already taken care of as we would know that the vast majority of men jailed over this would be guilty?

To my knowledge, bail/bonding serves two purposes. One is to prevent overcrowding in jails....which is a rather serious problem. Secondly, it's a means of ensuring that the accused shows up for trial.

 

[Gadarene]

So again, this is working with the hypothetical that the number of false rapes accusations are very low. Earlier in this thread a 2-8% was suggested, let's work with the low end of 2% for the hypothetical. Let's also say that in general, the percentage rate for false positive guilty verdicts is 5%.

Under this hypothetical, if we automatically assume a guilty until proven innocent idea for rape accusations, the number of people imprisoned for rape would actually have a lower error rate than for other serious felonies by more than 100%.

Essentially you would be saying that you would be ok with a 5% error as long as 'innocent until proven guilty' is kept sacred, however an improved 2% margin would not be worth it?

I mean what is more important, to have a higher percentage of guilty rapists in prison, or to uphold principles such as 'innocent until proven guilty'. Personally if we really could identify with 98% certainty guilt of a crime by accusation, then this would count as evidence for me much more than most other forms of conventional evidence. Is 2% error rates not a price we can pay to get most guilty rapists off the streets?

One simple observation, yasic - you're assuming that 2% rate will stay constant after you overturn that principle.

I suspect it would rather quickly increase.

 

[Strathos]

If you go back and read post 16 which describes which cases can end up labelled as "false allegations"....there's a particular case you don't see. Cases where the accuser dropped the charges. There's good reason not to add those if you think about it, as there's many reasons a woman/man would drop the charges that have nothing to do with the charge being false. Since the whole basis of the link's argument is that dropped charges are bolstering false accusations numbers. However, such cases don't get added to the statistics...basically destroying the entirety of the argument presented in that link is false.

If you read the link, you would see that while the actual reported statistics of false accusations are low, they are still inflated by factors such as:

- Police who are unwilling to take rape victims seriously and demand unreasonable things from them
- The (likely majority) of cases that go unreported
- Harsh and unfair treatment of rape victims by defense attorneys
- Rapists in positions of power who use their influence to pressure the victim and get the case dismissed
- Young victims being frightened and bullied into dropping accusations
- Some police departments not distinguishing between actual false accusations and accusations that can't be prosecuted due to statue of limitations, insufficient evidence, or some other reason (even if it's clear that the victim was assaulted).

Furthermore, the link given in the post I linked to about someone who was raped and then pressured to drop their charges says they were never formally charged but still added to the statistics.

 

[yasic]

One simple observation, yasic - you're assuming that 2% rate will stay constant after you overturn that principle.

I suspect it would rather quickly increase.

While certainly a possibility, a 2% rate in and of itself tell us that people are very much unwilling to attack others with a false rape accusation, so it is fully possible (again, in the conditional the 2% is true) that the rate will not increase significantly above 2%. Does such a fear justify not trying a potentially better system - and I must agree, I am starting to think the answer may be 'yes' mysef.

 

[Gadarene]

While certainly a possibility, a 2% rate in and of itself tell us that people are very much unwilling to attack others with a false rape accusation, so it is fully possible (again, in the conditional the 2% is true) that the rate will not increase significantly above 2%. Does such a fear justify not trying a potentially better system - and I must agree, I am starting to think the answer may be 'yes' mysef.

It's scarcely going to go down if you remove the burden of proof from the accuser. It will enable and embolden those who would make either a false or unsupportable claim of rape. The entire point of presumption of innocence is so the legal system is as unlikely as possible to be knowingly imprisoning potentially innocent people.

This suggestion would only increase that risk, and on little more than the sayso of individuals in some cases.

 

[keith99]

While certainly a possibility, a 2% rate in and of itself tell us that people are very much unwilling to attack others with a false rape accusation, so it is fully possible (again, in the conditional the 2% is true) that the rate will not increase significantly above 2%. Does such a fear justify not trying a potentially better system - and I must agree, I am starting to think the answer may be 'yes' mysef.

That 2% is an unsupported figure from a feminist blog. One that does not even define the terms.

If we take that as 2% of all reported rapes never happened that is higher than most crimes.

Remember there is a difference between a rape happening and the right person being accused.

A lot of rape cases have poor evidence because of the victim not reporting it in a timely manner. In that the system actually seems to treat rape cases much differently than other crimes. If I claimed someone robbed me 4 weeks ago the police would look at my claim with far more suspicion than they do in a case of rape.

Honestly I think that is one area where the whole system needs change. The initial treatment of a person claiming rape needs to be much better. There needs to be no reason to not report rape. Unfortunately that change will take a long time to come as even if 'the system' made a miraculous change there would still be the issue of 'friends' and family treating victims poorly or worse.

 

[QueSeraSera]

That 2% is an unsupported figure from a feminist blog. One that does not even define the terms.

If we take that as 2% of all reported rapes never happened that is higher than most crimes.

Remember there is a difference between a rape happening and the right person being accused.

A lot of rape cases have poor evidence because of the victim not reporting it in a timely manner. In that the system actually seems to treat rape cases much differently than other crimes. If I claimed someone robbed me 4 weeks ago the police would look at my claim with far more suspicion than they do in a case of rape.

Honestly I think that is one area where the whole system needs change. The initial treatment of a person claiming rape needs to be much better. There needs to be no reason to not report rape. Unfortunately that change will take a long time to come as even if 'the system' made a miraculous change there would still be the issue of 'friends' and family treating victims poorly or worse.

I agree .And sometimes the claims are years and years later. Not just weeks.

 

[Ana the Ist]

If you read the link, you would see that while the actual reported statistics of false accusations are low, they are still inflated by factors such as:

- Police who are unwilling to take rape victims seriously and demand unreasonable things from them
- The (likely majority) of cases that go unreported
- Harsh and unfair treatment of rape victims by defense attorneys
- Rapists in positions of power who use their influence to pressure the victim and get the case dismissed
- Young victims being frightened and bullied into dropping accusations
- Some police departments not distinguishing between actual false accusations and accusations that can't be prosecuted due to statue of limitations, insufficient evidence, or some other reason (even if it's clear that the victim was assaulted).

Furthermore, the link given in the post I linked to about someone who was raped and then pressured to drop their charges says they were never formally charged but still added to the statistics.

I did read the link, the wiki link at least...not the anecdotal cases. It doesn't say what you think it says. I reread it to be sure I didn't mistake anything, but this is the point....

Simply dropping the charges doesn't inflate any false accusation statistics. If the accuser claims to have lied about the rape and then drops the charges, it does add to the false accusation stats. However, dropping the charges alone doesn't.

There's good reason for this too. Dropping the charges doesn't mean you cannot press them again at a later time. Claiming that you made-up the rape and dropping the charges does make pressing them again at a later date rather difficult. No prosecutor will want to try and charge someone with rape after the accuser admitted to authorities that she fabricated the whole thing. With this in mind, all but the last point on your list doesn't really apply to inflated false accusation stats. Even if the people investigating and prosecuting the case badly mishandle/mistreat the "victim"....her case won't inflate any stats unless she claims to have lied about the rape.

That said, you didn't address my point about the stats being deflated since they cannot account for those wrongfully accused and convicted. Whether by a case of mistaken identity or an outright lie, there are many men currently serving time for being falsely accused of rape. Also, of the charges that simply get dropped, it's only reasonable to assume that at least some of those women chose to drop their charges because they knew they were lying and either had a change of heart or were afraid they'd get caught.

You say that 2-8% is too high....I say it's too low.

 

[CounselorForChrist]

How do we really know what percentage of rapes are fake? Who would admit they weren't really raped since they could get in trouble? And unless they polled every american woman then it would be hard to know.

With todays generation of people I think lying about rape has become more common sadly. Women know they can often get away with it. Especially in an age where extreme feminists label men as pigs. In my life I've met 4 woman who admitted they lied about being raped. To of which had sent people to prison. One of the women admitted she lied about it because her dad wouldn't let her see her BF anymore because he just wanted sex from her.

Obviously I am not suggesting most rapes are lied about. I'm just stating I think the numbers are much higher then what are estimated.

 

[Strathos]

I did read the link, the wiki link at least...not the anecdotal cases. It doesn't say what you think it says. I reread it to be sure I didn't mistake anything, but this is the point....

Simply dropping the charges doesn't inflate any false accusation statistics. If the accuser claims to have lied about the rape and then drops the charges, it does add to the false accusation stats. However, dropping the charges alone doesn't.

There's good reason for this too. Dropping the charges doesn't mean you cannot press them again at a later time. Claiming that you made-up the rape and dropping the charges does make pressing them again at a later date rather difficult. No prosecutor will want to try and charge someone with rape after the accuser admitted to authorities that she fabricated the whole thing. With this in mind, all but the last point on your list doesn't really apply to inflated false accusation stats. Even if the people investigating and prosecuting the case badly mishandle/mistreat the "victim"....her case won't inflate any stats unless she claims to have lied about the rape.

That said, you didn't address my point about the stats being deflated since they cannot account for those wrongfully accused and convicted. Whether by a case of mistaken identity or an outright lie, there are many men currently serving time for being falsely accused of rape. Also, of the charges that simply get dropped, it's only reasonable to assume that at least some of those women chose to drop their charges because they knew they were lying and either had a change of heart or were afraid they'd get caught.

You say that 2-8% is too high....I say it's too low.

The victim was coerced and pressured into claiming she lied before being made to drop the charges. This kind of thing is common.`

 

[yasic]

The victim was coerced and pressured into claiming she lied before being made to drop the charges. This kind of thing is common.`

The opposite: A victim being coerced and pressured into admitting to a crime (rape included) they did not do, is also common.

Again, making us unable to get any proper statistics on this matter.

 

[Strathos]

Considering how rape is often failed to be prosecuted and the type of attitude towards rape victims by police, lawyers, etc. it would be heavily slanted towards the former.