I agree with everything you said. And . . . it is complicated. Many women are well known to be serial accusers where it has been repeatedly verified that no such crime occurred. For rape accusations to be treated with the attention they deserve, we need the police to not be chasing so many false accusations to then have the time for the …
I agree with everything you said. And . . . it is complicated. Many women are well known to be serial accusers where it has been repeatedly verified that no such crime occurred. For rape accusations to be treated with the attention they deserve, we need the police to not be chasing so many false accusations to then have the time for the urgent and real ones. They simply cannot know which ones are the real ones at the start. I am sorry that my comment doesn't get us any closer to helping real victims.
I hesitate to say anything, since I very much take your point. And in no way do I want my words to diminish your traumatic experience.
But your last sentence is not actually factual. I'm not criticizing you for sincerely believing it - I used to believe it too.
When I was firmly in the tribe, it was just one of those tribal beliefs that we hear and read and repeat - without every looking into the data. It fits the narrative I preferred, everybody around me believed it, and we can't check everything, and almost all of the misrepresentations are made by the other side, right?
Even back then, tho, in the back of my mind my scientist wondered "what is the known objective truth to which accusations were compared so carefully?". But I set it aside, for the reasons above.
It turns out tho that the oft quoted stat of "false accusations" is based on how many women are *detected*, *charged* and *convicted* of a false accusation, which is a very different measure.
It's based on the rhetorically convenient but not credible concept that 100% of false accusations result in conviction (unlike every other crime, where we assume that only a fraction of the crimes result in a conviction).
Rape is a particularly complex legal challenge, as far often there are no witnesses nor strong evidence for consent or non-consent, it too often winds up being who to believe. A large majority of reported cases, even in the most progressive jurisdictions in the country, do not result in prosecution for that reason - if there isn't evidence which the prosecuter thinks a jury will likely believe, it's often not considered a good use of resources (actually, a prosecuter who loses too often because they cannot judge the strength of their own case is not promoted well).
However, that same ambiguity cuts both way. It's not common that the defendant has unimpeachable proof that the charges are false either.
And even beyond general "don't bring it to trial without convincing evidence" issues, in the case of rape it can be very contentious to bring any false accuser to trial, for fear that it will discourage others from reporting. Or there can political fallout. So there is some hesitantcy to bring charges without strong proof.
So it's not even vaguely reasonable to assume that ever single false accusation (combining both those resulting in charges and those not prosecuted) is accompanied by such incontrovertible evidence that the accusers are 100% prosecuted and 100% convicted.
But even using a figure like 3%, known to be very unreliable but oft cited based on the above, for every 30 reports (not every 30 prosecutions or convictions, just reports) there would be on false one. In most large cities that would be headlines at least every week. But only a small fraction of rapes (and false accusations) ever makes it the headlines.
Headline coverage is an extremely unreliable source of statistical sampling for assessing prevalence, but it IS what most people's naive intuitions are tuned by. Including me, tho since I began look deeper into dozens of issues, I've come to be a lot more dubious about others as well. I note what the headlines want me to believe, but don't give everything too much faith until I've done a bit of research.
And again, I am sorry for your experience, Nona. That should never happen to anyone, and my questioning a factual statement about prevalence of false accusations is not in any way reflective of your particular reality (nor vice versa).
I agree with everything you said. And . . . it is complicated. Many women are well known to be serial accusers where it has been repeatedly verified that no such crime occurred. For rape accusations to be treated with the attention they deserve, we need the police to not be chasing so many false accusations to then have the time for the urgent and real ones. They simply cannot know which ones are the real ones at the start. I am sorry that my comment doesn't get us any closer to helping real victims.
I hesitate to say anything, since I very much take your point. And in no way do I want my words to diminish your traumatic experience.
But your last sentence is not actually factual. I'm not criticizing you for sincerely believing it - I used to believe it too.
When I was firmly in the tribe, it was just one of those tribal beliefs that we hear and read and repeat - without every looking into the data. It fits the narrative I preferred, everybody around me believed it, and we can't check everything, and almost all of the misrepresentations are made by the other side, right?
Even back then, tho, in the back of my mind my scientist wondered "what is the known objective truth to which accusations were compared so carefully?". But I set it aside, for the reasons above.
It turns out tho that the oft quoted stat of "false accusations" is based on how many women are *detected*, *charged* and *convicted* of a false accusation, which is a very different measure.
It's based on the rhetorically convenient but not credible concept that 100% of false accusations result in conviction (unlike every other crime, where we assume that only a fraction of the crimes result in a conviction).
Rape is a particularly complex legal challenge, as far often there are no witnesses nor strong evidence for consent or non-consent, it too often winds up being who to believe. A large majority of reported cases, even in the most progressive jurisdictions in the country, do not result in prosecution for that reason - if there isn't evidence which the prosecuter thinks a jury will likely believe, it's often not considered a good use of resources (actually, a prosecuter who loses too often because they cannot judge the strength of their own case is not promoted well).
However, that same ambiguity cuts both way. It's not common that the defendant has unimpeachable proof that the charges are false either.
And even beyond general "don't bring it to trial without convincing evidence" issues, in the case of rape it can be very contentious to bring any false accuser to trial, for fear that it will discourage others from reporting. Or there can political fallout. So there is some hesitantcy to bring charges without strong proof.
So it's not even vaguely reasonable to assume that ever single false accusation (combining both those resulting in charges and those not prosecuted) is accompanied by such incontrovertible evidence that the accusers are 100% prosecuted and 100% convicted.
But even using a figure like 3%, known to be very unreliable but oft cited based on the above, for every 30 reports (not every 30 prosecutions or convictions, just reports) there would be on false one. In most large cities that would be headlines at least every week. But only a small fraction of rapes (and false accusations) ever makes it the headlines.
Headline coverage is an extremely unreliable source of statistical sampling for assessing prevalence, but it IS what most people's naive intuitions are tuned by. Including me, tho since I began look deeper into dozens of issues, I've come to be a lot more dubious about others as well. I note what the headlines want me to believe, but don't give everything too much faith until I've done a bit of research.
And again, I am sorry for your experience, Nona. That should never happen to anyone, and my questioning a factual statement about prevalence of false accusations is not in any way reflective of your particular reality (nor vice versa).