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I don't really have much interest in arguing about stuff on this sub, but I am interested in statistics. One sort of infamous area of misleading presentation of statistics is rape statistics, and as there's a lot of conflicting information about this, I thought I'd talk a bit about one major study on rape reporting and conviction rates, and how data can be presented in a very misleading way when great uncertainty exists.

For the record, /u/Interversity asked me to make this post.

The Making a Difference project was run by End Violence Against Women International, a major anti-rape and anti-women’s violence organization which is pretty widely respected by the anti-rape advocacy community.

Part of the project involved a study on how police reports of rape were handled and dealt with. They trained police in several cities to record data on the clearance of rape reports, categorizing them into several categories according to the eventual consequences of the rape report.

The data can be found in one of their powerpoint presentations, seen here: http://www.evawintl.org/images/uploads/BasicDataFindings_12-07-09.pdf

The data here is quite interesting, and has been used by numerous anti-rape organizations. Indeed, some groups have gone so far as to call it the ONLY such study. This is not true – there have been numerous other studies – but it is a very interesting and informative case.

It is frequently claimed that only 2-8% of rapes reported to police are false. This is both true and false, and the fact that I said that suggests that this is actually a deeply misleading statistic. And it really is. If you look at the Wikipedia article about false reports of rape, you find wildly varying statistics, ranging from as low as 1.5% to as high as 90% in various scientific studies on the matter:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape

And indeed, if you look at the studies, they really are all over the place; there’s very little agreement.

So why are these so variable? And why is the 2-8% statistic so misleading?

The problem is that what is being described as a “false” report of rape varies immensely from study to study. In some studies, it is defined as cases where the police categorized the report as being maliciously false. In others, it is defined as cases where the police had reason to believe no crime had occurred. In still other studies, it is defined as cases where the victim later recanted and admitted their accusation of rape had been false. Obviously, conflating all of these things isn’t going to lead to the same number.

The Making a Difference study was interesting because it broke down rape reports by how the cases were closed by police – it looked at the end result of a police investigation which resulted from a victim reporting to police that they had been raped.

The categories were:

Unfounded/false reports (i.e. the police know that the person was lying): 7.1%

Unfounded/baseless (i.e. "those that do not meet the elements of the offense and those that were improperly coded as a sexual assault in the first place." including cases in which a "follow-up investigation reveals either that no crime occurred or that some other type of crime was actually committed (or attempted)."): 8.5%

"Closed as an informational report" (when someone reports something which did happen, but which doesn't fit the definition of a sexual assault - i.e. someone reporting something that wasn't actually a crime): 17.9%

So at this point, we've got 33.5% of reported rapes in the study. All three of these categories are, fundamentally, the categories where the reported rapes were likely untrue, though it is likely that at least some of the claims in these categories WERE true and the police simply misclassified them. However, as you can see, they’re actually split up across three different categorizations, and in one categorization – the closed as an information report category – the crime “victim” wasn’t lying at all, they were simply confused about what “rape” is.

So, if you are looking for "reported rapes which weren't true", you’re already looking at a baseline of roughly 33.5% - or a third of rapes which were reported which were untrue. Not all of those were necessarily "false" in the sense of being malicious lies, but they were most likely false in the sense of the accused being innocent of having committed rape or sexual assault (though, as noted, some of them probably were actually true and the police miscategorized them).

Moving on are a few major ambiguous categories:

Suspended/inactivated (I.e. when there isn't enough evidence to say if a rape occurred and the investigation stalls out as a result without charges being filed): 28.6%

Exceptionally cleared (i.e. when the police are unable to proceed in arresting someone either due to the death of the perpetrator or because the person who claimed to have been raped becomes uncooperative when the police proceed in their investigation): 17.9%

These two categories constitute nearly half of all rape reports, but as you can see, the guilt or innocence of the perpetrator is hard to determine. Rape is a notoriously difficult to prove crime, and frequently leaves little meaningful evidence behind – sex, after all, is not illegal, only non-consensual sex, and many rapes don’t use force.

Consequently, many of them don’t really leave much evidence.

However, not seeing any real evidence of rape is also evidence that no rape actually happened at all – surely, many of the cases where there is not even enough evidence to lead to an arrest are cases where the person was wrongfully accused, or where the victim accused the wrong person of having raped them (which in and of itself is a problem – this happens at times, and it can simultaneously result in someone being accused of a rape which actually happened, but which THEY were not guilty of, which is difficult to classify as being true or untrue).

Likewise, exceptionally cleared cases – where the investigation is dropped either because it is moot or because the victim refuses to cooperate further – are ambiguous. Did the victim stop helping because they realized that their story was coming apart? Were they intimidated into dropping the case by the person they accused? Were they simply upset by the whole thing and just wanted it to be over? It is hard to really know. Likewise, if someone is dead, there is little point in further investigation, as no prosecution can be brought.

Thus, at the end, we’re left with this:

Arrested: 20%

Note that already, we’re down to only 1 in 5 rape reports actually resulting in probable cause for an arrest. This does not mean that 20% are true or that 80% are untrue, though, as noted above. Indeed, as we’ll see, things get cut down considerably further.

Of people who are arrested:

Case rejected by the prosecution (i.e. the state feels that they don’t think they have enough of a case to warrant trying to bring them to trial): 33.2%.

Case dismissed with all charges dropped (i.e. the prosecution charges the defendant, but the charges are dropped before trial, either rejected by the judge or otherwise failing to meet the legal standards necessary to bring it to trial, or the prosecution abandoning the case because they feel that the evidence they are going to present is insufficient to result in a conviction): 20.9%

Case dismissed but the charges aren’t dropped (i.e. the state stops with the case, but thinks that the person still might have done it, so keeps the charges up even while they stop with prosecuting it): 2.3%

So in over 50% of cases where people actually get arrested, the government doesn’t end up prosecuting the person due to lack of evidence or failure to build an adequate case for conviction.

Defendant pleads guilty: 33.2%

Here is our first real category where a significant fraction of the people are almost certainly guilty. Here, people are pleading guilty to a very serious criminal offense. While people do occasionally plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit, the overwhelming majority of these folks probably did commit the crime.

Case brought to trial, defendant found not guilty: 2%

Case brought to trial, defendant found guilty: 5.9%

(The rest are categorized, totally helpfully, as “other”)

So when we finally get to the trial, only 8% of people who were actually arrested on suspicion of rape actually end up facing a judge and jury. And of those people, 1 in 4 of them are found not guilty!

If you do the math (20% * 5.9%), this works out to less than 2% of rapes reported to police result in someone being found guilty of rape in a court of law. Combined with those who plead guilty, we’re left with about 7.8% of rape reports which result in someone being found guilty of rape or pleading guilty to rape. These people are almost all guilty of rape, but as the Innocence Project and similar things have taught us, some of these people, too, aren’t guilty.

Thus, this study leaves us with:

It is unlikely anyone was raped: 33.5%

We have no idea if anyone was raped: 58.7%

Someone was almost certainly raped: 7.8%

As you can see, there is a massive amount of uncertainty in rape reports. You could – quite accurately – claim that this study found only 7% of rapes reported to police were “false”. But the problem is that implies that the other 93% of rapes reported to police were true, which is just not the case at all – false reports of rape, in this study, meant a specific thing, and that thing was not the same as “untrue reports of rape”. While almost all of the claims which were classified as false were likely to be untrue, as you can see from the many categories of police clearance of these cases, the likelihood of someone actually being guilty of rape if they are accused of rape varies wildly by the way in which it was dismissed. It is very unlikely that everyone whose rape case was dismissed due to lack of evidence was guilty, for instance, and likewise it is unlikely that everyone whose accuser withdrew their accusations was guilty.

But it is equally correct to note that many of these folks probably really did commit rapes, but got off because rape is a hard to prove crime, or their accuser got scared or upset or was intimidated into recanting.

Suggesting that only 7.1% of rapes are false would be like claiming that only 7.8% of people accused of rape are guilty. This is, of course, absolutely true according to this study as well, but it is also deeply misleading, as it implies that the other 92.2% of people were not guilty of rape – when in reality, it is almost certainly true that many of them in fact committed the crime, but there was simply not the evidence to convict (or, in some cases, that the victim accused the wrong person).

Complicated by all of this is the fact that studies indicate that a large percentage of people will report in crime victimization surveys that they were sexually assaulted or raped, but never reported it to the police – meaning that any conclusion we draw from reported rapes has to be taken with a heaping pile of salt, as these surveys often indicate that the majority of people who say that they were sexually assaulted did not report it to police. How would their cases be handled by the system? That’s simply something we don’t (and can’t) know.

A lot of people both misuse and misrepresent these statistics. As you can see from this study, in reality, we have absolutely no idea whatsoever what percentage of rapists are going free, and we have absolutely no idea how many people are accused of rapes that they did not commit. We have no realistic way of knowing, either, because of the massive uncertainty in all the cases which are dismissed for various entirely reasonable reasons which leave the question of what exactly happened open.

Anyone who claims with conviction that only 2% or 8% or whatever of rape claims are false is, at best, misleading people. We simply don’t know how many rape claims are false, though as you can see from the Making a Difference study, those numbers are likely about an order of magnitude on the low side.

However, on the other hand, it is also obvious from this study that in reality, we have little idea of how many rapes are actually happening in the first place – the fact that a third of rapes that end up being reported to the police are very unlikely to have happened draws the reliability of surveys into question, and the fact that a lot of the other cases which were dismissed for other reasons were probably equally untrue suggests that the “untrue” rate of rape reports could be very high indeed, and that the surveys may be wildly unreliable.

But we also can see from these numbers that it is very likely there are a lot of rapists who are walking free due to lack of evidence or failure of the victim to cooperate with law enforcement after making their initial report. And the fact of the matter is that many women with solid cases are likely intimidated into not reporting rapes at all.

The reality is that rape statistics are extremely unclear and uncertain, and making firm claims about them is very hard to do. The best we can do is say that it is hard to say whether or not most claims are true or false without investigating them, and that it is likely that there are many untrue claims of rape, and many claims of rape which are true and yet which cannot be proven in a court of law. There are many people who are wrongfully accused of rape, and there are many rapists who are walking free as a result of lack of evidence against them or intimidating their victims into not pursuing their cases.

The reality is that we don’t really know. And we should not pretend to do so in the face of so much uncertainty. We should always keep an open mind, and allow the evidence of a particular case to take us to the proper destination – statistics, in this case, are of little assistance.

One final note: almost all rape studies are done on the general population. Rape in prison is prevalent, but the degree of its prevalence is unknown; some have claimed that as many rapes happen every year in America’s prisons as happen in the rest of the country combined. Unfortunately, it is hard to know the truth of this, and very few studies have been done on it – most studies like the Making a Difference study are concerned with people in the general population, not prisoners. But given the general low rate of prison prosecutions, it is very likely that there are many serial rapists in prison who continue to victimize other inmates without receiving further punishment.


[–]machimusMahogany Pill11 points12 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Gents, I cannot stress enough the importance of delving into the fine print of the data. If you can't see where the numbers come from or how the terms were defined, you might as well be citing an opinion. Statistics are meaningless without documentation. Good job /u/TitaniumDragon

[–][deleted] 23 points24 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

Now this is quality content. Thanks for writing this up.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

You're welcome. I really have little understanding of what this sub is (I know vaguely what RedPill and BluePill are) but someone asked me to write about this here and I figured, why not?

[–]hyperrrealLoves fun13 points14 points  (2 children) | Copy Link

This was super interesting, thank you.

It's incredible how zealous both the alt-right and mainstream left are about the rape issue, when there's so little evidence to base a conclusion on. All everyone cares about is finding more cannon fodder for the "gender wars."

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 3 points4 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

Unfortunately, a lot of people are impressed by "science" and "statistics", and don't understand that a lot of the time, they give you an answer, but then point out that there is a ton of variability around it and it is hard to really draw any firm conclusions due to various caveats and uncertainties.

Even if you get good statistics, it may be difficult to generalize them; crime statistics are particularly annoying in this respect because we know that crime rates for some crimes, such as homicide, vary by as much as two orders of magnitude across different places in the US. This means that even if your stats might be true for, say, a low-crime midwestern town of 70,000, it may not well represent the stats for New York City or a village of 600 in Alaska.

[–]alreadyredschoolRational egoism < Toxic idealism2 points3 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/images/item/fbn-cavuto-20120731-bushexpire.jpg

You mean that people could interpret this 4% increase as something like 600%?

Sokrates was right when he said "I know that I know nothing [about rape numbers]"

[–]diFFzee11 points12 points  (12 children) | Copy Link

It is frequently claimed that only 2-8% of rapes reported to police are false.

The 8% figure comes from a miss-attribution to an FBI presentation. The FBI said 8% of reported rape cases were provably false, as that got re-reported the provably part was lost and it became "only 8% of reported rapes are false". Provably false means that by FBI standards of proof the person accused could prove they weren't (for example) even present when the alleged rape occurred.

Beyond that of course figures get manipulated and misreported. Cause people have an implicit interest in inflating those figures. If you go to any college campus there will be a campaign claiming insane shit, they even claim batshit crazy stuff like 1 out of every 3 female college students gets raped. There is a survey that has been running for decades called ACHA-NCHA - (American College Health Association National College Health Assessment) that asks actual college students from actual colleges across the country, and the reported rape incidents range between 1%-2% of the female student population across yeaaaars. Why does 2% become 33% well ... there's a shitton of money that flows into advocacy groups, the more the problem gets exaggerated the more aggressively they can canvas for money. The more money they collect, they more political influence they carry.

[–]5th_Law_of_Robotics9 points10 points  (8 children) | Copy Link

The 8% figure comes from a miss-attribution to an FBI presentation. The FBI said 8% of reported rape cases were provably false, as that got re-reported the provably part was lost and it became "only 8% of reported rapes are false". Provably false means that by FBI standards of proof the person accused could prove they weren't (for example) even present when the alleged rape occurred.

Which is interesting because whenever this is quoted by feminists they a) always use the low estimate (2%) and b) pair it up against all reported and suspected unreported rapes.

If you dared suggest only the proven rapes count as actual rapes they'd lose their minds.

But only convictions for false accusations count.

According to the methodology used by RAINN to get their " only 3% of rapists ever go to jail " claim the Duke case is counted as rapists that got away since there was an accusation but she was never convicted for lying.

Just to put those numbers on further perspective.

[–]diFFzee1 point2 points  (7 children) | Copy Link

But only convictions for false accusations count.

There's no such thing, you can't be "convicted" for making a false accusation, at least in the US. In theory a person can be charged with perverting the course of justice, but that's a one in billion chance of actually happening to a person alleging rape. The accused can in theory pursue the matter in the civil courts, but hardly ever happens cause there's no upside to it

According to the methodology used by RAINN

The RAINN methodology is cooking the books on hyper drive, if you look at the infamous 98 out of 100 rapists walk free graphic it's literally using data across different periods, for different crimes to arrive at that figure (100 is the number of sexual assaults, not rape, sexual assault in general which is way wider than rape, reported between 2008-2012, 2 is the number of rape convictions in 2009). The devil is in the references at the bottom of the page.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 5 points6 points  (5 children) | Copy Link

People can be (and in fact have been) convicted of making false accusations of rape. The crime is specifically filing a false police report or making false statements to police, and can even involve perjury if you're making a sworn statement.

Depending on jurisdiction, this is more or less likely. Some jurisdictions very aggressively go after false reports; others never do. Unfortunately, the anti-rape groups try to discourage police from going after people who make false reports on the premise that it discourages women from making reports at all.

Of course, they're not wrong; women who are afraid of the police not believing them are not as likely to go to the police. On the other hand, it encourages people to file false police reports for attention or revenge if they're unlikely to face any negative consequences for their actions. And on the gripping hand, there has been at least one case where a woman was charged with filing a false police report of a rape, duly convicted, and some years later a convicted felon described a rape that ended up matching up with her supposedly "false" report of rape.

As with all things, the justice system is imperfect.

[–]m3ssica3 points4 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

I'm not sure if you're talking about the same story but there was an article I read about a woman who reported her rape, was convinced by the police to recant it, was then charged by the police for filing a false report, and then police in a different district caught a serial rapist they found a photo of her ID on his camera.

For every story about someone who was railroaded by the criminal justice system on an untrue rape charge there is a story of a woman who wasn't initially believed but was eventually vindicated. Which course of action does the least harm to the least amount of people? I certainly don't have the answer.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

For every story about someone who was railroaded by the criminal justice system on an untrue rape charge there is a story of a woman who wasn't initially believed but was eventually vindicated.

We really have no idea how common false convictions of rape are, nor how frequently women who are prosecuted for making false accusations are vindicated.

Both appear to be fairly rare, but they're the sort of thing which gets touted by the news. "Justice system does its job" isn't really news most of the time.

[–]sublimemongrelBecky, Esq.0 points1 point  (0 children) | Copy Link

Exactly my point. When I practiced criminal law my firm represented a few women charged with falsely filing a report. It's really not that uncommon, just less publicized

[–]diFFzee-1 points0 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

In MA "making a false police report" was if memory serves a $500 fine so ...

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Making a false police report in Massachusetts is a misdemeanor which carries a $100-$500 fine ($100 minimum, $500 maximum) plus up to one year in jail. How hard they come down on you generally depends on whether you're just wasting the time of the police or actively cause harm to people.

Note also that if you actually cause damage by filing a false police report, you are financially responsible for all damages as well. So while the "fine" itself may not be that large, you can potentially be out a lot more money than that.

[–]sublimemongrelBecky, Esq.1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

There's no such thing, you can't be "convicted" for making a false accusation, at least in the US. In theory a person can be charged with perverting the course of justice, but that's a one in billion chance of actually happening to a person alleging rape. The accused can in theory pursue the matter in the civil courts, but hardly ever happens cause there's no upside to it

This is not true. When I practiced criminal law, for a total of 9 months after I was first licensed, we had three false rape cases. That means my little general practice firm (which had all of three lawyers) that I practiced for for 9 months got retained by 3 female defendants arrested on false rape charges.

So your 1/a billion is off. I'm not saying it always gets prosecuted, but it is taken seriously when there's adequate PC.

Honestly you guys should be happy about this. The more legit false rape accusations are prosecuted, the more likely it is to deter them. It's just not generally as publicized as rape accusations.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 2 points3 points  (2 children) | Copy Link

The 8% figure comes from a miss-attribution to an FBI presentation.

In all fairness, some of the studies do give numbers around 8%. Heck, the Making a Difference project does as well (7% and 8% probably aren't meaningfully different in a statistical sense in these studies). The problem is mainly that people think of "true" as the opposite of "false", while in the case of crime statistics, "false" means something where the police can prove their claims to be a lie - there is no real "opposite" of that in the usual sense of true vs false.

People failing to define/understand the definitions is a major failing of this stuff. Most of the people involved aren't scientists and don't really look at the studies, they just read newspaper articles which lose all nuance and understanding. And then you end up with retransmission, ect.

A lot of it just comes from sheer mindless repetition.

there's a shitton of money that flows into advocacy groups, the more the problem gets exaggerated the more aggressively they can canvas for money. The more money they collect, they more political influence they carry.

Actual fraud in hopes of getting more money is a driver of some of this crap.

Some of it is just because of insane definitions, though. For instance, if you define all drunk sex as rape, I could believe that a third of college students get "raped" every year - men and women alike, knowing how much drunk sex happens in some places.

If someone genuinely believes this to be the case, they aren't really lying as most people would understand it, but it is hard to suggest that what they're saying is meaningfully "true", either.

[–]diFFzee3 points4 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Both my sisters are in college, one is sophomore on the East Coast, the other is in grad school on the West Coast. They both see the same shit, if you are the gullible type you will get terrorized with crazy numbers advocacy groups quote. They don't quote them in error, they quote them knowing full well they (meaning the advocacy groups) gain power and relevance if they succeed in terrorizing you.

[–]obstinatebeagle1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

People failing to define/understand the definitions is a major failing of this stuff. Most of the people involved aren't scientists and don't really look at the studies

And feminist activists (who are largely liberal arts majors or related non-math occupations) are a prime example of women who are not good at STEM. Coincidence much?

Thank you very much for this highly revealing and insightful data.

[–]betterdeadthanbetaHeartless cynical bastard5 points6 points  (11 children) | Copy Link

Good legwork OP. What do you think about stats like the "one in five women will be raped" being leveraged by feminists? How legit do you feel that one is? I've read that most surveys on rape are more about the questioners pushing their own biased definitions on the surveyed group than how many people in the group actually felt they were raped/assaulted.

Do you think the data we have on rape/sex crime is being properly analyzed and taken into account? Looks to me like much of the work being done in rape is heavily agenda driven and biased and that a lot of policies are being implemented on the basis of falsely represented or outright fudged data. Resulting in shit like rape tribunals in colleges.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 12 points13 points  (9 children) | Copy Link

What do you think about stats like the "one in five women will be raped" being leveraged by feminists?

Again, this depends on what you're defining as "rape"; as I noted above, different groups define rape differently. Some groups only define vaginal penetration as rape (which also means men can't be raped). Some consider rape to be any form of penetration of any oriface. Some only consider forcible rape. Ect.

Some groups also have wrong-headed ideas about what constitutes rape, such as, for instance, the idea that intoxicated sex is intrinsically rape (it isn't - it is only rape if they are so intoxicated they aren't capable of meaningfully consenting to sex). Otherwise, you could end up with the (obviously insane) situation where two drunk people rape each other at the same time, or where something is or is not rape based on whether or not the "rapist" was drunk at the time.

It is likely true that 20% (or more, even) of women become victims of some form of sex crime at least once in their lives (and probably a decent percentage of men as well, for that matter). But something like someone getting groped on a bus is very different from what most people are thinking of when they think of "sexual assault". And of course, even something like being groped can be very different depending on the situation; someone grabbing your ass on a crowded subway car is pretty different from the situation in Germany where a large crowd of men were groping at women as they passed through them, which was probably a deeply traumatic experience for many of them.

It is really hard to know with any confidence whether or not these surveys can even tell us anything useful given that we don't really know how much social desirability bias is involved here.

For instance, if you poll gun owners and ask them if they've prevented a crime from happening in the last year using a firearm, you get numbers indicating somewhere between 1.5-3 million crimes are prevented by gun owners every year. But the problem is, that number is wildly implausible against the background crime rate; it would suggest that as much as a third of crimes are being prevented by people with guns, which doesn't make sense given that many crimes happen while people aren't even present. The actual numbers are believed to be a tenth of what are reported in the surveys, or even less; some estimates put it as low as 50,000, which would be two orders of magnitude below what the surveys claim.

On the other hand, a lot of victims are likely to be reluctant to admit to being victimized to a stranger over the telephone. So there is good reason to believe surveys might simultaneously underreport and overreport victimization. Again, we're trying to measure things which are totally unknown and unknowable here, and the numbers may be wildly different on both ends.

That's not to say that they're totally worthless, but unless you know the questions they're asking, the methodology, and what their definitions of various words are, you don't really get useful data. And it is hard to know their "true" accuracy. The fact that we see such different numbers from different surveys suggests that the data may not be very reliable or comparable, but that doesn't necessarily mean we know in which direction it is unreliable.

Resulting in shit like rape tribunals in colleges.

These are very bad, but are less of a function of statistics and are more of a function of a violation of due process and a lack of understanding of the law. The reality is that these are extremely damaging both to rape victims and to people who are falsely accused of rape. Universities are ill-equipped to serve as law enforcement, and frankly, it isn't their job.

People shouldn't be reporting rapes to the university. They should be reporting them to the police. Rapes are crimes, not academic violations, and rapists need to go to jail, not be suspended or expelled. Investigations should be done respecting the rights of the accused, with warrants, by police, not by people who work for the university (or worse, students) who have no understanding of how to properly go about conducting an investigation and little to no accountability. A rapist going free because his rights were violated during the investigation and all of the evidence becomes inadmissible in court is an unacceptable outcome, but is likely to happen in some of these cases - if they even get charged by the police at all.

[–]m3ssica4 points5 points  (8 children) | Copy Link

People shouldn't be reporting rapes to the university. They should be reporting them to the police.

I don't know how people can credibly argue that universities are appropriate institutions for determining and punishing rape. It makes no logical sense.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 4 points5 points  (7 children) | Copy Link

It is stupid and dangerous. Universities cannot imprison people; they don't have police powers. All they can do is expel someone. If someone is actually a rapist, they need to go to jail so they don't victimize others.

[–]InterversityPurple Pill, Blue Tribe1 point2 points  (6 children) | Copy Link

The only reasoning I've seen that made any sort of sense was an argument that the justice system often takes an inordinate amount of time to progress, with cases regularly taking weeks or months to get through fully. In the meantime, the accused may be living near the accuser, in the same classes, work together, etc.

Now, I don't think schools should be adjudicating rape cases, but my only defense to that was that it violates the due process rights of the accused by punishing them without waiting for a criminal conviction. But that leaves us the problem of is there anything we can do to ameliorate the situation? I mean, I don't want to make a girl who actually was raped work side by side with her rapist, you know?

What do you have to say about this?

[–]m3ssica2 points3 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

I thought about this, too. There's no reason a university can't make accommodations for students in these situations by allowing the girl to switch classes or dorms. That seems like a fair concession to make. I don't think it's acceptable to demand that they make a judgement on the other person when there's been no conviction by a court.

Yes, they might still run into the person on campus but what happens when you're raped while not a college student? Nobody is going to expel that person from your city or neighborhood or grocery store. As /u/TitaniumDragon says, a restraining order is also an option.

[–]InterversityPurple Pill, Blue Tribe1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Indeed, that seems logical, yet I know from having looked at the law that this is specifically prohibited/discouraged (as in, it is recommended to place as little stress/change as possible on the accuser). It's unfortunate.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 1 point2 points  (3 children) | Copy Link

There's already a legal remedy for this situation, namely a restraining order.

[–]InterversityPurple Pill, Blue Tribe1 point2 points  (2 children) | Copy Link

Isn't that a pretty ham-fisted solution? I mean, if you're a college student, how the hell are you supposed to know where the other person is? If you have a class within 500 feet or whatever, can you just not go to class? What if they live in the same building?

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

The purpose of a restraining order is to protect you from someone who is a threat to you. If the person really is a threat to you, then you should get a restraining order against them to protect yourself (though, frankly, the protection they lend you is meager, they are useful from a legal standpoint).

If they aren't a threat to you, then why are you worried about being around them?

If they did rape you, then, why do you care about how shitty it is for them? They're a felon, and one of the worst kind of criminals. Keep yourself safe. Yes, it is going to inconvenience them. They should have thought about that before they raped you.

And yes, being on the receiving end of a restraining order is quite shit.

Which, incidentally, is why if anyone ever falsely accuses you of rape, you should file a restraining order against them before they do it to you, because it can lead to situations like not being able to continue to live in your residence (you can't live in the same building as someone with a restraining order against you) and it can also create a more legally advantageous situation, especially if the other person fails to show up for the hearing, in which case it is often presumed that they didn't show up because they weren't going to dispute your claims.

They're used as weapons in custody disputes for similar reasons. And really, pretty much every other kind of dispute, because they're incredibly easy to get, granted via a very lopsided process, and can create future legal presumptions against the person (after all, you got a restraining order against them for abusive behavior. Now they have a history of being abusive towards you!).

Restraining orders are nasty, but they're useful.

[–]InterversityPurple Pill, Blue Tribe1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Great response. Seems right all the way around.

[–]ppdthrowawaiRed Pill2 points3 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Same sort of deal if you look at how they define it. It's really 1 in 5 people will be raped (or sexually assaulted) in their life. Aka those couple of times a girl slapped my ass at the bar means I'm a statistic!!!

[–]ppdthrowawaiRed Pill3 points4 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Very interesting write up and very sobering view at how badly statistics can be manipulated.

I'm not surprised at all by your findings as most feminist statistics are so outrageous that they can't possibly be true. On top of that there are countless other obviously false statements they make if you take one look at the cited studies. It really goes to show what I've been saying all along. They have a narrative to support due to donations from empathetic follower. They have an actual incentive to politicize emotional issues.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (2 children) | Copy Link

Why is this not in the Deepthub yet?

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child) | Copy Link

What is the Deepthub?

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children) | Copy Link

Collection of best posts on a sub. It's on the right.

I was asking mods, not you.

[–]diFFzee1 point2 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

If you do the math (20% * 5.9%), this works out to less than 2% of all people who are charged with rape actually being convicted of rape in a court of law.

Just noticed this ... no it doesn't work out to that, that's terrible math

a) you forgot those that enter a guilty plea, those get convicted too ;) and

b) the 20% isn't 20% of people that are charged with rape get arrested, it's 20% of reports lead to an arrest (after you take away exceptionally cleared, false, baseless, inactive etc)

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children) | Copy Link

b) the 20% isn't 20% of people that are charged with rape get arrested, it's 20% of reports lead to an arrest (after you take away exceptionally cleared, false, baseless, inactive etc)

You're right. I misphrased that. Fixed it by changing it to "less than 2% of all rape reports result in someone being convicted of rape in a court of law".

I did in fact make note of the people who plead guilty though, in the very next sentence:

Combined with those who plead guilty, we’re left with about 7.8% of rape reports which result in someone being found guilty of rape or pleading guilty to rape.

So the overall number of people found guilty are 7.8%, but the majority of them are people who pleaded guilty. Only about 1/7th of the people who end up being marked as guilty by the justice system by the end of the process actually went through a trial; the overwhelming majority of them pleaded guilty.

[–]wombatinaburrowfeminist marsupial1 point2 points  (2 children) | Copy Link

I'm giving this 20 minutes before it appears on an MRA or TRP blog/source as "evidence" that only .02% of reported rapes are actually rape.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 2 points3 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

"People use statistics like drunks use a lamp post - for support, not illumination."

[–]wombatinaburrowfeminist marsupial1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

They do.

[–]midnightvulpine1 point2 points  (5 children) | Copy Link

Good post and a good breakdown. To me, what stands out is a strong reason why so few rapes are likely reported. So few convictions due to the nebulous nature of proving consent. Balance that against the incredible invasion of one's life that a court case can be. It could seem better to just try and move past it.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 1 point2 points  (3 children) | Copy Link

Wouldn't this mean it is counterprodutive for anti-rape groups to emphasize how rare convictions are, though? I understand that many victims don't want to have to deal with the subsequent investigation, as it is very unpleasant, but the net result is that a lot of rapists are free to victimize others as a result. :\

[–]midnightvulpine0 points1 point  (2 children) | Copy Link

In a way, but hiding the truth isn't a better idea. Better we know the problem, since you have to know what's going on to change it. Eventually.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] -1 points0 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

Sure, but there's a difference between hiding something and just not emphasizing it.

Moreover, it relies on the assumption that this is a problem to begin with; the justice system works the way that it does for a reason. It is supposed to be difficult to convict people of crimes, and rape is a very unusual crime in that unlike most crimes, it is the intent of the participants which determines whether or not it is criminal behavior in most cases. A lot of other things are just generically illegal - if you take something that doesn't belong to you, or kill another person, that's pretty much always illegal. But in the case of rape, sex is generally legal, with a few exceptions.

[–]midnightvulpine0 points1 point  (0 children) | Copy Link

I suppose it depends how that really effects the likelihood of women going to be police. Another potential subject of study.

It is good to have some difficulty in charging someone with a crime. And the hardest to deal with are matters of intent. We can't read minds, so measuring it isn't doable. But I don't want to make things easier. I'd rather attack the issue from the other side. Finding a way to reliably prove matters better. Of course, figuring that out will take better minds than mine.

[–]wombatinaburrowfeminist marsupial0 points1 point  (0 children) | Copy Link

That is definitely my experience.

[–]5th_Law_of_Robotics3 points4 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

Well written. I've seen feminists claiming only 0.06% of accusations are false. This was based on convictions and adding an extra zero for good measure.

Suffice it to say contradicting this was not allowed in her circle jerk.

Additionally that infographic that went around a while ago showing only two false accusations for every hundred/thousand rapists was blatantly misleading as it cherry picked the highest or lowest (depending on the point they were making) of every range and assumed every rape was committed by a single unique person. I've seen several studies showing that rapists average six victims.

So if one man rapes six women and he and an innocent man end up jailed for that feminists would call that 1/3 of rapists going to jail and zero false imprisonments.

In other words: always check their methodology. It's usually really obvious how they're manipulating the data if you do that.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

In other words: always check their methodology. It's usually really obvious how they're manipulating the data if you do that.

Frankly, you should always check the methodology of EVERYTHING. Anything you read, if you actually care about it, you should look at the methodology being used to determine what it really means. If you are relying on it for something important, you should be digging down into it and making sure you fully understand what they were doing and why they were doing it when they did the study.

Scientific studies in general are full of bullshit in basically all fields. While the soft sciences are especially bad about it, you can find lots of trash studies everywhere.

Verify everything. Not just stuff from "feminists" or that you disagree with, but also stuff you agree with. See whether your beliefs are actually valid, and be willing to change them with the evidence (or the lack thereof).

[–]DenswendThe Swiss Army Knife of Hate1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]cuittlerಠ_ಠ1 point2 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

You did an excellent job presenting this information in a fair and neutral way, thank you. You covered quite a bit, but one thing I would note is the influence that police bias has on the initial reporting stage.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children) | Copy Link

This is another factor which can cause study-to-study variability. In this case, the police departments in question were, supposedly, trained to the same standard, hopefully leading to consistent reports, but obviously, in other studies, that isn't necessarily the case.

Different police departments have different policies as regards classifying cases. For instance, the 1994 Kainen study was interesting because the standard used by the police force was a very high one (the woman who made the accusation had to actually withdraw the accusation and say that it was false for it to be counted as false), and yet still yielded a very high false report rate (41%, or 45 of 109 cases). This was an interesting study because it took place in a relatively small midwestern city with low crime rates but a well-funded police force, which meant that the police had the resources to thoroughly investigate all cases. This study is pretty upsetting to a lot of people, and receives a lot of unfair criticism, but is also unfairly generalized, because it assumes that all places are going to have rates similar to one midwestern town which has very little crime. For instance, if we assume that false reports happen at a certain rate independent of crime, then places where there is little crime will have a high rate of false reports (as there are few real ones), while places with more crime will have far fewer false reports as a fraction of total cases (because there are a lot more real ones). And of course, the culture of different places may vary considerably, with some having very few people who would even consider doing such a thing, while others contain more people who have no problem lying to police to get attention or hurt others.

It is really pretty much impossible to say whether the study is really indicative of greater rates, even assuming all the rape reports in the study were properly classified by police according to their guidelines.

Different police forces have different standards for classification, have different levels of training and homogenization, show differing levels of scrutiny, apply differing levels of resources, ect. A police force which is strapped may overreport cases as not having enough evidence to proceed because they don't have the resources to thoroughly investigate all claims. A police force which contains people who are especially aggressive in questioning rape victims, especially ones which don't match their preconceptions of rape, may drive more women to drop their cases or never go to the police in the first place, while one which is especially sympathetic towards victims may get a lower dropout rate, but might also end up with more women making vague false reports of rape that don't go anywhere in order to get attention. It is really hard to know without knowing the standard they're trained to and the way that they deal with rape victims, and it can be hard to even know whether the police force is actually following its own guidelines from the other side of a study.

Generalizing studies is very difficult, as the underlying rates probably vary considerably from community to community.

[–]OfSpock0 points1 point  (1 child) | Copy Link

"follow-up investigation reveals either that no crime occurred or that some other type of crime was actually committed (or attempted)"

I'm kind of curious about this one. "Oh no officer, I wasn't groping her breast, I was pickpocketing her wallet and the bus lurched." is the only scenario that comes to mind.

And improperly coded crimes should be removed as they skew the statistics. If someone reports a mugging and the police click the sex crime box, that's hardly the victims fault.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children) | Copy Link

I'm kind of curious about this one. "Oh no officer, I wasn't groping her breast, I was pickpocketing her wallet and the bus lurched." is the only scenario that comes to mind.

One possibility is that the victim changed their story about what happened (I.e. they initially reported it as a sexual assault, then changed their story to an assault or robbery or kidnapping - according to the standards used in the study, this would not constitute a false report of rape) and/or the investigation found that there was no evidence of sexual assault but evidence of other crimes.

As far as the improper coding - again, that was the standard that the study used. In all fairness, it makes sense to keep track of that sort of thing as well, as they are still reported instances of rape, and having X many reported instances but only Y many outcomes means you have X - Y unaccounted for.

[–]CursedLemonA Bigger, Bluer Dick0 points1 point  (8 children) | Copy Link

Awesome writeup.

I will say, though, that the actual controversy around false rape reports (especially around here) revolves around that which you quoted the police as terming "malicious" - and that we still have no reason to believe any non-negligible amount of rape reports are filed in this fashion.

[–]diFFzee2 points3 points  (3 children) | Copy Link

nope that is completely wrong, the malicious reports (or the reports that the police know the accuser was lying, or the provably false reports, however you choose to call them) are not the problem. If it's immediately obvious the report is false the accused suffers minimal consequences. Nor by the way are they a "negligible" amount, 7.1% isn't negligible,.

The problem isn't that 7.1% of obviously false reports, not in the other 8.5% of obviously true rape reports. The problem is in the 84.4% in between where the majority hinges on consent, that's were the majority of problems occur. A good example of this is the often referenced mattress girl case.

[–]CursedLemonA Bigger, Bluer Dick0 points1 point  (2 children) | Copy Link

I don't know how long you've hung around here but the Red Pill MO for most women is that they're willing to file a knowingly false rape report at the drop of a hat - as in, "I was drunk but I need to protect my image, ergo rape report".

[–]diFFzee3 points4 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

Yup and this isn't what counts as a malicious report, that's what you don't seem to get. A malicious report is Bob raped me at 9pm on Saturday, meanwhile Bob got on a plane for a 5 hour flight at 7pm Saturday. Provably false, aka malicious.

What you just described is in the 84.4% where the issue is consent. "I regret having sex with Bob so call it rape" isn't provably false. You did have sex with Bob. Bob can't prove he was having Daiquiris at a bar in Miami at the time, he was there having sex with the person accusing him of rape. It hinges on Bob convincing prosecutors, a jury, a college panel that person consented. Even if he does convince them, this doesn't count as a provably false accusation.

Edit: not "you" as in you CursedLemon specifically, generally "you" as in the person accusing someone of rape

[–]IwanttoliveinspaceMGTOW1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Malicious doesn't mean provable false.

An accusation that isn't easily proven false can still be a malicious accusation; that is to say an accusation intended to cause harm.

In that kind of case, the harm would be to the man's reputation.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 1 point2 points  (3 children) | Copy Link

The problem is that, for the majority of cases (almost 60% in the making a difference study), we don't actually know whether the claim was true or false. The false/malicious stats in that study are only for cases where the cops found direct evidence of falsehood, according to the standards used by the study. It wasn't enough for the cops to just believe that the victim was lying, they had to have contradictory evidence. If a victim withdrew from an investigation because their story was falling apart, that would be reported as exceptionally cleared, not false/malicious. If there was simply no good evidence for it, but it was impossible to prove that it was false, either, it would be classified under suspended/inactivated.

The problem is that we have no idea what fraction of other cases from the various categories which didn't result in convictions were true or false. It is entirely possible that many of them or very few of them were based on a lie; we have absolutely no good way of knowing that. Almost none of them might have been, or a lot of them might have been; by their very nature, they were situations where the police were unable to make an absolute determination of truth or falsehood.

That 7.1%, then, is probably more like a minimum - many probably went undetected. There is some evidence from other studies that a lot of false reports of rape which involve attention seeking are vague and fail to name specific or real individuals; if you look at Jackie's infamous claims in the Rolling Stone article, for instance, she made up her alleged assailants rather than naming some real person as the perpetrator. If someone says that they were taken to a hotel room/their dorm room by someone they didn't know, say only their first name, and give a vague description, there's a good chance that the police will never be able to clear it, and it would fall under suspended/inactivated because there is insufficient evidence to identify a suspect, but it is very difficult to prove a negative. If the description of the person is vague enough, it is hard to prove that they don't exist, and if there is no way for the police to ID the person or get any leads, then they're probably going to suspend the case after doing some searching rather than go "Hey, let's check if this person is making shit up", because, frankly, it is probably a waste of their time. Obviously, this sort of attention seeking is mostly a waste of time for the police, but unless someone happens to be unlucky enough to match the description, it is unlikely to cause much real harm.

On the other hand, if someone accuses their ex of raping them, the ex denies it and claim that they hooked up, and there is no evidence of anything either way, that, too, would be something that would be dismissed for lack of evidence - but there, the fact of the matter is that it is basically certain that either a rape happened or that the accuser is lying in the hopes of hurting their ex. It is impossible in many of these cases for the police to make a determination either way, and he said, she said isn't enough to build a case on - you need something more than that to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone was a rapist. Many of these are likely dismissed, either up front or by the prosecution after an arrest due to lack of substantial evidence, and we really have no way of knowing what proportion of these cases are false reports and what proportion are true reports which simply don't have enough evidence to convict the rapist on.

And of course, on the gripping hand, as noted, some of the false/malicious reports closed by police might actually be true and the cops screwed up.

Obviously, there are a substantial portion of cases (almost a quarter in the Making a Difference study) which involve situations where no rape occurred, but the victim wasn't lying but simply confused or had their report miscategorized. "I had sex last night and regretted it" isn't malicious, but it isn't rape, either. Likewise, "I got drunk and hooked up with this dude at a party" isn't rape, either, but the person might feel violated because they regret it the next day/the guy turns out to be a jerk once the beer goggles wear off. But if they're going to the police because they are concerned that they were raped, and describe a situation which wasn't a rape, it isn't like they're lying or being deceptive.

Likewise, as noted, some of the baseless cases were other forms of crimes which weren't actually rapes which were miscategorized as such for whatever reason. If someone was robbed or physically assaulted, but not raped, that doesn't mean that they weren't a crime victim, or that they were going to the police maliciously to screw with people.

[–]CursedLemonA Bigger, Bluer Dick1 point2 points  (2 children) | Copy Link

My remark was more about the motivations of people prioritizing false rape claims over...well, the whole issue of rape in general, which regardless of plus or minus this or that, remains a far more prevalent problem even if one were to bend the statistics as far in their favor as possible. Both false rape claims and actual rapes are difficult to prove, so the nebulous nature of both should not motivate a person to take either a hardline misandrist or misogynist stance with respect to heterosexual rape.

And yet, this subreddit exists.

[–]TitaniumDragon[S] 2 points3 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

I some of it is backlash against the idea that false reports of rape don't ever happen and that rape victims should be unreservedly believed, which is itself a backlash against people suggesting that women want it and lie about rape all the time.

The criminal justice system must operate on the premise of innocent until proven guilty. A lot of people don't seem to understand this principle. It isn't limited to rape; it is a general societal issue. People swallow down all kinds of misleading information, from Michael Brown supporters to the Militia supporters, so long as it suits their personal agenda, and in many cases appear to be fundamentally uninterested in justice - they just want to be right.

[–]Ultrablue19730 points1 point  (0 children) | Copy Link

The criminal justice system must operate on the premise of innocent until proven guilty.

As a woman who has been sexually harassed, and assaulted (though not raped--and I was a typical minor who didn't report it because I thought it was my fault), stalked by a stranger, and was a target of someone who later turned out to be a serial rapist (but I got really, really angry and scared him away) I have to say, the way accused rapists are presumed guilty before a fair trial really upsets me. That is the basis of our legal system. Rape is a special crime, sometimes victims will go along out of fear, or because they believe it is their fault somehow, or they owe the rapist something, but innocent until proven guilty should still stand.

Something that really worked for me was going to self-defence courses in my teens (after the minor assault I'd suffered when I was pre-puberty.) Learning that being angry, and aggressive, and that it is okay to stand up for your sexual autonomy and get violent to defend it, really spared me a lot of grief later. I am trying to teach my own daughter that it is okay to be "mean" and say no. I wonder if teaching women this would clear up some of the ambiguous cases.

You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea.

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