'The truth about false rape accusations' in graph form (based on US stats)

[TessOfTheBaublevilles]

Click here

There is a "health warning" about the statistics, but the F.B.I. is among the sources of data, so I'd say it's more than a fair representation.

I know this won't surprise anyone, but to see it in this pictorial form, well it really hits home.

[LurcioLovesFrankie]

Thanks for posting this, depressing as it is. It really hits home when it's displayed graphically like that.

[PiccadillyCervix]

Confused about the graphic as it shows "rapists" not "rapes". Does that assume each raped woman was abused by a different man? Because I don't think it would be right, maybe more correct to show it as rape victims? I'd have thought some rapist have many victims iyswim

Just if there are that many rapist out there I may never leave my house, or let dd out :(

[PiccadillyCervix]

The graph is wrong, for the reasons I said I guess.

read here

and importantly
The graphic overestimates the number of false accusations. This infographic is intended to drive home how rare false accusations are, and yet, because of a simple error, it overestimates how many actually occur. The problem is that the Enliven Project conflates "false reports," which only require the claim that a crime has happened, with "false accusations," which require fingering a supposed perpetrator. This might seem like a small thing, but this report from the National Center for the Prosecution of Violence Against Women, which focuses in part on teaching law enforcement to understand and root out false reports of rape, is very careful to warn against conflating the two. In its list of potential indicators of a false report, the Center specifically singles out the lack of a named perpetrator as something to look out for:

[PiccadillyCervix]

it's too bad actually because it's the kind of thing that can get people's attention but now it will just be dragged through the mud as being totally false "feminist propaganda". It's not but it isn't totally accurate either.

[Trekkie]

Surely it can't be called feminist propoganda if it overstates the number of false accusations? As in, you look at the graph, and the message you get is that more women lie than actually do?

Or have I missed something there?

[LurcioLovesFrankie]

I see what you're saying Picadilly, but I actually am a bit more sanguine about its usefulness. I work in a politically controversial area of science which is difficult but vitally important to communicate to the public. And I wrestle daily with getting good graphical formats for explaining probabilistic information (I think this-widely used in epidimeology - is one of the best for getting across "hits", "misses", "false positives" and "correct diagnoses"). You're never going to satisfy the rampant misogynists, but they shouldn't be your target audience - it should be the general public, who sit on juries, who listen to people spouting rape apologist shit down the pub. If someone says "what about multiple rapes by the same guy", you explain the stats in a bit more detail. If they are a sane person, they will still find the graph shocking. If they focus on nit-picking over matters of presentational style over substance, you will know them for the sexist wanker they are.

I had a rather heated argument with a friend's DH recently about false rape accusations. I brought him up short by quoting the home office statistics on false reporting. And the coup de grace was when I pointed out to him that he was more likely to be raped by another man than falsely accused by a woman. I like to think ('cos he's a decent, albeit prior to this discussion, ill-informed one) that he came away with a different outlook on the issue of rape. And it's people like him - the well-meaning but ill-informed, that this graph could help.

[PiccadillyCervix]

It also got other facts wrong if you have a look at my link, but yes, it is being called feminist propaganda by the MRAs on the comment section in the original links due to being factually incorrect on a couple of counts. The third point, that they overstate false accusations is being glossed over...(as you can imagine)

If one in 5 women is raped and each of those is a separate rapist it implies there are a helluva a lot of rapists about. really it should be that each little man counts for a separate act of rape and supposedly they overstate the amount of women we think are raped but don't report (although obviously no one knows how many that it is!)

[PiccadillyCervix]

they will still find the graph shocking. If they focus on nit-picking over matters of presentational style over substance, you will know them for the sexist wanker they are.

yes, that's entirely possible!

[LurcioLovesFrankie]

I skimmed the comments very briefly to confirm my suspicion that they'd be overwhelmingly, deeply misogynist. I make a point of no longer reading them in detail for the sake of my blood pressure. I do think that the bulk of the people who comment "below the line" on this sort of article are deeply disturbed individuals, and in my area, many of them paid astroturfers. I like to think that they are actually a minority in the population at large, that (because being sufficiently worked up to comment is a form of self-selection) most people are saner than that.

[PiccadillyCervix]

Yes, most of them are total misogynists and I hate leaving them any room to wiggle.

Just had to google astroturfer, I thought it was autocorect gone awry!!

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

Lurcio, that's a really interesting point about men being more likely to be raped by another man than falsely accused by a woman. Did you calculate that from the Home Office statistics?

[LurcioLovesFrankie]

Sorry, only just spotted your question, Doctrine. I actually read it on here, but on one of those wonderfully detailed posts summarising research (the Home Office report I think). To my shame I can't remember whose post (SGM perhaps?)

[Anniegetyourgun]

"Astroturfer" would appear to be just a posh word for sock puppet.

[vesuvia]

LurcioLovesFrankie wrote - "what about multiple rapes by the same guy".

Yesterday, I heard one of the Police Commissioners in England talking on the radio about rape statistics. She mentioned that, on average, convicted rapists have each committed 2 or 3 rapes.

[Trills]

I really don't understand how the stats could possibly be gathered when many rapes go unreported. Do they just guess?

[Franz1980]

"overstates the number of false accusations"

If i counted right on the pic there are 50 people across and 50 down so that's 2500 people. And only 2 are false accusations so that's 0.08% for false accusations- 1 in 1,250.

But:

"The statistics on false accusations of rape vary widely, from 2% to Eugene Kanin's (1994) figure of 41%, which derived from a case study of a police agency in a metropolitan city in the Midwest. John Bancroft states that a search of the literature on false rape reports reveals that Kanin's figure of 41% false rape reports is regarded as unusually high. FBI statistics for the annual rate of false reporting of forcible assault across the country have been a consistent 8%.[5] A study from the UK found that of the approximately 14,500 cases of rape reported in 2005/2006 9% were classified as false allegations.[6]"

9% is almost 1 in 10. yet this graph shows 1 in 1,250?

[skrumle]

i didn't even attempt to count across but down there are only 20 lines.

and the chart shows falsely accused, rather than false reporting as mentioned above.

[FrothyDragon]

2 out of every 100 reported rapes are deemed "false accusations". These were set apart from the "reported/convicted" for ease, to avoid the old "blah, look loads of men are wrongly convicted claptrap".

Also, the graph doesn't just show reported rapes, it shows unreported.

[edam]

Debate about statistical detail is both fascinating and quite important but what I think the graph shows quite starkly is the big picture - as confirmed by that big report released this week in the UK, most rapists get away with it. It is very rare for a rape to be reported, let alone prosecuted, let alone the rapist be convicted.

[edam]

The Jimmy Saville report, out yesterday, also makes the same point, I believe - he was able to get away with his despicable crimes for years because victims were too scared to report, and even when they did report, were not believed, or were frightened into silence. As recently as three years ago.

[Frans1982]

Correction there are 50 people across and 20 down that's 1,000 people in total.

Unreported rapes are unreported, so how do we know the existance of any of them in the first place? Wild guess?

[Frans1982]

Regardless how common or rare false accusations are, they can have tragic consequences for the victim even if the accused is not found guilty:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9788265/Teenager-falsely-accused-of-rape-beaten-to-death-by-gang.html

[PiccadillyCervix]

I really don't understand how the stats could possibly be gathered when many rapes go unreported. Do they just guess?

No idea, but just because a rape isn't reported to the police officially does not mean it isn't reported to a hospital for a rape kit/MAP or to a rape help line number. They must keep data too