To wonder if this is for real, and if so, what moron came up with it?! **Trigger warning**

[StoneTheFlamingCrows]

One in three reported rapes happen when the victim has been drinking

If this link is true I am ashamed to work for the nhs.

I suspect, if you analysed the statistics, 1 in 3 mugging victims had also been drink

Sorry
been drinking, but I think it would be de idly off to have a poster warning people that they shouldn't drink or they might get mugged!

There are some crimes against statistics on this thread

The original NHS advert being the first of many.

*decidedly odd

Imagine if we had a poster saying that 1/3 victims of all crime had consumed alcohol.

It may be that the two have a causative link: drinking any amount of alcohol makes you vulnerable to crime in some way.

Or it may be that the two have a correlation: say, for example, drinking any amount of alcohol is more likely when you are also around other people who are drinking (and they commit the crimes) and that people who consume alcohol often do so outside the home (so you are more vulnerable to burglary).

Nothing in a poster saying that 1/3 of victims of crime had consumed alcohol allows you to understand which applies (or, if a mixture, in what proportions). It doesn't allow you to make risk based decisions about the benefits of altering your behaviour. Nor does it explain how to alter your behaviour (is the risk binary, or is one glass of wine ok?).

Nor does it explain how to alter your behaviour (is the risk binary, or is one glass of wine ok?).

I don't think they need to spoon feed the message to people as it is pretty obvious that more drinking makes you more vulnerable. For men and women. The poster uses shock tactics to get a message across that drinking will make you vulnerable. I will admit it is done in a very heavy handed way, but I think the intention of the poster was to warn people to stay as safe as possible. After all, don't we all have a responsibility to keep ourselves out of situations that could result in trouble. It won't stop everything, but if it stops one incident, isn't that better than nothing?

That isn't the point. They use the 1/3 statistic, which leads people to conclude, as a previous poster did, that 1/3 of rapes could potentially have been avoided by people not being so drunk as to put themselves in risky situation. That is shitty use of statistics. What if (as seems likely) the majority of those victims had drunk moderately and were raped by people they knew?

It won't stop everything, but if it stops one incident, isn't that better than nothing?

Will it stop an incident though? Or will that incident just happen to someone else? Or will said incident still happen just the attacker fights that bit harder to restrain the victim?

So we now can't prevent a crime happening to one person because it might happen to someone else instead?

Will it stop one incident or will it just mean that woman A remains hyper-vigalent with those fast reaction times that have been mentioned and woman B will get raped instead? Or maybe woman A will get raped and become part of the 2 in 3 statistic, like the woman from Rochdale a few weeks ago who was walking to the butchers in broad daylight.

Even when the Ipswich murders were happening and the target group was tiny and the publicity was massive and the consequences life-ending the murders kept on happening until the killer was arrested.

Rapists need to be stopped at source rather than the 'make sure he picks woman B' message, to say nothing of the 'drunk chicks are super rapable, they totally can't fight back and they're practically asking for it.' message it sends out to the potential rapists.

I think the poster is being taken down.

So we now can't prevent a crime happening to one person because it might happen to someone else instead?

No one has said that. And you are missing the point.

The poster implies that had they not been drinking it wouldn't have happened.

The statistic implies that actually you are safer if you do drink.

And I thought AD campaigns were supposed to prevent things from happening, not just move the crimes on to a different set of people and congratulate themselves on a job well done

And no matter what anyone does, short of living in solitary in a cage, no one is any safer until the rapists are off the streets.

There are the same number of potential attackers out there whether you are drunk, sober, out at might or in the day, with friends or alone.

The statistic implies that actually you are safer if you do drink.

It does not imply anything of the sort, and people on here who keep repeating it have no understanding of statistics.

At any one time, what proportion of women in this country are likely to be drunk? I have no real idea, but let's say one in 100. I'd be happy to accept anyone's alternative figure, but please accept mine just for the moment.

If 1 in 100 women are drunk, and assuming drinking is irrelevant to being raped, we would expect that 1 in 100 raped women would be drunk.

But we are told by the poster that 1 in 3 women have been drinking. If that is a true figure, there is a very clear correlation between drinking and being raped. For instance, if my guesstimate of 1 in 100 drunkenness is correct, you are 33 times more likely to be raped drunk than if you are sober.

This is not victim blaming, one thing we are all agreed on is that the rapist is always to blame under all circumstances. But since statistics are being mentioned, do please use the method correctly.

I see it slightly differently Giles - I think that a lot of rapes are committed by 'ordinary' men who for a range of reasons have an occasion when they don't respect a woman's right to say no. Not monsters who lurk in alleys after dark waiting for women who have been drinking.

So, the answer isn't taking "the rapists" off the streets, it's addressing societal structures and values which support male entitlement and undermine women's right to the freedoms men take for granted. Values bolstered by the 'don't get yourself raped' message.

I have done jobs where I have worked with people who commit appalling crimes, including sexual and I believe in people's capacity for change (if not actually psychopathic, which is incredibly rare). The posts from mothers of boys on this thread also make me feel that things can change. What depresses me is the focus on women having to prevent themselves being raped. It implies that there is no hope for change, all you can do is duck, hide and hope this time it's not you.

I think people get the basic statistics Sally. People are making the point that it is such a nonsense, lacking-in-substance-and-context statistic that you can twist it around to say something stupid without it being any more illogical.

"But we are told by the poster that 1 in 3 women have been drinking. If that is a true figure, there is a very clear correlation between drinking and being raped. For instance, if my guesstimate of 1 in 100 drunkenness is correct, you are 33 times more likely to be raped drunk than if you are sober."

I've said it quite a few times now but:

1. Having consumed alcohol is not the same as drunk;
2. Nothing in the statistic illustrates causation not correlation. Since people don't drink alone that often, perhaps the real risk factor is being around a man who has drunk alcohol and you would not lower your risk at all if you stuck to lemonade?

Are you really not getting those things, or are you just determined not to?

Penguin - my last post was very simply to destroy the "safer drunk" myth so often repeated above.

On the other issues we are probably not so far apart.

I will still continue to limit my alcohol intake when out on the town, in order to be alert for risks from whatever source. I consider it foolish not to do so.

It's not a 'safer drunk' myth. Do you really not get that people understand the statistic. It's just such a bollocks statistic that people are making fun of it. You seriously think that any of the posters on this thread think you are safer drunk?

The poster says 1:3 victims have been drinking. So 2:3 have not. So by that logic, you are MORE likely to be a victim if you are sober. Shows how ridiculous the whole thing is.

Oh.

Penguin
It's not a 'safer drunk' myth.

I think you had better explain that to edam then!

I'm out now.