to hate impossible (to prove) rape statistics?

[theman]

i mean they are just lazy.
the amount of reports and arguments regarding the topic i have heard over the year which involves people repeating them as "fact" just pisses me off beyond belief.
the two most common (or variant of the two) are.

35% of rapes go unreported. (how can you know this if they are not reported?)

70 % of rapists go free from court ( if they are found innocent in a court of law how can you call them a rapist)

it is more the reactioni get when i pull someone up on these facts and figures that annoys me.they act as though by not accepting their figures i am pro rape, when it is quite the opposite, i think lazy figures like this trivialise the matter and lead to skewed opinions.

(sorry was just giving a criminal lecture and a student used one of these figures in a point she made and the whole class looked at me like i'd shot their dogs.)

The unreported thing I thought was from crime surveys - they interview people randomly, ask about any crimes that happened to them, and say 'did you report it?'.

I agree about calling unconvicted people rapists being a problem, though.

It is lazy. The key thing to remember though is that according to the Staley Mail, it's ALWAYS the woman's fault.

"The "victim", a shapely blond of 24, who had been drinking Diamond White, had apparently not actually said No to her attacker - forgetting that he was indeed, French. Saying "no" rather than "non" showed that she was in fact up for it".

Umm - re-reading that, I realise how angry that kind of crappy, skewed "reporting" makes me.

there was a thread on here a while back. most people were pretty surprised at just how many of us had experienced rape or attempted rape/s. and a clear majority of them said they had not reported.

the figures are lazy, i agree, but i also reckon theyre pretty conservative as guesses go. got bugger all evidence apart from anecdotal to back that up though.

"The unreported thing I thought was from crime surveys - they interview people randomly, ask about any crimes that happened to them, and say 'did you report it?"

see this pisses me off even more. this is one sided reported. a woman says she was raped but didn't report it. no attempt to find the man.no attempt to have a criminal trial.lets still just say this was a rape but was not reported and let all women shelters use the figure as if it were fact.
this girl tried to argue saying she knew because she worked in a womens shelter/phone line and in the majority of the cases the women on the line had not reported it to the police.
good thing is that now all my students don't believe these "facts".
as all i had to do was ask about 3 questions to win this argument.

1. did you question the man?
2. was there any conviction in a court of law?
3. how can you be sure based on a one sided account with not criminal investigation,proceedings or conviction that a rape actually took place?

" got bugger all evidence apart from anecdotal to back that up though"
the only point i was trying to make.
hence my inclusion of "(to prove)" in the title. i'm not saying it is impossible for them to be true (personally i doubt them and believe they are scaremongering and painting all men as racist) but what i am certain of is that they are impossible to prove and should never be presented as fact or used in an argument.

theman

Why would people who would be anonymous to everyone bother making things up? Why would any more than the insignificant number of nutters do that?

In the same survey, I'm sure some other crimes come up, and weren't reported to the police, for whatever reason. Do you doubt that those crimes took place, too?

I do believe that rape can take place without the man in question realising he is raping someone (thinking he's 'seduced' someone) ...

eh?

not scaremongering. and hardy labels all men as rapists (assume racists was a typo).

this is trip trap, surely?

you seriously get pissed off with people saying 'yes, i was raped, and no, since its nigh on impossible to 'prove' it in in a court of sodding law, i ddint want to go through any more harrowing experiences like having the whole world talking about it, deciding whether im lying or not...'

parpity parp.

hmph. gone a bit quiet, theman? cant say i blame you. i wouldnt imagine you would get much sympathy round here.
YABVFU

The rape statistics are the best estimates available based on the data that is out there. Of course they should be qualified but almost every statistic out there is based on some sort of sample data and has an an associated confidence interval.

In this world there is very little we can be certain of but we can use the evidence to come to conclusions with some degree of certainty.

You however, (if you are for real) are lazily assuming that you know more than the statisticians and coming to a dodgy conclusion based on those stats. Worse you are spreading this ignorant nonsense amoung your students.

tranquillaman at no point did i say i had a problem with people who are making the claims, my only point was that such one sided unexamined claims are not sufficient to be taken as "fact". as i said my problem is with the people who accept such claims as fact with no evidence and then use the statistics based on these unqualified and uncontested claims and then use them to support an argument or point of view.
the reason i have "gone quiet" is that i had some work to do.on my return i have seen absolutely nothing to make me think any different.
smallwhite cat i was just putting out a random number as when people use this line of argument the number always seems to be completely random and without investigation.
and as for doubting the other crimes in these reports taking place yes i do.why would i not doubt something that is completely unreported and unproven, especially given the amount of insurance fraud i have seen over the years.

what is your point here, theman?

are you saying that rape is in fact over reported? that conviction rates are just fine and dandy thanks? that coverage of rape stories in the media is bad? that statistics in general are poorly understood or only when it comes to discussing rape and its concomitant issues?

feel rather at this post.

"You however, (if you are for real) are lazily assuming that you know more than the statisticians and coming to a dodgy conclusion based on those stats"

i'm not saying they are wrong or right i am saying that "rape" as we know it is something that can only be proven in a court of law. i accept i am not a statistician and that i don't know more than them in forming statistics. my point is how can you come up with statistics about a crime taking place if there is literally no evidence. with all other statistic measurments you start with provable facts an normally extrpulate them to form a general figure for a wider soceity.
with this you are starting with no provable facts and it is not that i think they are wrong or right.just that the use of such guess figures in an argument based on evidence and fact,such as in law, is lazy and unprovable.thats it.
i'm not saying anything about women crying rape or that these women were not raped, just that the use of these statistics is not applicable in an argument of fact.
if it were a discussion on sociology or law reform then possibly if the statistics and reports were highly examined.

there are various crimes that are under-reported. It is beleived that ABH and ABH against young men is way under reporetd and so there is an attmpt to assess the real level of the crime in order to ensure that correct resources are applied to it.

I'm not sure exactly why you have a problem with it.

I agree with the "70% of rapists go free" point when it is impossible to know how many or indeed if any are actually rapists. Better reporting would (and does) talk about the extremely low conviction rates

sorry that should read ABH and GBH

Don't quite see your point?

i'm not sure if rape is over-reported. in some sections of soceity it is vastly over-reported. women going out getting hammered and sleeping with someone they regret and can't really remember the night before/have a bf/husband they don't want to lose drastically over-report it while many women being raped by husbands and relatives drastically under-report it.
the conviction rate is to be expected unfortunately as it is pretty much a his word versus her word scenario unless there is signs of physical struggle, so get the right jury and reasonable doubt is quite easy to prove.
i certainly think coverage of rape stories in the media is bad as it names the accused before his fair hearing and no matter what we think mud sticks.so regardless of the decision he will be ruined for life (just think john leslie).
and my feelings about the statistics have been explained.i feel they are poorly presented to the public as "fact" and that any man questioning them or criticising them is looked upon as a mysoginistic pig without hesitation.

What makes you say the figures are 'lazy'? If you were really giving a 'criminal lecture' you would already know that the unreported rape statistics are drawn from the highly respected British Crime Survey, a government sponsored survey designed to track the reality behind the reported crime statistics.
You should also realise there is a difference between calling a named individual a rapists and realising that a conviction rate of just 5.6% (on reported rape alone, obviously) compared to 32% in 1977, clearly means that justice is not being done and rapists are walking free (quite often to rape and rape again). Most seriously criminologists and experts including senior police officers agree with with this.

goodness - "women going out getting hammered and sleeping with someone they regret and can't really remember the night before/have a bf/husband they don't want to lose" thats a very brave statement on a predominantly female site. Do you have statistics to back that little bit of opinion up?

"in some sections of soceity it is vastly over-reported. women going out getting hammered and sleeping with someone they regret and can't really remember the night before/have a bf/husband they don't want to lose drastically over-report it..."

well we didn't have to scratch the surface much before we found the sub-stratum of misogyny did we?

And yes, you do sound deeply misogynistic, as well as woefully ill-informed.