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.)

you're not reading the occasional case of a woman proven to have alledged rape incorrectly and extrapolating that are you? I would call that just lazy.

I'm also pro extending anonymity to defendants smallwhitecat but in return I think prosecution should be allowed to admit into evidence previous allegations if they are from differnt women over a period - circumstantial evidence IYSWIM.

Yes, the defendants need anonymity, absolutely.

at theman's general attitude, though.

sorry I didn;t explain myself - I didn;t mean in specific cases. I mean in an overhaul of the system I would suport anonymity of defendent to protect innocent defendents who theoretically would only ever have one allegation against them in a lifeime but to allow a trend born out my repeated accusation (or previous cases) admitted.

I though you weren;t allowed to discuss previous cases/allegationsion Englsih law as each criem has to be judged on its own merits UNLEss the defendent tries to (for example) rely on "what a great character he has" when the prosecution can in fact then say - "really, there 10 women didn't think so" IYSWIM

"born out of repeated accusation "

I haven't repeatedly accused anyone of anything!

Home Office recently revealed 4 out of 10 rape victims were intoxicated

and?

The man did you say you were giving a lecture to students about this topic?????

"'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."

In this post you have shown that you are exceptionally ignorant and not only do you lack the most basic understanding of statistics you are so arrogant that you believe you can dismiss analysis you know next to nothing about.

There is precious little in this world we can be absolutely 100% certain of. Careful statistical analysis allows us to show that rape is generally under reported and the conviction rate is extremely low. This may not have relevance in the trial of an individual. But suggests we need to rethink the way it treated in the criminal justice system and look at ways of reducing the incidence of rape.

Is "murder" for you also something that can only be proven in a court of law? Such that despite the evidence, and indeed statistics, that suggest otherwise it only happens where there is a conviction???

This is a good, sobering read, and quite uncomfortabl about how women can be even more judgemental of victims than men.

"More than a quarter of those polled for Amnesty as part of its Violence Against Women campaign believed that women were responsible if they wore sexy clothing; 28 per cent thought they were "partially responsible" if they behaved in a flirtatious manner; and one in 12 thought a woman was wholly responsible if she was known to have had many sexual partners."
And re the 'false allegations' chestnut:
"Of course, some women can and do make false allegations - for example, to hide infidelity or excuse behaviour they'd rather forget. But the numbers are tiny. According to "A Gap or a chasm? Attrition in reported rape cases", a study commissioned by the Home Office published this year, around 3 per cent of 3,500 reported cases of rape constituted false allegations."
Whole article here:

news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article329517.ece

so, because we (as a society) can only prove, to your satisfaction, about 5-6% of rape cases, we have to shut up about it? that seems sensible

giving a lecture to who please? in what capacity?

What students, the man, and what subject?

I think it is important here to make the point that before there were such surveys as the british crime survey there were only police statistics...this basically means crimes only reported to the police and that go to court, this meant that many crimes if deemed not to be a crime by the police ie the superintendant on when the crime was reported it was not even recoreded at all....therefore there was a humongous dark figure of crime, many people dont report crime for a multitude of reasons, women especially through domestic violence and fear of reporting it....it is crucial to criminologists and people who study crime to have access to these surveys like British crime survey because they unveil peoples experiences of crime and attitiude to crime, the police even use this information to change the way they report crimes now.....its crazy to suggest that because its not gone to court its not a crime....i am a criminologist and ssoooooooooo many people dont report crime, if we relied on only what the police report it would be completely dispoportionate

ah but Aloha theman would say that you can;t prove that only 3% are false allegations.

I do find the suggestive clothing thing annoying. I say to (male) friends so if you are wearing a pair of shorts which enhances your particularly fine buttocks and were then raped by a man, then that would be your fault? Or you got drunk one night and were raped, it was your fault etc etc...

Yes, but he has already admitted he knows nothing about statistics
Though clearly he knows much better than the Home Office. The idea that 'theman' has any influence over students is so appalling to me that I cannot allow myself to believe it.

i'm with you aloha....thats why i was asking what he is lecturing and to what students, he /she clearly has no idea what they are talking about and why these surveys and stats are used

I suspect he might be related to a certain Cardiff-based judge with a taste for whisky and an encylopaedic knowledge of the location of all branches of Tie Rack .

hahahaha yea really scary theman is on the loose with students

i find this subject very interesting but i think i might need a law degree to understand most of the posts on this thread

not so much a law degree than a criminology degree, then you will no exactly about statistics related to crime and their purpose....thats why theman is so off with his statement, seems theman has no knowledge of the purpose of BCS and other related surveys, i cant stress their importance and relevance to crime in uk enough

"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."

"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". "

More likely the students had enough sense to conclude you were an ill-informed misogynistic charlatan and have made an official complaint.

"criminal lecture" = lecture on crime or leture criminally short on knowledge. Discuss.

That sounds like my favourite Julian & Sandy joke. Julian & Sandy were two outrageously camp and clearly homosexual characters in the period when homosexuality was illegal, one of which was played by Kenneth William. They appeared on an ancient radio comedy show called Round the Horne - each week they'd play the co-owners of an unlikely business and get away with extremely rude double-entendres. One week they were the proprietors of Bona Law -

Would be client: 'Can you help me in a civil matter?'
Kenneth Williams: "Ooooh, I don't know dearie. You see, I have a criminal practise that takes up most of my time'

Makes me larf every time.