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.)

Sounds as if theman is saying women who say they have been raped are mostly liars. Wonder if he doubts the stats on burglary, given sometimes no-one is convicted of the crime? Is it only sexual violence that 'doesn't exist' until someone is convicted? Does he refuse to call a killing murder if no-one is convicted? If the uncle and father of that poor Kurdish girl whose body was cut up and stuffed in suitcase had got off, or fled the country, would that not be a murder?

If he can't even construct a logical argument, heaven help his students.

People up and down the country must be inventing burglary stories.

Oh, you know people. They go out, spend more money than they meant to, and then claim they were robbed.

Yes, YABU.

Quite, edam, aloha et al

Yeah, loads of drunk women smash in their own windows, lose the telly and the dvd player, and then feel they can't admit it to their boyfriend so go and tell the police they were burgled. Happens all the time. I read it in the Sun or something. Or a mate told me. Anyway, I know its true.

YABU. Completely agree with edam, aloha etc. Of course no crime statistics are absolutely perfect, but BCS are the best available.

I know how you feel, Theman, as I was treated the same way when on school experience during teacher training. A child was pointed out to me as being sexually abused at home. Why isn't the culprit in jail then? I innocently asked, and was immediately subjected to a torrent of verbal abuse myself.

Good heavens, what a very odd thread. I have always assumed that these kind of statistics were a best possible estimate, not the word of God.

i think thats it, they are the best possible available, they have flaws but they are always being improved, just as police stats are being improved on, to give us a clearer picture of crime stats

elasticwoman - have reread your post several times and still have no idea what point you are trying to make?

Well, Kewcumber, the OP was questioning the validity of counting "rapists" who have not been found guilty. The child I was talking about still lived in the family home and no one had actually been prosecuted (let alone found guilty) for any sexual abuse. I felt that it was therefore unsafe to go round saying that such abuse had happened.

have had cause to consider the subject recently but didnt want to start a thread. am a semi regular with rl friends on here hence name change.

reason for posting is this - i was married to one of the unreported statistics, happened before i met her when she was only 14. she never told her parents or police but confided in me soon after we met. i wasnt much older and didnt know what to do and it wasnt mentioned again.
the thing is, can it affect someones behaviour? i mean forever? she was really hard work for years and hasnt changed from what i see. we finally gave it up and i just blamed it on our lifestyle. have been reminded of it lately, all the bother we had and for the first time wondered if that could have done it.

If we're talking about acquitted defendants being incorrectly named as rapists(legally speaking), then that is wrong but I fail to see the connection between that and unreported/under-reported rapes? Or should I say alleged rapes? Since that is all a crime is before it hits the courtroom. Stats I know nothing about - but 99.95 are reputed to be made up anyway.

EW - are you concerned about this person being libelled then?

I understand, until proven the school should have referred to "alledged" abuse.

Don;t thnk anyone has disagreed in theory with the fatc that individuals chraged with rapist should not be called rapists if they are found not guilty.

It can have many repercussions, another man, from addictive behaviour to self-harm and depression.

See here, for example

No Bookworm, I am just concerned that what was essentially gossip and guesswork was elevated to the In Tablets of Stone position. If there was any real evidence, surely there should have been police involvement.

This is a side issue though. I am sure the sad case highlighted by Anotherman, where a rape takes place but is not reported and has serious long-reaching psychological effects, must be quite common. But I am sure the 14 year old in question would not have been labelled as a rape victim on her school or medical notes. If any one in authority had suspected it, an investigation should have been carried out.

I was raped five years ago and went through the court system. The rape was only one element in a list of crimes committed by the man against me but was the one taken the most seriously by the courts - the death threat charge was dropped as it was stated by a senior policeman and later my lawyer confirmed that if he doesnt get done for that, the rape charge will not stick, - and the gbh (broken bones on my part)amongst other things were seen as a much lesser crime and just included in the list of what he had done, rather than what he was charged with - so if he got off scot free for the rape he would have got completeley.

The only crime he denied (there were five charges) was the rape, statutory, aggravated (for those in hte know, you can figure out who I am here and where it was, but please do no tsay online). Maximum sentence 15. 8 requested.

He raped me, no doubt about it, but a couple of months into the pretrial stuff, I went xy, back to the police and my lawyers and asked for the rape charge to be dropped as it all got too much ( one example of inane pressure 'have you had sexual problems with black men, mrs x as you seem to have an issue with black sexuality' etc etc as leading questions, when a) the rapist was white, b) I had never slept with a black man (no other reason than lack of opportunity!) and c) because in psychometric testing I had said that my fav colour was pink and least favourite was black .... thus I must be a man hating racsit! wtf).

I can see why charges are dropped. Where I am the stats are worse, there is not the handholding system you find in the uk and the victim is put directly in conflict with the perpetrator. I am now good friends (not that good!) with one of the policemen on the case and he says that many watertight cases get dropped byt ee victim (or esp the families of younger victims) as the pressure is too much and the onus is on the victim to prove the guilt of the other - which is fine and dandy and necessary but bloody hard when it involves pulling apart your sexlife and personality and every relationship with anyone you have ever said hello to.

I am surprised any rape charge ever gets to court.

I am surprised anyone ever gets charged - there is rarely any 'proof'. I scrubbed myself with vim afterwards and only went to the police to days later when he assaulted me ont ehs street and left me bleeding on the pavement.

I am bloody glad I took the fucker to court. If he had been int he states with multicrime sentenceing he would have got 20 - 30 years.

If I had been in the states I would now be granted some form of protection and he would have had to move states on leaving gaol.

He got 8 years.
He got out last month.
He has a wife and children.
He oculd be your new, charming next door neighbour.

There are other women on mumnst who have taken men to court for rape.

I am fucking proud of us.

thanks lionheart

i simply put it out of my mind, quite literally. have only realised this morning that when we split up she moved within a hundred yards of where it happened, trekked round the country for a few years, now settled within 200 yards of the spot.

this is till a strange thread as the main point about stats is completely being missed....why would someone presume that "Stats I know nothing about - but 99.95 are reputed to be made up anyway" (bookwormtailmum)...where are you getting this info...its completely and utterly incorrect...bizzarely so

xxyz - i am fucking proud of you too. you are a hero in my eyes.

i think this thread is f'ing out of order and should be deleted. the OP has no clue what hes talking about, as demonstrated by several other posters.

i strongly suspect it is trolling.

and people are getting unfairly dragged in to a v sensitive hurtful issue.

Ian Huntley is pretty typical of a predatory rapist who raped repeatedly but was never found guilty.

"People up and down the country must be inventing burglary stories."

yes because to suggest that would be ridiculous, what with insurance fraud at such an all time low.
at no point did i say that these statistics were untrue, i did say i believed they were inaccurate.my point was merely that they are untenable in an argument of fact.

also for people discussing the argument put forward by that survey that "dressing provocatively" means they deserved to get raped, i think that's an absolutely disgusting way of thinking. but surely the fact that some think like that should further caution. i have heard of women who do dress provocatively and then walk home alone or get a taxi alone from night clubs or town and when i ask them why they say something along the lines of "i should be allowed to walk/taxi home alone safely"
which of course you should be able to, and i think women who do this contribute (not deserve in anyway) but contribute through providing opportunity. if someone left the door to there house wide open i would not say they deserved to be burgalled but i would certainly see how they contributed so i would always advise women to err on the side of caution as there are some sickos out there.

sorry when i say contribute i in no way mean in a moral or liability side of things. i simply mean they are being naieve and putting themselves in danger.