the use of the word 'alleged'

[foreverastudent]

I was driving in my care and heard on the radio a quick news report of an '11 year old boy who was sexually assaulted'. I'm sorry I don't have a link (can't remember the station/time) but I noted the absence of the word 'alleged'. AFAICR whenever I've heard similar news reports (female victims) they always use the word 'alleged'.

Was this case different because male rape/sexual assault victims are to be believed whereas female ones aren't?

It really bugs me when they use that word. They should either use it for all crime victims or none.

Yes, just to re-iterate, the word 'alleged' would be used where something is not yet proven.

If someone claims that they are the victim of credit card fraud, it would be an 'alleged' fraud until it was satisfactorily proven that it was indeed fraud. Obviously, in many crimes, the fact of the crime is satisfactorily proven very easily. For example, in the event of a bank robbery, police wouldn't take long to 'prove' that the bank had been robbed. There may of course, be other aspects of the bank robbery (e.g. threats) which may take longer to prove.

In other cases, however, such as fraud, or rape the fact of the crime is harder to prove and therefore until such time as it is proven, it would be reported as 'alleged'. And correctly so. For example, if someone claims they are the victim of bank fraud, it would take several days to prove that a crime had taken place.

Obviously, any 'alleged' perpetrator is 'alleged' until they are proven to be guilty of the crime in question.

indeed cestlavie - but the reporting of incidents varies wildly from this model. Just to re-reiterate.

Hmmm, yes, saw your post after I posted. Interesting. Does that vary by news outlet?

I can imagine blogs/ local papers being looser with their use of language than for example, national and regional publications (who have internal publishing guidelines)

I just googled "alleged victim" and scanned the first two pages of results. Barring one (where a victim had not turned up to testify in court in an assault case), ALL of the other results referred to victims of sexual assault or rape.

but Evil, surely that's because in sexual assault and rape cases, often it has to be proved that an assault or rape took place?

Without implying that the victim is lying, in some cases, there must be some doubt until it is proved?

but you could say the same for victims of burglary who are often on an insurance scam, or victims of assault who might have just fallen over...etc

yes, you could and perhaps you should...

(not "you" you btw)

Well, perhaps I will :o

I think that's it - it's a telling inconsistency if a particularly "doubting" form of words is used to refer to victims of only one kind of crime. All or nothing.

I still think it is more reasonable to refer to people reporting crimes as "victims" rather than "alleged victims" - thereby implying that an incident took place - given that this doesn't in any way indicate who the perpetrator is.

It's a good point Evil. There may well be some systemic bias

On the other hand, there is a good case to be made for using the word 'alleged'. For example, in the case of fraud I'd expect to see many of these cases being reported upfront as being 'alleged'. You simply can't say that someone is the victim of fraud until their story has been completely checked out. Even in crimes that should be easier to prove (e.g. assault), showing that the specific crime has taken place just takes time to prove.

I'd also add that checking with google doesn't always bring up the most apposite cross-section of stories - sadly, I suspect rape stories will come higher up the search engine rankings than fraud stories. By way of example, if you google 'alleged fraud' you pull up an awful lot of recent cases. Ditto with say "alleged assault".

As you heard it yesterday, was it this case?
If so, they didn't use "alleged" because the defendant was found guilty on Tuesday and therefore the offence proved - nothing to do with the offender's gender.

Yeah I did, and completely agree with there being a good argument for using alleged for all crimes.

Here's some examples from the BBC

There are a couple of "his alleged victim" references in cases that aren't sex attacks. But I presume that's because they are "his" alleged victims (i.e. it's alleged that "he" did it"), rather than just alleged to have been victims at all.

What Grimma said. If there is definite physical proof that there has been sexual contact with an 11yo child then they have by definition been assaulted, because there is no such thing as consensual sexual activity with an 11yo. So you don't need to refer to an "alleged assault". You might very well still do it just because you've got into the habit of sticking "alleged" in front of anything that's still sub judice to avoid prejudicing any trial, and that's not a bad habit to get into. If there is no definite physical proof of sexual contact then you'd still have to say "alleged assault".

In the case of (say) sexual contact with an adult female then it is possible that there has not been an assault (i.e. the fact that there has been an assault at all is part of what needs to be proved) because there is such a thing as consensual sexual activity with an adult. So you always have to say "alleged assault" unless someone has actually pled guilty, or at least if you don't and part of the defence case turns out to be arguing that no assault actually took place at all then you are risking being found to have prejudiced the trial.

In either case the person accused of committing the (confirmed or alleged) assault would get an "alleged" label unless and until convicted.

Imo this thread is starting to remove all of the politics out a situation like this. Certainly there will be legal definitions of these things, and media codes of conduct, protocols, processes etc.

But underneath all that are journalists making decisions on how they report things, politicians making decisions on process, protocols, laws etc, people in the legal profession making decisions on how to represent things. These are all people, making grey decisions, in a messy grey world, based on their opinion, 'the way the world is', 'common sense', structures such as the legal system, the political system, racism, sexism, patriarchy etc etc.

So it is interesting to look at the different ways things are represented, and apply a feminist lens to it. This isn't to say 'they are all out to get us' but neither is it to say 'but it's all just neutral process, law, protocol etc.' Imo there is no such thing. Everything is political and worthy of investigation and discussion.

This is what I was trying to illustrate a while back, there is no black and white it is all shade of grey, and where people choose to then draw the lines of what they put into their (or society's) black and white is inherently political.

Oh yes, shades of grey and a definite political layer. But that's different from "They should either use it for all crime victims or none" (from OP) which is pretty black and white itself...

Arguably it could be used for all offences, but then you'd get silly results like having to refer to "the alleged hijacking" or "the alleged bombing".

This is a tangent, but relevant I think: I remember discussing attitudes to rape with a male friend who's now training to be a doctor. He was taking the view that you never really know whether or not a rape has occurred, whereas with other kinds of physical assault there's physical evidence.

It genuinely did not occur to him until we said so, that there is physical evidence of sexual activity (just as there might be cuts and bruises after a mugging). It amazes me - here's someone who has some medical knowledge and yet still truly believes that female private parts are some kind of invisible area.

We're all told over and over again that in most rapes there is little evidence and it's "her word against his". I really wonder how often this is true.

I don't know why the opinions and testimony of rape victims isn't given any credence. I mean surely her testimony that she was just trying to walk home or whatever and had never and would never demand sex from a stranger in the street (strange and frankly unbelievable behaviour) is worth more than his incredible (in the original sense_ testimony?

:(

I think that's probably true. If I was told that a young girl asked for rough sex with a stranger on the street, I would automatically disbelieve it and would need extremely good back-up proof that this had happened (e.g. witness) or evidence of similar behaviour from her (e.g. man who she had asked and had refused).

"Innocent until proven guilty" is obviously sacred and shouldn't be damaged, but I wonder about what "proof" people actually want sometimes.

Presumably if the govt gets its way we'll be back with 2 independent male witnesses or similar.

Mumi- It wasn't that case, it was in Scotland. I cant remember any other details and cant find anything online.

professor - what is wring with saying "the alleged hijacking" or "the alleged bombing"?

It's particularly odd that other areas of forensics (is that the right word?) are so developed and people can draw conclusions from what seems like incredibly complicated and slender evidence ... but rape tests are still very basic, aren't they?

If nothing else, it seems strange to me that no-one's worked out a way of testing for, say, the presence of semen without getting in there with a swab.

Ants - yeah, it seems about as likely as saying someone didn't get mugged, they asked a stranger to knock them about a bit.