should young girls go to prison for "false rape claims"

[traceyracer]

nypost.com/2018/06/05/former-college-student-who-claimed-rape-admits-it-was-all-lies/

Won't sending her to prison make it harder for the real victims to come forward?

And what if she's mentally ill and needs help rather than criminal-minded?

A lot of these "false claims" are going to be real claims that just failed to convince a jury/judge beyond all reasonable doubt. That's a high barrier to get over. It's basically penalising a woman for making a complaint either without "sufficient evidence" or for being raped by a man who was better at persuading the jury of his version/had better lawyers/lucked out with getting a jury more likely to believe his version.

This is already covered by existing laws, eg perjury, conspiracy to pervert justice, etc. So if a crime is proved to have taken place then a custodial sentence should be considered. Why shouldn't it?

She should absolutely go to jail. What makes it more difficult for real victims is people like her making up false claims.
It's a difficult enough crime to get a conviction with anyway precisely because the jury has to consider the possibility the person may be making it up.

I think it's madness to say that a false rape claim is usually a genuine claim that didn't convince the jury. It may be attractive to think that but it's not true. There has to be evidence of deception - a case.

And what about deterring other false claims? That's also important.

I also don't agree with the ' rape has to be true because why would anyone make up rape' argument. I think most claims are genuine but not because no one would want to make it up. There are plenty of malicious or mentally ill people out there who would do it.

They should get the same sentence as their victim would have got if convicted of the non-offence.

Yes, they should as that is completely different than real claims failing to convince a jury.
They should be named and shamed like the innocent person they claimed had raped them.
They should lose their job and have exactly the same treatment as those innocently accused.

No. Because women have been put in prison for withdrawing rape because of fear of trial or coercion by family or friends and although it's with the same as false rape claims, they've been prosecuted as such anyway. Absolute travesty.
The misconception that "not enough evidence" means "false rape claim" is a shockingly common part of rape culture.

This thread is about something that happens so rarely that it's not worth mentioning. What is worth mentioning, is the disgusting amount of rape cases that never end in prosecution. A shocking 6% end in conviction.

If there is evidence that a woman has maliciously claimed she has been raped and it was proven to be false then she should go to prison.
Rapist, quite rightly have a huge stigma over them. However to be set up and falsely accused can have a severe negative impact on a person. People will always say things like 'he's the one that got off with rape' or 'there's no smoke without fire' when the victim is innocent of a crime he hasn't done.
I also believe that rapist should have heavy sentences for their crimes.

Accused rapists have such enormous stigma over them that they become Presidents, run companies and get paid millions to act in films.

YES it destroys lives of the accused and it undermine genuine cases
our friends daughter accused a lad of rape turns out it was because she didn't want to confess to her parents that she had underage sex (they were both 15 she was a few months older than him). He was arrested full intimate medical exam clothes take room searched phones laptop seized .Only when she realised the full extent of what was going to happen she confessed that she made it up case closed. .The poor 15 year old boy traumatised . She got a talking to by police but nothing major not to mention time and police resource wasted that could be spent on genuine cases .Apparently the boy is in a bad way and struggling to cope and she's got of scot free.

melanippe That seems disingenuous. Are you really saying an accused rapist does not get treated differently in a community. You must be on another planet.

This thread is about something that happens so rarely it's not worth mentioning.

Bollocks.

My partner was on a jury for a rape trial. They delivered a non guilty verdict. However a majority of the jury members believed that the defendant had done it. The problem was they weren't sure "beyond all reasonable doubt". They made the right decision legally but it has haunted my DP ever since. I'd hate to think that girl (she was a child :-() could be prosecuted for false allegations.

In that case the police and CPS seemed to have royally fucked up - unusually for a rape case there could have actually been some supporting evidence but it was mysteriously unavailable.

Sending someone to prison for making false accusations does not stop a real victim coming forward. What stops a real victim coming forward are all the people who make false accusations. They are one who provide the police/public/jury etc. with the knowledge that woman do make up accusations. So yes they should totally go to gaol and for at least 5 years. It's the only way to protect real victims for the assumption that they too are making it up.

12% of all rape accusations are provable to be false and between 3-5% of all accusation are provable to be malicious. They usually only prosecute the true malicious false accusations. I.e. someone knows they are lying and deliberately doing it anyway. This is because the other false accusations are often made by or involve other people (parents/friends) who make assumptions or lead the false accuser to a place where they agree it was rape when it wasn't.

I know someone who made a false accusation of sexual assault. Genuinely false. She was in a very dark place, prison would not have helped her. Or the man she accused. His life was very much affected though, and the stigma didn't go away when the charges were dropped. Not sure what the answer is really.
If we're too hard on these women, then it becomes even more daunting for women who are genuine victims.
But there are cases where men have been genuinely falsely accused, and lives are destroyed.
Perhaps there needs to be a 'not proven' verdict, (as I believe there is in other countries) that can be made public, so that people can tell the difference between unclear evidence and genuinely found to be innocent.
Although that would only help when it gets to court. The person I know made her accusations very publicly, then quietly retracted it when she was in a better place mentally. Charges were dropped before it went anywhere but people still assume that he did it.

I think it would be ok to send the accuser to jail if there was concrete evidence that the accusee was elsewhere. Eg on CCTV in a different city at the time of the alleged offence.

Ideally I don’t think that anyone should go to prison unless they present a danger to the public, or they’re a repeat offender for whom other sentencing options have failed. It’s not a good way of punishing people.

kids

Those aren't statistics ive seen before. Do you happen to have a link

I'm intrigued by the thread title - "young girls".

Why not 'women'?

If proven beyond reasonable doubt, then yes, in general, someone who has made a false rape claim should go to jail. It’s a crime which could have very serious consequences.

Ideally I don’t think that anyone should go to prison unless they present a danger to the public

I'd say that being able to make statements that result in people losing jobs, livelihood, partners & their freedom is a danger....

But surely it has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt that an accusation is false, same as as for a rapist in relation to his guilt?

Where is this idea that a failure to successfully prosecute a rape trial magically transforms into a proven case of false rape accusation? Where is the evidence that this happens? I don't believe it exists.

No. Some of those "false" claims may have been by women who were raped but just not able to prove it.