In our last post, we advocated increasing sentences for false rape claimants. How do we respond to those people who claim increasing sentences will only prevent false accusers from recanting? Here is how I respond:
We have been confronted with this argument many times at False Rape Society, and refusing to increase sentences for fear of putting of would-be recanters is exactly the wrong approach. It is our belief that such approach would only serve to perpetuate, indeed encourage, a vicious cycle of more and more false rape claims.
The solution to the false rape problem is not to continue to hand women and girls the power to lie and destroy with impunity the lives of innocent men and boys (and I mean literally without punishment), all in the hope that some of the false accusers could, or might, or possibly will -- decide, at their own whim and discretion, to recant and spare the falsely accused victim further pain. The solution is to deter these lies from ever happening in the first place, as much as possible.
At present, there are innumerable false rape cases where the accuser does not recant, despite the absence of serious punishment for lying about rape. So, relying on recantations to spare falsely accused men is a slender reed on which to rest any argument about increasing maximum prison sentences for false accusers.
We advocate a sliding scale for sentencing, allowing lenient punishment for recantations that occur before identifying a specific individual; greater punishment after identifying but before an arrest, etc. Early recantations should be encouraged and rewarded, but even they need to be subjected to more serious punishments than currently exist. This will have the salutary effect of encouraging early recantations.
It is well to note that fears about discouraging would-be recanters with increased sentences are based on the present state of our law and culture where false accusers know they can lie with impunity and there is no effective deterrence whatsoever. If the law is changed to impose greater sentences for false rape reporting, it will be clear that lying about rape is a serious crime, like rape, and there will be far, far fewer Hofstras.
Every other criminal act is assigned a sentence, in part, to deter others from committing that act based on the seriousness of the act. The more serious the crime, greater the need for deterrence, and the greater the sentence. (There are, of course, other purposes for sentencing as well, but deterrence is an important one.) Underlying the claim that increasing sentencing will hurt innocent men seems to be an unstated belief that deterrence simply does not work. That belief, of course, bucks centuries of collective wisdom.
False rape accusers lie because they can, and because they believe they have some need to do so. If we convince them they can't lie -- at least not without serious consequences -- it is likely we'll see a significant decrease in false rape claims.
In addition, it is a matter of simple justice that false rape claimants deserve to be punished in a manner consistent with the serious harm they cause. At present, that isn't happening.
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29 comments:
You need an analogy to the UK's "attempting to pervert the course of justice"
The problem is getting the Police to go to the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) and ask them to charge the person in question.
Senior High Court judges can of course simply direct the DPP (Department of Public Prosecutions) to investigate a witness for such a crime, basically ordering them to charge the person in question.
The first point of contact between false rape accuser and victim is however ALWAYS the Police, and the Police are the fucking problem here.
Since the creation of specialist sex crime departments and "professionals" and advisers and support workers, it takes something like negative media coverage or the orders of a judge to make the bastards take the step of abandoning trying to convict the innocent, and actually investigating the only crime comitted.
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The significant sentences available for insurance fraud have never given me a moments pause when making a claim when some idiot drives into my car.
AfOR
The police in the UK especially seem to be under some immense pressure to jack up conviction rates, per Liz KElly's recent government sponsored study. I ask this not to be sarcastice, but what in hell is wrong with the men in the UK? I've never seen anything like it. A radical feminist is retained to head up the rape study that is going to be the impetus to change the law. Wow!
Basically it is New Labour.
Harriet Harman et al.
Let feminists get into politics, get ready to weep.
AfOR
Want to see how bad the UK is? This is must reading:
British study says rape is rampant, false claims almost non-existent -- but look who authored the study . . .
Pierce, it is called "equality" here, not feminism.(sic)
AfOR
HA HA! Good one, AfOR
What I'd like to know is why these prosecutors aren't worried that failing to punish false accusers who recant won't encourage true rape victims to recant. After all, they are constantly pimping the idea that women never, ever lie about rape, and when they do recant it's because they're trying to save the rapist.
The real reason, of course, is that they're covering up the true extent of false rape accusations.
I think that an incentive to point out to locally-elected prosecutors is the fact that when they exercise greater discretion in charging someone for sexual assault, their conviction rate will skyrocket. The FBI reports that the conviction rate for rape hovers around 15 percent in the U.S. That means that 85 percent of rape charges fail to result in a conviction. If prosecutors consider it a political risk not to charge someone, they can take solace in the fact that when it comes election time, they'll be able to say that their conviction rate for rape has doubled.
If 100 people are charged with rape (many without sufficient evidence, only using the alleged victim's word as a foundation for the charge), then typically 85 of them will not be convicted. That's a 15 percent conviction rate. But if 50 people were charged -- suspects whose guilt is far more likely and where evidence is far more solid -- the conviction rate for that number may be 30 percent, or 50 percent, or 80 percent. Imagine a prosecutor who went back to his or her constituents and pointed out that under their reign, rape convictions skyrocketed from 15 percent to 80 percent. All because fewer people were needlessly charged.
With this little factoid, we can empower prosecutors to exercise much greater discretion in indicting suspects.
That means that 85 percent of rape charges fail to result in a conviction.
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Where are you getting that from? That's completely bogus. Conviction rates are typically around 80%, if you're talking about the US.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/html/cjusew96/cpp.htm
In Britain, the conviction rate for rape is only 5.7%. 94 percent of rape cases never result in a conviction:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/28/AR2008052803583.html
I agree that false accusers need to be prosecuted. But anything that comes from the MRAs will be shot down. Its an unfortunate reality, but there it is.
We need to push this as a way of "protecting the REAL victims of rape." By saying that false accusers threaten the credibility of those women who have been victimized and make it harder to obtain convictions. In other words, frame the issue as a woman's issue, not a man's.
@John Dias
Where does it say in your linked piece that the conviction rate in the USA is only 15%?
John Dias is Mens Rights royalty. Thanks for jumping in, John.
Increasing sentences for false rape accusers won't hurt innocent men by discouraging recantations
It is truly sad that people think they can hold us hostage to a lie. If you look at how completely corrupt that whole line of argument really is, it boils down to letting them off the hook for their perversity in the vague hope that doing so will make them less perverse.
It's like saying we can't punish someone for shooting someone else because that might make them shoot them again.
What sad creatures the women of this culture have become.
Anon at 10:08: I agree. It's like saying we mustn't anger the brutal dictator or he'll do even more brutal things to us. We need to destroy the brutal dictator, not hope that he will show us his benevolence every so often.
Erik..good point!! I will add also that new gender feminism (currently being taught in American universities)encourages young females to make false rape accusations.
Society has a huge degree on legal tolerance for women (way out of balance compared to men)...But society will also find it's breaking point as more and more false rape accusations ruin innocent men/ boys lives.
It's like saying we mustn't anger the brutal dictator or he'll do even more brutal things to us. We need to destroy the brutal dictator, not hope that he will show us his benevolence every so often.
Or She.
Does that 15% statistic include rape reports include situations in which the police never even find a suspect or press charges?
Here's a more clear study on the 15% conviction rate:
"Cross-National Studies in Crime and Justice"
September 2004
Bureau of Justice Statistics
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cnscj.pdf
See page 73, figure 5e. As of 1996, in the United States the conviction rate for rape per 1000 offenders is 150, which is 15 percent.
This is a very useful study, because it contains not only the rape conviction rates for the United States, but several other countries. The list of countries/jurisdictions included in the study are:
1. England and Wales
2. United States
3. Australia
4. Canada
5. Netherlands
6. Scotland
7. Sweden
8. Switzerland
The study tracks this data not just for one year, but longitudinally (over a period of time). It also tracks other crimes, but for our purposes rape is the one that is of interest. Each country's crime-fighting apparatus defines rape in specific ways, and the study was careful to indicate the definition.
John,
Thank you for that link. That is a very potent weapon to have in the arsenal.
I think the one thing you see when you hear that the x number are accused, and the conviction rate is X, is that they aren't adjusting the first number to remove the blatantly false amount of claims. It's a dishonest number, IMO.
So if you have 100 accusations, 25 of those are blatantly false accusations, and of those 75 you get 15 convictions, then you have a conviction rate of 20%. The problem is, that they are basing conviction percentages on total number convicted divided by total number of accusations (false or not). It's a dishonest way to play with the numbers and make it seem that convictions percentages are lower than they actually are.
John Dias - "See page 73, figure 5e. As of 1996, in the United States the conviction rate for rape per 1000 offenders is 150, which is 15 percent."
Good info, but I have one small bone of contention:
That should read "...the conviction rate for rape per 1000 allegedoffenders...
Stating the conviction rate as being for "offenders" potentially feeds the trolls - it might be even better to replace it with men accused.
And, since we know, irrefutably, that some innocent men have been convicted, we can throw the trolls whining about low conviction rates back at them with the relatively high rate of conviction of non-offenders.
Archivist wrote: "The problem is, that they are basing conviction percentages on total number convicted divided by total number of accusations (false or not). It's a dishonest way to play with the numbers and make it seem that convictions percentages are lower than they actually are."
But how else is a bean counter statistician situated in a distant bureaucratic agency supposed to parse that out? In our system, only a jury can truly designate guilt or innocence. Police investigate (or don't), the prosecutor prosecutes (or not). But as a percentage of rape allegations, in only a small percent do they find cases of outright fabrication by the alleged victim. The rest of the time police and prosecutors just assume that it's their job to believe the alleged victim, make the arrest, issue the indictment, and call it a day. We don't need to expect statisticians and researchers to parse out guilt or innocence, but it might be a good idea to change the reporting methods on rape so that police and prosecutors -- even when arresting and indicting -- can provide some data to indicate that they are less than certain about the veracity of the allegation.
slwerner wrote: "That should read '...the conviction rate for rape per 1000 alleged offenders...'"
True enough... To clarify, by using the word "offenders" I was just using the term contained in the report. I never meant to validate it. :-)
I think that there is enormous ground to be gained by looking very closely at recidivism rates. The truth is in the numbers.
Why do convicted sex offenders have such low recidivism rates when compared with felons in general?
This is right on the money, John:
"In our system, only a jury can truly designate guilt or innocence. Police investigate (or don't), the prosecutor prosecutes (or not). But as a percentage of rape allegations, in only a small percent do they find cases of outright fabrication by the alleged victim. The rest of the time police and prosecutors just assume that it's their job to believe the alleged victim, make the arrest, issue the indictment, and call it a day. We don't need to expect statisticians and researchers to parse out guilt or innocence, but it might be a good idea to change the reporting methods on rape so that police and prosecutors -- even when arresting and indicting -- can provide some data to indicate that they are less than certain about the veracity of the allegation."
The logic of John's comment that only a jury can truly designate guilt or innocence is related to the point I always try to make: we need to come up a new way to discuss the prevalence of false rape claims. When anyone cites a percentage for false claims, they are only talking about the FLOOR -- the bare minimum -- it means only that these are the ones we KNOEW for a fact were false.
What do I mean? Well, a small percentage of rape claims are very quickly dismissed, due usually to recantations. These are easily classified as "false" by any objective measure. (Remember, most rape claims are of the he said/she said variety and don't lend themselves to certainty of this nature.)
On the other extreme, there are a small percentage of rape claims that are prosecuted and that lead to convictions.
IN BETWEEN the obviously false and the claims that lead to conviction, the majority of rape claims are dismissed somewhere along the line because of insufficient evidence or the accuser decides not to pursue the claim or the jury just doesn't buy it.
To suggest that ALL OF THESE RAPE CLAIMS that fall between the obviously false (due primarily to recantation) and those that end in conviction, are, by necessity, "rapes" -- and that's what the feminists do -- is dishonest in the extreme.
For example, is it fair, or honest, to assume that every man exonerated of a rape charge by a jury is, by necessity, a rapist just because the charge wasn't classified as "false" early on? The question scarcely survives its statement. And what of the claims that never even actually got to a jury -- the vast majority that are dismissed earlier, often due to fatal infirmities in the case -- how on earth can we say that these should be considered "rapes"? Why is it not just as logical -- in fact more logical -- to assume that most of the dismissed rape claims in this middle ground were not actual rapes?
Pierce Harlan wrote: "...we need to come up a new way to discuss the prevalence of false rape claims."
I think that a great way to do this is to challenge people who claim that only 2 percent of rape allegations are "false." Incorrect. Two percent of rape allegations are found to be fabricated. The rest of the 98 percent are up to a jury to decide -- and 85 percent of those remaining cases don't receive a jury verdict of guilty. From a criminal justice standpoint, guilt is conveyed by a jury, and therefore on that basis only 13 percent (15 minus 2) of rape allegations are valid in the United States.
". . . only 2 percent of rape allegations are 'false.'"
The percentage of rape claims that are proven false, generally by recantation supported by overriding evidence, are much higher than two percent, based on every serious study ever conducted on the subject. There is, in fact, no support for the two percent. As for the remainder of rape claims, the vast majority aren't decided by juries because they never reach trial due to some fatal infirmity with the evidence: it is conflicting, or it is insufficient, or the accuser has conflicting accounts, or the accuser decides for one reason or another not to testify, etc.
It is reasonable to assume that of the cases involving rape claims that never get to trial, a certain percentage of them are actually false. No one can say what that percentage is.
And of course even juries sometimes convict innocent men (just as juries sometimes acquit men who are actually guilty).
We don't need to expect statisticians and researchers to parse out guilt or innocence, but it might be a good idea to change the reporting methods on rape so that police and prosecutors -- even when arresting and indicting -- can provide some data to indicate that they are less than certain about the veracity of the allegation.
John,
I agree. But that lack of data is where it is so easy for the dishonesty on the part of the 'rape industry' whenever they trot out the 2% garbage.
More accurate reporting is the key.
In our system, only a jury can truly designate guilt or innocence.
Guilt or innocence yes. But true or false.... the police are perfectly capable of telling that, usually, during an investigation. As you said:
The rest of the time police and prosecutors just assume that it's their job to believe the alleged victim, make the arrest, issue the indictment, and call it a day.
If this is the case, then they aren't doing thier jobs worth a damn, and there needs to be some serious accountability for that.
Here's my problem. If 5 reports of rape are made, and 3 are determined by the police to be false, the stats still say that there were 5 cases of rape reported. Not 2 reported, 3 falsely reported. It seriously skews the numbers. New way of reporting these, as you said, needs to be looked at.
But true or false.... the police are perfectly capable of telling that, usually, during an investigation.
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Really, on this I should have said:
Worthy of moving forward with submitting to the D.A.'s office, the police are perfectly capable of telling that during an investigation.
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