SHAPE panel looks at sexual assault claim
By Caroline Dzeba
Published: Thursday, November 5, 2009
Updated: Thursday, November 5, 2009
The Daily Northwestern
In the wake of e-mails sent last week to the student body regarding the Oct. 27 sexual assault of a Northwestern student in Chicago, many questions lingered, especially after the incident was quickly declared “not bona fide” by the Chicago Police Department.
Sexual Health and Assault Peer Educators held an educational panel about how the justice system addresses reports of sexual assault, and how the CPD identifies a crime as bona fide or not bona fide. About 30 students attended.
Dr. Donald Misch, NU Health Services executive director; Laura Stuart, sexual health education and violence prevention coordinator; and Renée Redd, director of the Women’s Center and Lisa Frohmann, professor of Criminology, Law and Justice at the University of Illinois-Chicago, spoke on the panel. Stuart and SHAPE Student Directors Max Potter and Christine Stiehl led the discussion.
Stuart acknowledged that no information was available for the speakers beyond what was in the e-mails.
“There is no additional information that has been made public,” she said, “so none of us can say for sure what happened.”
Frohmann described the process of reporting a sexual assault to the CPD. When a victim reports sexual assault, police evaluate the incident based on a list of guidelines compiled by the FBI, she said. When evaluating a report of sexual assault, “Police have in their head ideas of what sexual assault looks like,” she said, which can cause an unintentional bias.
There are several ways in which a sexual assault report can be declared “not bona fide,” Frohmann added. In the legal system, this means an event is unfounded, but does not necessarily mean that it did not happen, Frohmann said.
”Saying ‘not bona fide’ makes it sound like (the alleged victim) was an out-and-out liar,” Mirsch said.
Many factors, including the likelihood of prosecutors to win a case in court, can impact the naming of a report as not bona fide.
“If that case isn’t winnable, a case could be unfounded,” Mirsch said, adding that factors like lack of eyewitnesses or physical evidence and difficulty in locating a suspect could discourage a prosecutor from taking a sexual assault case, because a conviction in those situations is unlikely.
“Prosecutors want convictions,” Frohmann said. “Taking on cases that will not produce convictions makes them look incompetent.”
Redd said false reports of sexual assault occur only 1 percent of the time, and victims can retract their reports out of a desire for privacy after the emotional trauma of rape. The demeaning myth that sexual assault victims file false reports is a “disservice to survivors,” she said.
The reasons for the e-mail’s content and promptness after the reported assault are due in part to the provisions of the Clery Act of 1990 passed after the sexual assault and murder of college student Jeanne Clery at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. The law requires universities to report on-campus crime to students in a timely fashion.
The ambiguities of the law, however, led to a debate over the content of the e-mail sent out by NU alerts.
“I don’t know why there was so much detail in (the e-mail),” Mirsch said, adding that the descriptive account of the sexual assault could be construed as a violation of the victim’s privacy.
There were other concerns about the wording in the e-mails sent out to students, including the description of the assailant as an African-American male about 25 years of age.
Students questioned whether the description of the attacker as an African-American male was prudent.
“All black young men on campus become vulnerable to further suspicion,” Frohmann said. Interim Dean of Students Burgie Howard attended the event and said some administrators plan to meet Monday to address the system of crime reporting at NU.
“(The e-mail) made a big portion of our community fearful,” Howard said. “We want to see if there is something better.”
Potter and Stiehl organized the panel immediately after they received the e-mails. “We felt there was a lot of confusion and stress caused over the situation from last week,” Potter said of student response to the second e-mail.
“This served as a catalyst for continuing this discussion and a reminder of how closed-minded people can be about what sexual assault is and who is to blame,” Stiehl said.
czdzeba@u.northwestern.edu
Link: http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/campus/shape-panel-looks-at-sexual-assault-claim-1.2052244
MY COMMENT:
I write for the world’s leading internet site that gives voice to persons falsely accused of rape, The False Rape Society. Your article is offensive because it contains various statements that recklessly disregard the truth in order to advance a political agenda in an area that, by any measure, should not be politicized. For you to denigrate the countless persons falsely accused of rape and sexual assault by pretending their victimization was a myth is morally grotesque. I will focus on just two of the problems with this article.
First, the article calls anyone who reports sexual assault a "victim." So much for due process, impartiality, and journalistic standards. When you declare an accuser to be "the victim," by necessity you are declaring the person she accused (or some unnamed male) to be a "rapist." You might as well run the Constitution through a paper shredder. But, hey, at least you are up front with your biases.
Second, the assertion that only one percent of all rape claims are false is mind-boggling in its incorrectness, but I do admire the chutzpah. The sexual grievance industry’s standard assertion of false claims, two percent, was long ago debunked. Every single serious study puts the number much higher -- more likely closer to fifty percent. For most rape claims, we do not know what happened because of the “he said/she said” nature of the claim, and to suggest that for we should automatically assume all of these are actual rapes is dishonest in the extreme.
We can be reasonably certain that approximately 15% of all rape claims were actual rapes because that’s the conviction rate (we know that some innocent men and boys are convicted of rape, but for the sake of argument, we will assert that this number represents claims we are reasonably certain were rapes). On the other end, every serious study ever conducted on false rape claims show they are a serious problem, ranging from 25 to 60 percent. The most serious study ever conducted on the subject (by a sociologist who was regarded as a feminist icon, by the way), found that 41% of all rape claims in his study were not just “false" but recanted. The number of "false" claims was probably higher. Thus, for those rape claims of which we are reasonably certain of the outcome – approximately 41 out of 56 are false. It is dishonest and unjust to lump claims of which we are not reasonably certain of the outcome in the rape column, just to advance a political agenda. But let’s be honest, that’s what this is all about. For shame.
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35 comments:
It is a little scary that the one percent is accepted as fact when that is out of the mainstream of the wildest, most radical man-hating feminsm. Wow, is all I can say.
The feminists from Northwestern who might stumble on this site should read this before assuming we're a bunch of gun-toting women haters here. As Pierce has suggested in the past, this is more an ACLU-type issue. We're speaking for the rights of the pressumed innocent.
As someone who was falsely accused by an angry woman, I find their comments offensive.
Pierce, you missed a golden opportunity to take issue with the inane discussion about whether they should have reported the rapist was black. Talk about missing the issue! It's OK to slander an entire gender with rape lies, but don't dare mention that he's black!
Anon at 9:13: I could have written a small book on the problems with that article but decided to focus on two that were obviously offensive.
On identifying the alleged rapist as black, here is what was overlooked. As readers of this blog know, labeling the alleged rapist as a "scary" black or Hispanic man is very common because the false accuser believes it lends credibility to her lie. Just as the accused HAS to be a male (and you are correct -- it is perfectly acceptable to slander an entire gender by manufacturing a rapist, so long as we don't mention he is a minority), it helps if he belongs to a group that is more likely to be involved in the commission of crime. I find it amusing that the oh-so politically correct panelists thought perhaps the false accuser's accusation should be whitewashed to it politically correct.
And we have collectively just fallen down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.
Axel: excellent. Write to me -- I have your email here somewhere but it would save me time if you sent me a new one.
Great comment, Pierce.
Pierce: I just sent you an email.
Lesson: It's not only OK to falsely accuse generic males, it's encouraged -- your claim will be automatically believed. But it's NOT OK to publicize if the accusation is of a black male.
Question: what if a black male really did rape this woman -- not OK to mention it, right?
Pierce you gotta promise to print the angry notes from the young feminists at Northwestern trying to cast you as as MRA devil while ignoring what you actually wrote. Angry notes to you from impressionable college women are among life's greatest pleasures.
Anon at 9:50: Will do. I am often accused of attacking feminism. I do not attack feminism. I quote it.
for shame indeed. Thanks, Pierce.
I,too, am disgusted by the political correctness run amok about the description that the suspect was black. If you're going to accept the accusation of a woman without any other evidence, you need to go all the way, as Pierce said, not whitewash it so that it's politically correct. What bullshit!
This section stood out to me, in particular:
”There are several ways in which a sexual assault report can be declared “not bona fide,” Frohmann added. In the legal system, this means an event is unfounded, but does not necessarily mean that it did not happen, Frohmann said.
”Saying ‘not bona fide’ makes it sound like (the alleged victim) was an out-and-out liar,” Mirsch said.
Many factors, including the likelihood of prosecutors to win a case in court, can impact the naming of a report as not bona fide.
“If that case isn’t winnable, a case could be unfounded,” Mirsch said, adding that factors like lack of eyewitnesses or physical evidence and difficulty in locating a suspect could discourage a prosecutor from taking a sexual assault case, because a conviction in those situations is unlikely.
“Prosecutors want convictions,” Frohmann said. “Taking on cases that will not produce convictions makes them look incompetent.”
My observations:
1) “Not bona fide” is not the same thing as “unfounded”. Websters defines “bona fide” as:
1 : made in good faith without fraud or deceit
2 : made with earnest intent : SINCERE
3 : neither specious nor counterfeit : GENUINE
What this suggests is that when the police term an allegation as “not bona fide”, they are, in fact, declaring it to be false – they're just being “diplomatic” about it.
2) Thus, the alleged victim is an out-and-out liar
3) Prosecutors do not call cases they cannot win “not bona fide”, they call them “unsubstantiated” or just “unwinnable”. Again, “not bona fide” is just a fancy way of saying that they know it's false.
And, prosecutors do take seemingly unwinnable cases to trial – quite regularly, in fact. For rape accusations taken to trial, there is something on the order of a 40% conviction rate (IIRC). And, this includes all cases. If it were possible to break-out the “he said/she said” type, the rate of conviction would probably drop to perhaps 20% (or less).
Why?
Two reasons: The cases are taken to trial because the alleged victim (aka the complaining witness, in legal terms – to answer Norm's question from another thread) insists that it be done; and, because juries are not inclined to send people to prison if they feel uncertain about what happened.
When a woman is raped at knife-point, for instance, there is no doubt that consent wasn't given. However, in “he said/she said” scenarios, there is typically ample “room” for jurors to conclude that intent may have been signaled, even if not spoken.
Some prosecutors are afraid to loose, it's true. Yet, others understand that it is often in the best interest of justice to loose a case. I am personally aware of numerous instances in which a complaining witness did not want the accused to be offered a plea deal*, but where it was obvious that either no crime had actually occurred, or the nature of the crime was greatly exaggerated, and the complaining witness was obviously being vindictive. Not wanting to have to answer for not following the wishes of the complaining witness, the prosecutor proceeded to trial, fully aware that an acquittal was inevitable.
*This is also true in cases where the defendant refuses to take an offer – typically because they know they are innocent, and refuse to admit to doing something that they did not do.
So, to insist that a FRA may be true, but a prosecutor simply doesn't want to take it to trial is usually nothing more than a way to try to cloud the truth that the allegation was more than just “unfounded”, it was, in fact, “not bona fide”.
[/rant]
So in other words, the pro-liar feminists are wrong; sometimes the woman is just plain lying through her teeth.
Any average idiot would realize that "not bona fide" means "not true," but feminists are more than just your average idiots. And they're also a little bit evil, actually.
Anonymous - ”Any average idiot would realize that "not bona fide" means "not true," but feminists are more than just your average idiots. And they're also a little bit evil, actually.”
I'd agree that there is certainly some amount of evil, as demonstrated by the attempts to obfuscate the truth, as we see in this case.
Going back to the article, it is worth noting that: ”...the incident was quickly declared “not bona fide” by the Chicago Police Department.”
Now, most any idiot would also realize that what this means is that the woman's story quickly broke down under normal police questioning (not intense interrogation, but simple questions intended to help get the investigation started).
Yet, we see that professor Lisa Frohmann (who would definitely be expected to know better), still chose to try to spin the situation so that it was implied that a rape might well have taken place, and it was just a matter of police and prosecutors not finding enough evidence for a slam-dunk conviction.
Now, as a feminist, Frohmann would be expected to be disingenuous (see, any idiot can be diplomatic in the use of terminology as well) when evidence doesn't fit well into her desired meta-narrative (to borrow Pierce's very apt terminology) about rape and male-female relations. So, other than calling her out on her on her predictable BS, there's little to be gained in trying to convince her and her minions of the fallacy of their thinking.
What I would instead focus on is the use of evasive terminology by the police. In another recent thread, I took exception to a know FRA being termed “unfounded”, potentially creating confusion by overlooking the fact that the woman had recanted. Here, the terminology of “not bona fide” serves to created the same potential confusion (as we see Frohmann trying to exploit).
Now, I'd guess that the police were trying to be diplomatic and spare the woman added embarrassment by not out-right stating that her claim had been determined to be false. But, since she is not named, why worry about sparing her indignities. If a dozen or so random black guys had been rounded-up for questioning as possible suspects, would they enjoy such deference from the police? It's doubtful.
I'd assume it's a remnant of the decaying carcass of Chivalry for police to make such efforts so as not to shame a woman who has caused them time and expense with her hoax. When will women ever gain true equality with men – including the right to be named to/by the press when they commit crimes, and the right to be punished the same was a man would be (equal punishment for equal crimes!)?
As long as we still have Chivalrous idiots and wimp-assed mangina's looking out for their best interests, I don't expect women will get any part of that side of equality any time soon.
slwerner said..
Now, I'd guess that the police were trying to be diplomatic and spare the woman added embarrassment by not out-right stating that her claim had been determined to be false. But, since she is not named, why worry about sparing her indignities.
...............................
I believe the police have had 'sensitivity training' - they tip toe around the truth - she's a liar - so as not to discourage other 'victims' from coming forward.
By calling her a liar it creates a hostile environment toward ALL women.
Splashing a man's name, photo, and presumption of guilt publicly while hiding the victim's identity creates another layer of "Welcome, Little Lady! You come on in here and make that report!"
And please take not that that false rape apologists, including our own Atom/GG are out in force over at the link. And of course, they are trotting out the standard lines:
- 1 to 2 % are false.
- The vast majority of rapes aren't reported (if they aren't reported, then you don't know if they have even happened).
- You are "Rape Apologists".
SgtMom,
The sad part is, that we would very much like to work with those who have been raped. Those who are part of the "rape industry", and those who have drunk from the Feminist Kool-aid, however, aren't interested in working together. There is too much hatred of men to do that. Sad.
By calling her a liar it creates a hostile environment toward ALL women.
No, it doesn't.
It is a constitutional issue when the law enforcement community uses state and federal dollars to "redefine what the meaning of is, is," in order to give the public faulty and inflammatory misinformation about the true percentages of false rape accusations.
False rape accusations are not 2% of all rape accusations..and to tell the public it is 2%, when it is more like 50%..is to manufacture a prejudice against innocent men/boys,(using state and federal dollars).
Of course. It's an anti-male slur.
you people disgust me.
Anonymous said...
By calling her a liar it creates a hostile environment toward ALL women.
No, it doesn't.
Nov 5, 2009 11:22:00 PM
"Facetious" is so easily lost in print.
Does :) work for you?
you people disgust me.
*********
Of course we do! You're a lying, attention-seeking piece of garbage and we're here to spoil your party.
Sorry, but feminist lies will no longer go unchallenged! The honeymoon is over, liar-lover.
The Archivist said...
SgtMom,
The sad part is, that we would very much like to work with those who have been raped. Those who are part of the "rape industry", and those who have drunk from the Feminist Kool-aid, however, aren't interested in working together. There is too much hatred of men to do that. Sad.
Nov 5, 2009 9:04:00 PM
.................................
This is the first time I've gotten more than one post into such a group.
I have to keep reminding myself these are aberrant women.
"Students questioned whether the description of the attacker as an African-American male was prudent."
The fascism is incredible.
My email to them:
"Hello,
Author Warren Farrell ("Myth of Male Power") called N.O.W. directly by telephone a few years ago, and once he got through to someone important, that someone admitted she could not say where the 2% false rape canard came from.
No study has ever shown that to be true. The 2% is a myth.
So, how do you get 1%?
The two major false rapes studies that I know of have shown that
1) Eugene Kanin - 41% based on recantations alone.
2) Colonel Charles McDowell - 60% total false accusation rate.
You can easily find their studies by googling on their names.
Now that I have cited evidence, can you??"
“Prosecutors want convictions,” Frohmann said. “Taking on cases that will not produce convictions makes them look incompetent.”
This must be why feminists are constantly rallying/lobbying for laws to be written/rewritten so as to make it easier for prosecutors to gain convictions. After iread the article I wanted to vomit. To save space, I'm not even going to post the quotes where she misuses logic to disguise her support for false accusers. The quote above I'm sure is a slap in the face of some prosecutors who may have no interest in trying to gain convictions on cases where there is no tangible evidence to prove a crime was committed.
Anonymous - "This must be why feminists are constantly rallying/lobbying for laws to be written/rewritten so as to make it easier for prosecutors to gain convictions."
I have no doubt that a radical gender-feminist like Frohmann would like to see the laws changed for easier convictions as well.
However, in the meantime, I see statements like the one you quoted as a way of twisting things so as to make it appear that "unfounded" simply means that police and prosecutors were afraid to pursue a crime just because they were afraid they'd look incompetent.
This only serves to cloud the issue, making it appear that most rape allegations being called "unfounded" are, in fact, real - but lazy and chicken-sh*t law enforcement has dropped the ball, and let a criminal get away.
This is why I believe that not only should law enforcement label FAR's as clearly false when they know that they are, they should also report the false accuser motivations for making the claim. If the public were allowed to see that the accuser had a motivation to be lying, then they would be less likely to be swayed by BS about "the only reason it's being called unfounded is that law enforcement is incompetent".
In thinking about the FRA incident at Northwestern University, it occurs to me that most Universities have grading policies whereby students who become victims of violent crimes during a grading period are summarily given a "pass" on all of their current courses (the idea being that they may be to traumatized to be able to function at 100% academically, and they should not be penalized, grade-wise, for having been a victim).
So, what's to keep a young woman who's spent the better half of the first semester partying and living it up, and who suddenly finds herself facing the very real possibility of failing her courses, from looking for an easy way out by pretending that she's been the victim of a violent crime?
Of course, I'm merely speculating that such a motivation may have been behind the FRA quickly determined to be "not bona fide". Still, if a motivation such as this one I'm suggesting comes to be known to police, they need to report that motive, so that the public can better understand what is really happening (they're dropping it because it's a hoax, rather than because they're incompetent).
In support of what I'm proffering here, I'd ask that those who read this consider many o f the instance reported on this site wherein the motivation of the false accusers is known. Do you have any doubt that it is an FRA when you understand the motivation for it? And yet, when you don't know the motive, there's always that bit of lingering doubt.
It is such lingering doubt, especially amongst the masses who are blissfully unaware of the prevalence and harms of FRA's that false-rape apologist like Frohmann seek to exploit in order to obfuscate the truth.
Unfortunately feminists aren't the only ones who want to sacrifice our rights in exchange for the imagined safety of letting cops and prosecutors do whatever they want. The authoritarians -- including feminists -- think that there's no reason to worry that government officials will abuse their near dictatorial powers.
When is the last time you've heard of a prosecutor being held accountable for violating ethical standards? Try 'never.'
Anonymous said...
Unfortunately feminists aren't the only ones who want to sacrifice our rights in exchange for the imagined safety of letting cops and prosecutors do whatever they want. The authoritarians -- including feminists -- think that there's no reason to worry that government officials will abuse their near dictatorial powers.
When is the last time you've heard of a prosecutor being held accountable for violating ethical standards? Try 'never.'
Nov 6, 2009 5:05:00 P
Nifong. But that was one in a million....
What did he get? One day in jail? Big deal.
Anonymous said...
"Unfortunately feminists aren't the only ones who want to sacrifice our rights in exchange for the imagined safety of letting cops and prosecutors do whatever they want. The authoritarians -- including feminists -- think that there's no reason to worry that government officials will abuse their near dictatorial powers".
They will see how predatorial these people are when there are no males left to devour.
What did he get? One day in jail? Big deal.
Anon,
He also got disbarred. And for Pierce, who is an attorney, and myself, I work IT for a law firm, getting a prosecutor disbarred over misconduct, such as Nifong was, is MONUMENTAL. It is such a rare occurrence. And if that could happen more and more, such as it appears needs to happen in the Kevin Driscoll case HERE (you can also read up on the case over at The Counter-Feminist), I think we’d begin to see a shift in the way that LE goes after cases.
Slwerner will likely agree with me on this, but more prosecutors need to start calling for the serious punishment of prosecutors who maliciously take on a case they know the defendant to be innocent. While I certainly understand the protection for prosecutors, in cases that shouldn’t ever have seen the light of day, there needs to be serious ramifications. Disbarment is top of the list.
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