Lame-duck U.S. Senator "Snarlin'" Arlen Specter, the architect of the "single bullet" theory who switched from Democrat to Republican, then back again (to no avail: last May, Democratic voters saw through his ploy and told him it was time to retire to the City of Brotherly Love), recently held a Senate hearing on under-reporting of rape.
Now, I'm not suggesting that Arlen is a grandstander, but consider this: he once called for a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation into the NFL's "Spygate" incident involving the New England Patriots and coach Bill Belichick. (Because a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania has nothing more important to think about than whether a New England football team cheated.)
Anyway, the roster of witnesses who testified at the rape hearing reads like a sexual grievance industry convention -- about as "mainstream America" as the characters in the bar scene from "Star Wars." Amanda Hess live-blogged the hearing.
Under-reporting is a controversial subject because, among other things, it is impossible to prove. We've written here many times (see e.g., here) that significant under-reporting of rape can't be accepted as fact because the entire public discourse surrounding it is so terribly gender-politicized that the truth is elusive at best.
But among the more intriguing aspects of the Specter rape hearing was the testimony of Scott Berkowitz, President and Founder of the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN). Mr. Berkowitz, of course, buys into under-reporting, but, surprisingly, he blew the lid off the myths about why women don't report their rapes.
Berkowitz rejected the common consensus that women don't report because they legitimately fear they won't be believed by the law enforcement and judicial systems that have failed them, or because false rape reports are given inordinate attention and news coverage. According to Ms. Hess's summary of Mr. Berkowitz's testimony:
"On reporting: More victims may not be reporting their rapes, but the reasoning has changed over the past few decades. 'A generation ago,' the reasons were things like, 'fear of not being believed; fear of being interrogated about and blamed for their own behavior, and what they were wearing. In short, they feared that they would be the one on trial.' Today, 'the perception of many victims has evolved.' Now they don't report for these reasons: 'they don't want their loved ones to know what happened; they're ashamed themselves; they just want to put it all behind them.' Today, 'fear and shame of how the police wil [sic] treat them' has moved down on the list of reasons victims provide for not officially reporting the crime. As much as we need to educate police to take reports seriously, Berkowitz says, we also must 'educate victims on the importance of reporting.'"
Mr. Berkowitz's take on under-reporting is a noteworthy assessment, and if it gains widespread acceptance, it should help put a stop to the thirty-plus-years trend of chipping away at the rights of men and boys accused of rape. We've explained on this site that the under-reporting canard is primarily responsible for virtually every major rape reform that has put presumptively innocent men and boys at ever greater risk of wrongful incarceration for rape. For thirty years, the theory has been that the patriarchal system, concocted and controlled by men, is stacked to turn a blind eye while males rape with virtual impunity. Women know they aren't believed and that they can't get a fair shake, so they don't even bother to report their rapes. To correct this horrible state of affairs, one rape reform after another was enacted, from the elimination of corroboration to rape shield laws and all sorts of other things.
And none of it has been enough. Because they still insist, after decades of these innovations, that under-reporting of rape is still rampant. It is enough to make the testicles to shrivel to think what further "reforms" they might enact to attack the "problem." Indeed, some feminist legal scholars have suggested flipping the burden of proof on its head just for rape (presuming guilt on the basis of an accusation), and replacing the adversarial system with an inquisitorial system when it comes to rape.
But now, at long last, the sexual grievance industry might just be acknowledging what anyone with common sense already knows -- that under-reporting is not due to problems that are systemic to the law enforcement and judicial systems. And that under-reporting can't be cured by further tinkering with the rules of evidence or by writing more and more draconian, anti-male statutes. Reducing the due process rights of the men and boys charged with rape isn't going to prompt more women to report. The head honcho of RAINN essentially admitted that under-reporting is due to choices women make.
And here's the scary part: the purported reasons Berkowitz gives why some women don't report their rapes mirror the reasons some women make false rape claims. Women allegedly don't report their rapes because they don't want anyone to know and they are ashamed, just as women who make false claims often do so because they are ashamed and don't want anyone to know that they participated in a consensual but illicit sexual encounter.
It's all about choices. Except the choice not to report a rape doesn't send an innocent person to prison the way the choice to make a false rape accusation does.
Alas, Berkowitz ends by noting that we must educate rape victims to report the vile crimes committed against them. This is typical of the view of the sexual grievance industry that women are nitwits, too stupid to make a rational decision. Women, as a class, should be insulted that persons who deign to speak for them regards them with such disdain. Oh,well. Just another progressive who thinks the best way to empower women is by pretending they are powerless.
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29 comments:
Fucking great, man. You are the leading men's rights activist by a long shot. On no other blog would we read an analysis this brilliant.
I have long said that under reporting is a choice. Now we have a flaming feminist who agrees. And what this means is that if under reporting exists, it will never be solved because women choose not to report.
NYU Graduate Film - Fish: A Boy in a Man's Prison
About this project:
I'm shooting a short film based on my book, Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison. I am an NYU Graduate film student and I will be shooting this film on location at Jackson Prison. Filming will take place in the very cellblock I was housed in over thirty years ago. I'm taking 36 cast and crew members from NYC. Most of the crew are made up of fellow NYU graduate film students. This is a SAG film project and the cast are all working on deferred compensation. The largest expense is transporting, housing and feeding the cast and crew. Plus I have one day where I'll need 100 extras. Location fees, props, camera rental and costumes make up the majority of the budget.
For me, this is a very exciting project. To be able to go back to the very prison I was incarcerated in over thirty years and to shoot a film there is very empowering. It's a stand on the table, pound my chest, "I made fire" kind of moment. That prison did not destroy me. The sexual abuse I suffered there as a teenager, did not destroy me. I survived. I recovered. And now, for six days in early December, that prison is mine.
Much of the work I've been doing for the last decade has been raising awareness of the plight of teenagers housed in adult jails and prisons. This is a tremendous opportunity to tell that story to the world. To humanize the issue in a way that only film can do. It's easy to say that teens who mess up - who make mistakes - get what they deserve if they're sent to prison. But it's another thing, to see it dramatized and to identify with a human being that this is happening to. On any given day, in the United States, we house over 100,000 teenagers in adult jails and prisons. This film is about what happens to them. This film is about the painful compromises one has to make to survive in there. This is a story about liberation in the most unlikely place. What happened, what it was like, and how I survived it. I hope you'll help me tell this story.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1883542316/nyu-graduate-film-fish-a-boy-in-a-mans-prison?ref=category
We eliminated the requirement of corroboration,
Isn't that what we call evidence? The defendant doesn't have to testify or do anything under the system of law in the US. The burden of proof is on the prosecution and they must do this in a criminal case by the level of proof that is beyond a reasonable doubt and get a unanimous jury verdict. If all they have is a female's word then they have no case. The defence shouldn't even have to present their side since the DA has proved nothing and the judge should dismiss at this point as he would in any other criminal case where the DA has not proved the case. So why aren't they?
With the elimination of corroboration, males can be and have been charged and convicted on the basis of a female's say-so. The logic was that other crimes had no such requirement. But they ignored the fact that rape isn't like other crimes. In practice, the elimination of corroboration essentially flipped the old law on its head: now, women don't need any corroboration of their claims, but men and boys accused of rape are arrested, jailed, charged, and sometimes tried and convicted, solely on even the far-fetched say-so of any woman or girl if the men and boys can't produce corroborating evidence of their innocence. It is literally guilty until proven innocent.
There is no underreporting of real rapes...there is an over-reporting of false rapes.
If American law enforcement were forced to tell the public the truth, the mass hysteria would quickly subside. The American law enforcement / Gender feminist misinformation Alliance (which has rocketed the Gender / Raunch community to a power position on university campuses around the country); is not only a perversion...it is un-constitutional.
Pierce, Please do not censor me, its been a while sense i said anything about the perversion that has rooted itself in American law enforcement. Folks have a right to understand that if The American law enforcement were to stop "manufacturing statistics" for Gender feminists, that Gender / raunch feminism would quickly become "Dis-Empowered".
"And here's the scary part: the purported reasons Berkowitz gives why some women don't report their rapes mirror the reasons some women make false rape claims."
It's not "scary" from a standpoint of criminology. A large part of the reasoning why reports are counted as crimes (rather than arrests or convictions) is because the number of non-reports and false reports for a given crime are assumed equal for statistical purposes.
For example, those making false reports of theft (for insurance money) and those failing to report (because they think it won't get their property back) are motivated by the same thing, their perceived personal gain in doing so.
Under-reporting and over-reporting are two sides of the same coin. It's people being dishonest about that particular crime.
Anyway, I wonder if there is going to be some feminist backlash against Berkowitz for making these statements. If you pay attention to the language used by feminists, they most often say something like "rape is under-reported" and not "women under-report rape" in order not to put the blame on women for their own alleged behavior.
"The three categories leave no wiggle room for a police department to report a crime that has in fact occurred, but which has not resulted in an arrest."
Clearly, she has no idea how the UCR works.
"Recommendations for the Uniform Crime Reports: They omit rapes facilitated by drugs and alcohol. They omit rapes where the victim is unconscious."
Bullshit.
"She suggests two proposed rules for police departments to make sure all are being investigated. Number one: "Document that there's a report of every incident, instead of just closing a case and not documenting anything." Number two: Have supervisor "review the report to see if there is any evidence to continue forward."
It's breathtaking that someone who works for the DOJ could be that ignorant on the subject of criminal justice.
Anon at 9:57: I suppose it's easy for newspapers like the Baltimore Sun to find some isolated stories where police didn't take a legitimate rape report seriously. But in story after story after story where rapes turn out to be false, we constantly are told how many hours police spent investigating the phony claim, how much money was expended, etc. To blame police for purported under-reporting is easy, but it doesn't match reality, and it doesn't even match reality as related by the founder and president of RAINN. If women aren't reporting, it's not for fear of not being believed. If women aren't reporting, it's a personal choice they've made due to some factor you and I have no control over -- most likely shame (and my guess is it isn't the shame of being raped but of having intimate, typically drunken relations with a particular male).
Anon at 9:35: My guess is that the sexual grievance industry won't blame women even for making the choices Berkowitz recounted. To them, women are too stupid, too weak, too disempowered ever to be held accountable for not reporting. And if a woman fails to report a rape, which leads to a dozen other women being raped by the same guy, then so be it. She still can't be blamed. What is most amusing is Berkowitz's suggestion that they don't know to report. Really, sir? In 2010 -- after 30 years of hearing about rampant rape and male predatory behavior? Women as a group ought to be thoroughly insulted that they are considered to be such nitwits.
<--- Is taking bets on how long this guy is actually going to remain in his position...
Anonymous - ”Clearly, she has no idea how the UCR works.
"Recommendations for the Uniform Crime Reports: They omit rapes facilitated by drugs and alcohol. They omit rapes where the victim is unconscious."
Bullshit.”
[I’m not sure who made this claim regarding exclusions from the UCR, nor where it was made – do you have a link?]
Not only is it completely improbable that any rapes are omitted for any reason, there is certainly no mention of any such exclusions in the guidance provided with the UCR report.
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/violent_crime/forcible_rape.html
Some items of note from the Data collection section:
* “The UCR Program counts one offense for each female victim of a forcible rape, attempted forcible rape, or assault with intent to rape, regardless of the victim’s age.”
To be clear, these are the numbers reported by various police agency based on the number of allegations of rape or attempted rape (if one looks at Table 15, those break down as 71,161 alleged rapes & 5,415 alleged attempted rapes for 2009).
Based on the information provided by the USDOJ, it is not clear that these number are ever adjusted for those cases which turn out to have been falsified. The only “hint” I find is this little nugget:
* ”Although agencies may administratively close a case, that does not necessarily mean that the agency can clear the offense for UCR purposes.”
Which seems to suggest that even if a police agency elects to drop a case (i.e. for lack of evidence) it is still counted in the total for alleged rapes. There is no guidance (that I’ve found) as to how those cases which are proven false are handled in the data set. [Does anyone know more?]
* ”A rape by force involving a female victim and a familial offender is counted as a forcible rape and not an act of incest.”
Which sounds like a bit of “padding” of the stats.
* ”The offense of statutory rape, in which no force is used but the female victim is under the age of consent, is included in the arrest total for the sex offenses category.”
And, it seems that cases of consensual sex which are statutorily rape and marked down as forcible rapes as well.
* ”Sexual attacks on males are counted as aggravated assaults or sex offenses, depending on the circumstances and the extent of any injuries.”
Which begs the question: If even any perceived attempt to rape or sexually assault a woman are counted, why must an attack on a man be weighed by the severity and (presumably) the specific nature of the assault before being counted?
I also have to wonder just how many, and what percentage female on male assaults are counted. Since statutory rapes are counted, and there seem to be quite a few older women being caught having sex with under-aged boys, are these numbers being used to further “pad” the rape stats (as the broad implication is that ALL of them represent male-on-female assaults)?
Anonymous - "She suggests two proposed rules for police departments to make sure all are being investigated. Number one: "Document that there's a report of every incident, instead of just closing a case and not documenting anything." Number two: Have supervisor "review the report to see if there is any evidence to continue forward."
This seems to parallel some guidance I found a while back coming from some victims advocacy organization, which could have been titled “how to discredit Kanin”.
The gist was to first, beat him with the number of counter-studies. From what I could see, they were doing numerous small-scale “studies” (100-150 cases), and publishing them in obscure journals (everyone of which I tried to check had ridiculously high “subscription” rates to gain access to those studies), virtually assuring that few, if any, will ever actually read the studies – leaving them free to report only their “interpretations” of the data, free from review. Then, they can get their media proxies to talk about the “numerous studies” to be weighed against Kanin’s two studies.
Next, for the purposes of those studies, they suggest setting the bar for declaring a given allegation as “false” very high. Although they didn’t specifically state it, I got the distinct impression that they would NOT count any confessions deemed to have been coerced by the police – allowing only those which where made “voluntarily”. This has the effect of reducing the number of false claims that will be reported and used to calculate an apparent rate of false reporting.
Hand-in-hand with the reduction of “false” numbers was their suggested efforts to move more (suspect) cases into a broad “unknown/unfounded” category. This category, as I perceive their intent, is to include most any case where there is a lack of evidence, where the alleged victim stops cooperating (without confessing), and those for which no suspect can be found (including those wherein the women has probably provided a deliberately vague description as part of her fabrication). The over-all goal is to play a semantics game and place all cases which cannot be proven false into that category, which is then report as being distinct for the “false” cases. And, since no one will ever read the actual published studies, the impression can be given that this category is actually part of the “real rape” one for purposes of calculating a false report rate.
Which brings up the suggestion I quoted above regarding ensuring that every alleged rape or sexual assault is counted.
I’m certain that they are well aware of the numerous instance in which police contact a woman for some other reason (public drunkenness, etc.), and, as a self preservation measure, she blurts out a rape claim – which is quickly dismissed by the officers when she can provide no details or admits to it being a lie upon being questioned about it (I’ve heard of many such instances from some long-time cops). They want – no, they NEED those cases counted too – because most of them could be used to inflate the “unknown/unfounded” category; providing the benefit of further reducing the apparent rate of false reporting.
looks like Bloggers back to "eating" my posts.
The real issue isn't underreporting of rape, but overreporting: the epidemic of false rape accusations afflicting this country. But don't hold your breath for either Democrats or Republicans to breathe a word about that issue. (Yes, this issue is a bigger problem than rape itself.)
slw -- I think blogger thinks any post with italics is spam.
I guess the Sexual grievance industry is a joke. Then again anytime politics gets involved with any social reform it becomes corrupt beyond redemption.
"I guess the Sexual grievance industry is a joke. Then again anytime politics gets involved with any social reform it becomes corrupt beyond redemption."
When the people charged with solving a problem are dependent on the problem's continued existence for their livelihoods, you can be certain that the problem will never go away. It's that simple.
Even Dwight Eisenhower, one of the great military men of the 20th Century, warned about the undue influence of the military/industrial complex at the end of his career.
These cottage industry's take on a life of their own, and the people involved in them have a financial interest in NOT eradicating the problem if it means their jobs will go away. Much of their effort becomes marketing their importance to us. In the rape field, paid sexual assault counselors and others spend a lot of their time convincing everyone that rape is rampant. If they told the truth the way Heather MacDonald did here -- http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_1_campus_rape.html -- they'd all be out of jobs.
"There is no guidance (that I’ve found) as to how those cases which are proven false are handled in the data set. [Does anyone know more?]"
I do, and I've explained it before, but in short: Reports of rape that are not initially unfounded that are later proven false are still counted as rapes. Which is the same as every other crime.
Law enforcement has engaged in a game of "semantics", in which they classify false rape claims as "unfounded", to in effect manufacture the misleading information that girls never EVER, EVER, EVER lie about rape.
How can LE "manufacture" misleading statistics?
LE does not classify a false rape as "unfounded". They classify it as "false".
Anon 7:11, do you understand the job of law enforcement?
S - "Law enforcement has engaged in a game of "semantics", in which they classify false rape claims as "unfounded", to in effect manufacture the misleading information that girls never EVER, EVER, EVER lie about rape."
I'm afraid that (once again) you misunderstand what is going on. The semantics game is being played by SGI researchers, who are reinterpreting the outcomes of police investigations. The police may even get a person to confess that they fabricated the allegation, yet, these researchers are reserving the right to decide that the confession may have been coerced by the police, and is therefore "suspect". They can then chose to recast a given case as "unknown" (not necessarily "unfounded") - but not absolutely, positively known to be "false", and therefore not used in the calculation of the apparent rate of false rape reporting.
Another problem with your re-hashed rants is your fundamental misunderstanding/misuse of the English language. I provided you with a more detailed explanation about a month ago, but for a quick recap manufacture means to produce something. Thus, technically, it is those who choose to make make a false report who manufacture the individual data points which will be used in producing statistics.
Law enforcement then reports a tally of those allegations (data points). There only additional role is to (potentially) filter out those which can easily and quickly be positively disproven. [based on the anonymous post @ 5:54:00 PM, if they are not quickly shown to be false, allegations reported to police will be entered into the total tally as if known to be true, with no known mechanism for removing them later on.]
Next, SGI researches will processthe data points so as to generate and publish the calculated statistics based on the reported individual data points manufactured by accusers (or, rapist, in the case of actual rapes), and reported by police.
The only role that those in LE (might) have in the generation of published statistics regarding rape is to report, or decline to report (based on the ability to disprove the validity of) those individual allegations reported to them.
It seem to me that you mischaracterize the police reporting of allegations, which they have no control over anyone choice to make, as being the manufacturing. But, that is fundamentally incorrect.
You may have issues with the way in which they may handle a given case/allegation; but, even when they completely mis-handle a case, they did not produce that case, thus they manufactured nothing. They neither raped anyone, nor did they fabricate a false claim (the only two ways a reportable data point can be produced).
Frankly, I'm not certain as to why you cannot seem to grasp something so obvious.
Recommended reading at the International Association of Police Chiefs.
Hundreds of PDF files concerning official Police standards of inquiry,investigation,and data collection.
I read in one the files that for the purposes of data collection the FBI
defines rape victims only as females.
http://www.theiacp.org/PublicationsGuides/Publications/tabid/299/Default.aspx
Some examples of files names include:
Sexual Assault Guidelines: Supplemental Report Form and Investigative Strategies
Pretext Phone Calls in Sexual Assault Investigations
Investigating Sexual Assaults Part III: Investigative Strategy & Prosecution
Investigating Sexual Assaults Part II: Investigative Procedures
Investigating Sexual Assaults Part I: Elements of Sexual Assault & Initial Response
Critical Response Vol 1: Victim Services within Agencies, Grant Writing Basics, Understanding VOCA Funding
-recluse-
Hi Elly!
You can't see the big picture can you?
Why stop there?
Why not explain to me the "big picture" of the role of law enforcement? Because obviously I must be missing something. Tell me what our law enforcement does to deceive society. Thank you.
Elly,
I'll let anon speak for himself, but police do classify false reports as unfounded.
http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2010/06/massive-number-of-rape-claims-in.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheFalseRapeSociety+%28The+False+Rape+Society%29
Check out this story from the recent Baltimore issue. The pertinent part is:
Many reports of rape are made for "ill gain, in order to gain assistance or cover up not coming home," said one of the commanders of the unit, Lt. Thomas Uzarowski, in a March interview.
"The bottom line is, the case is only unfounded when the investigative facts prove the crime did not occur," said Uzarowski, who retired from the department this month. "It's not an opinion. It's not anything other than where the facts fall."
If the crime didn't occur, and someone was accused of that crime by the complainant, then they WERE faslely accused. That isn't unfounded, it's false.
"Mr. Berkowitz's take on under-reporting is a noteworthy assessment, and if it gains widespread acceptance, it should help put a stop to the thirty-plus-years trend of chipping away at the rights of men and boys accused of rape. "
I don't share your optimism on this. You're a bright guy. Anyone can tell that by your writing and the sheer amount of effort you obviously put into every minute detail.
I think, however, you've not considered this. The work you and others like you are doing is about to pull the covers off this whole rape thing. All the myths and lies have been exposed by this site,et al, so many times that it is beginning to enter the popular discourse.
It may not look that way, because we keep seeing the old ignorant ways of thinking popping up,but it's filtering in.
Maybe, just maybe, this is the way those who make their living off of lying to us about rape are planning to stay one step ahead of the game.
As long as they haven't abandoned the stance that under-reporting exists, they are still harming men and boys.
The only FAIR statement you could make on the subject is "Under-reporting MAY be going on".
Look at what he says:
"On reporting: More victims may not be reporting their rapes, but the reasoning has changed over the past few decades. 'A generation ago,' the reasons were things like, 'fear of not being believed; fear of being interrogated about and blamed for their own behavior, and what they were wearing. In short, they feared that they would be the one on trial.' Today, 'the perception of many victims has evolved.' Now they don't report for these reasons: 'they don't want their loved ones to know what happened; they're ashamed themselves; they just want to put it all behind them.' Today, 'fear and shame of how the police wil [sic] treat them' has moved down on the list of reasons victims provide for not officially reporting the crime."
How can we know ANYTHING about why people don't report legitimate rapes?
Ask people who CLAIM to have been raped?
ANYONE can make that claim, including you yourself,sir!
Without a formal police investigation, we can't even establish that they WERE raped, much less any reason for not reporting it!
Again, I ask you: How is it possible to know ANYTHING about the reasons why rape victims DON'T report their rapes?
Telepathy?
Did space aliens tell him?
The whole thing is dubious on the face of it. That is what prompts my incredulity about the idea that they've "seen the light". No, they will keep beating this dead horse until it decomposes, quietly bury it and then dig it up and beat the remains some more in 50 years because victimizing men is all they know.
The are already preparing the burial even now, because we are in the final stages of the flogging.
No, we cannot allow them to slink from view. They must be brought to testify about their deceit or they, and those that come after them, will renew the cycle of victimizing innocent MEN,who are the REAL invisible victims.Unlike these mythical non-reporters, we KNOW these men exist. There are massive volumes of evidence attesting to their existence all over this site.
We all abhor women who falsely accuse boys and men of rape. This is NOT an issue of political ideology. In order to include liberals or "progressives" in our efforts to rid this country of legal and social misandry, you must stop accusing feminists who oppose us of being "liberals" or "progressives" as if those are dirty words. Do not make this issue just for conservatives!
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