I analyzed the opening of an anonymous comment in part 1 and the supporting statistics, quotes and studies in part 2, now this 3rd and last part of the comment includes his claims about rape trials.
Note: For anyone wondering why I didn’t simply delete this post when I rejected it, read this report about college students who were suspended because of their insistence on filing a complaint about a detective investigating a reported rape.
Now to the remainder of anonymous’ comment:
Making it too easy to convict a person of rape, while at the same time making it difficult, if not impossible, to defend against it is wrong! False accusations will destroy a person’s life and reputation. A false conviction will lead to long prison sentences and having to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
And where are we given even a shred of evidence that is it impossible to defend anyone against rape charges or that it is easy to convict a person of rape? The only supporting material from this comment (in part 2) that could be related to convictions is mismatches in DNA evidence.
The supporting evidence from prosecutors and studies of police departments suggest that the majority of false or unsubstantiated accusations don’t result in criminal charges. In the cases that are deemed unfounded none will be prosecuted unless new evidence comes to light that changes the case’s status.
Certainly the rape case that was dismissed because the prosecutor was late doesn’t sound like it’s part of a system designed to give those accused of rape the shaft 100% of the time.
If this claim were true there would be no acquittals in rape trials yet they happen regularly and too often in cases where there was solid evidence of rape and solid evidence that the defendant committed the crime. Only the juries in each of those cases knows why they believed there was a reasonable doubt.
As the Duke rape case shows, plenty of people will jump in to make blatant accusations of wrongdoing against alleged rape victims — including using the word hoax — long before the case gets resolved in the criminal justice system. In a variety of cases, conviction of the alleged rapist does nothing to stop the personal attacks against rape victims.
Give authority to make an accuser’s past medical and sexual history admissible at the judge’s discretion if it’s relevant to the case.
It’s interesting with the cited statistics relating to DNA mismatches that the use or omission of DNA evidence isn’t at the top of his list of needed changes. But this is his only recommended change to the criminal justice system. He isn’t recommending changes to the process of identifying suspects in stranger rapes or asking for changes in the way officers gain confessions. Neither is he advocating to make it easier for convicted rapists to have additional DNA testing done so those who can be proven innocent will be given the chance they need.
He only wants defense attorneys to be able to use more information about the alleged victim.
Since he is asking for a change from the current rules of evidence, I suspect this man believes that information about the alleged rape victim (notice repeated use of accuser) is always relevant as long as it doesn’t make the defendant look bad in some way. He seems to have no problem with a seek and destroy policy toward someone in a rape case as long as it isn’t the defendant.
If there is a concern of further potential trauma to the “alleged-victim”, then further counseling should be encouraged.
By his wording, he makes it clear that he isn’t concerned about the trauma to rape victims. He doesn’t even seem certain why anybody else should be concerned about the trauma to rape victims. Then there’s his use of scare quotes that calls into question the term alleged victim.
If he isn’t sure any alleged victims who are to be cross examined are real rape victims, it makes me wonder if he believes that the only real victim is a dead one or one injured so badly that she can’t remember being raped.
While this man is opposed to men’s lives being destroyed by rape accusations, he seems to dismiss the trauma of being raped and the trauma of pursuing justice through the courts. A little therapy is the most “alleged-victims” might need.
A speedy means just to convict anyone should never be an option.
I don’t know what he’s referring to here unless it’s a general implication that rape suspects are denied due process.
Rape is a horrible crime, but false accusations of rape are every bit as horrible. They are a form of psychological rape that can emotionally, socially, and economically destroy a person even if there is no conviction. The stigma attaches to the falsely accused for life. Few believe them and few care.
Of course, he has to close his comment with the disclaimer that he’s not dismissing the severity of real rape while at the same time minimizing rape by saying it’s never worse than being falsely accused of rape.
But that equality between true rape victim and alleged rapist isn’t enough. He goes one further and turns men accused of rape into rape victims, but he details the additional trauma of this type of rape while describing real rape in one word: horrible.
Would this man tolerate a girl or woman accusing a boy or man or society at large of psychologically raping her and claiming that was as traumatic as physical rape? I don’t think so.
Nowhere in this comment does he acknowledge that men who say they aren’t real rapists might be the true liars. He either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that being in denial about guilt (publicly and/or privately) is not the same as being not guilty.
Comments like this one do nothing to further true justice for those who really are falsely convicted of rape or those accused when their actions never strayed into exploitive or criminal behavior. And that’s a shame.
Update: Q grrl caught something that I missed in my analysis and that is that he makes all of the false accusers female. Further, people who share his belief will often posts comments that men can be victims too and that we should never refer to rape victims as she since that unfairly excludes males.
That logic implies that he is unfairly excluding males from the ranks of false accusers.
Part 4 gets into a type of false accusation this comment doesn’t attack.
(crossposted at my blog, Abyss2hope)
Note: Comments are limited to feminists or those who can be respectful of feminists and their efforts to fight sexual exploitation. If you want to excuse or minimize the behavior of those who harm others, make the person exploited responsible for their own exploitation, call those who label their experiences rape liars, or tell us that we should be focusing on more important issues, please do so elsewhere.
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[quote]Would this man tolerate a girl or woman accusing a boy or man or society at large of psychologically raping her and claiming that was as traumatic as physical rape? I don’t think so.[/quote]
What is the definition of Psychological Rape?
Point of order; there’s an update to the “suspended college students” post that says that any suspensions have been postponed until after a hearing, and a comment that says that the President of the school says that no one has been suspended (which may mean the same thing; there’ll be no suspension until a disciplinary hearing has been held).
This is such a touchy area, that I’m almost hesitant to write. But I’m foolish sometimes, so here goes.
“Of course, he has to close his comment with the disclaimer that he’s not dismissing the severity of real rape while at the same time minimizing rape by saying it’s never worse than being falsely accused of rape.
But that equality between true rape victim and alleged rapist isn’t enough. He goes one further and turns men accused of rape into rape victims, but he details the additional trauma of this type of rape while describing real rape in one word: horrible.”
I realize that you are responding to a particular person, and that I may be overinterpreting, so please take it with a grain of salt.
Rape is a really horrible, evil crime to be a victim of. It shatters the victim’s sense of control, it can deeply scar the victim’s ability to trust, it can damage a victim’s ability to have future sexual relationships (this is related to the trust issue I suppose), and can subject the victim to various nasty STDs.
Despite the existance of people who minimize that fact, many people really understand that rape is a horrible thing. Because of that, for the many people who understand that rape is a horrible thing, a rapist is seen (correctly) as a really horrible person in a way that many criminals are not.
Feminists very naturally spend lots of time fighting against the people who don’t get it. They fight against the people who deny that rape is so serious, who pretend that the victim was ‘asking for it’, etc. That is a good and honorable fight.
I wonder, if in fighting those people who don’t get it (or who actively resist so as to justify their own behavior), sometimes fenimists forget the large number of people who really do get it on rape?
When someone is falsely accused of rape, he (and it is ususally a man) is judged harshly by those who get it because those who get it understand how awful rape really is.
To say that a false accusation of rape is “equal” to a rape is of course ridiculously stupid. But because a true accusation of rape says such horrible things about the rapist (to the many people who get it), a false accusation of rape can be a very bad thing for the victim of the false accusation.
It seems to me, that in discussions like this about false accusations of rape, we are talking about it as if the reputational damage is controlled by the people who don’t get it (and therefore is not that damaging). As a reflex, this makes sense because feminists are used to fighting with the people who don’t get it. But it isn’t an accurate understanding of the situation. Yes, the reputational damage isn’t horrible among people who don’t get it. But among people who do get it, the reputational damage is enormous.
I guess part of it comes down to how many people you believe “get it” and “don’t get it”. I tend to believe that the percentage of people who don’t get it is troublingly large, but not a majority. Because rape really is so serious, the false charge is very serious to that majority who get it.
I think I’m on the verge of babbling at this point so I’ll stop.
Sebastian, many people who seem to get the severity of rape only get it when the rape occurs to certain victims and is committed by certain perpetrators. The perfect storm of rape, if you will. There are far too many people who are quick to believe that rapes which don’t fit their image of “real” rape must be false accusations. Hence, the myth that half of those who report being raped are liars.
The reality is that when the criminal justice system becomes more just in properly identifying true victims and perpetrators and works toward real justice for all involved, the stigma attached to those who are investigated but not charged or convicted will go down.
In other words the lasting stigma from a false accusation comes from those who merit true accusations and the systems that let so many real rapists escape justice. The stigma isn’t caused by feminists working to reduce the amount of sexual violence and working to increase the accountability of those who exploit others sexually.
If by “myth” you mean a firmly held belief which is unsupported by firm evidence, then yes, it is a myth, as the the belief that only 2% of those who report rape are liars. Or any other figure. There is no good evidence on this subject at all.
If by “myth” you mean a firmly held belief which is untrue, then I don’t know whether it’s a myth or not, because they’re no good evidence on this subject at all.
Sebastian, despite his babbling, has made a very cogent point, which I don’t think you’ve taken on. You’re right that “many people” don’t get it, and we can probably include “stripper” and “anonymous” among they’re number. But they’re not taking part in this discussion. Duckspeak, by its nature, admits no debate. Those who are discussing, including myself and Sebastian do get it. But we get treated like those who don’t.
I’m not convinced. I suspect that in a great many cases, particularly those difficult “he said/she said” cases, the true allegations are essentially indistinguishable from the false allegations. So any changes to people’s attitudes or to police/court procedures that increase the true conviction rate will also increase the false conviction rate.
And this is where the respect issue creeps in. I’m asking that commentors here to “be respectful of” us who respectfully disagree with you, and our “efforts to fight” wrongful charges.
We’ve not been getting that respect. Although you prohibited “attacks on feminism or generalizations about feminists” (I don’t agree that my criticisms are “attacks”), outright abusive generalisations, and direct personal attacks have been coming in the opposite direction, “on me“. Even a former poster who isn’t even here is being subject to unprovoked abuse.
That should have said “outright abusive generalisation” and direct personal attacks have been coming in the opposite direction.”
Daran:
You may suspect this, but that doesn’t mean it’s true or that an increase in true convictions will result in an increase in false convictions.
It’s interesting to note that on almost every episode of Law & Order: SVU (the cop show about rape cases and other sexual crimes), when a woman claims to have been raped and she isn’t dead, it was a false accusation. I realize that this is in part added to the story to make plot twists, but there is no twist if the woman is lying every time.
Law & Order is a pretty mainstream show. That this show has about 98% of rape cases that don’t end in the death of the victim turning out to be bogus says quite a bit against the idea that “few care” about the falsely accused.
Geez, men are so persecuted.
Fossil, I’m a Law and Order fan and I’d contest your statement. False rape accusations are certainly a plot device they’ve used several times, but given that you’re using it to bolster an argument against “few care about falsely accused rapists” I’d like to know where you get your 98% figure.
I have to admit that the 98% figure is purely from my own experience watching the show, and is based on my only being able to think of one episode that featured a living woman claiming she had been raped who actually had.
I can also think of an episode that had a woman who was almost beaten to death and was in a coma, who had also been faking.
While my actual figure may be called into question, I think that the general trend in the show is nevertheless full of lying women.
I think 98% was just a random fudge. You know, “like 98%” — taken as vernacular, not as an attempt to cite a stat.
And dude, I like law & order as much as the next fan, but seriously — the “OMG, the woman was LYING!” bit is waaaay overused.