Does anyone dispute the fact that the 'false allegations of rape are common' myth is dangerous?

[The Straight Story]

25. I will repeat what I said there, with an addendum:

Last thread:

0.6% is about the same as gun owners who commit crimes with their guns

Which means 99% don't.

Yet the many get labeled as suspicious, humpers, etc because of what those few do.

I wonder if it is acceptable to do so when it comes to guns but not other things (ie, to paint the many based on the few)?

The principle is the same. Maybe it is *because* of the few the many are upset and see such crimes as something to bring to light --- well, actually, crime in general. Most people don't go out and rob the local Taco Bell. But the ones that do make the news.

Most women don't falsely report rape. But when one does, because it is not normal, it gets reported on. Just like about every other story in the news which covers things involving out of the ordinary stories.

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Addendum:

What I find more common is the failure of governments (state/local) to free up funding for rape testing kits (posted a few horror stories on those not all that god awful long ago). That problem leads to more unsolved/UN-prosecuted/etc cases which can make it seem there are more false allegations than there are.

From Slate:

But isn't the rate of false rape charges an empirical question, with a specific answer that isn't vulnerable to ideological twisting? Yes and no. There has been a burst of research on this subject. Some of it is careful, but much of it is questionable. While most of the good studies converge at a rate of about 8 percent to 10 percent for false rape charges, the literature isn't quite definitive enough to stamp out the far higher estimates. And even if we go by the lower numbers, there's the question of interpretation. If one in 10 charges of rape is made up, is that a dangerously high rate or an acceptably low one? To put this in perspective, if we use the Bureau of Justice Statistics that show about 200,000 rapes in 2008, we could be looking at as many as 20,000 false accusations.

...

Rumney's smart debunkings leave us with a group of American, British, Canadian, and New Zealand studies that converge around a rate of 8 percent to 10 percent for false reports of rape. Not all of these studies are flawless, but together they're better than the rest of the lot. They include a massive 1997 report on sexual assault by the U.S. Department of Justice, which includes data from 16,000 local, county, and state law enforcement agencies. The DoJ found that "in 1995, 87% of recorded forcible rapes were completed crimes and the remainder were classified as attempts. Law enforcement agencies indicated that about 8% of forcible rapes reported to them were determined to be unfounded and were excluded from the count of crimes."

...



On the law enforcement end, we heard from Steve Cullen, an Army attorney who's worked extensively as a prosecutor. He offered this cogent—and dire—explanation of the reverberations when women cry wolf about rape:

False reports have an incredibly corrosive impact on how sexual assault accusations are policed. Police treat sexual assault accusers badly—much worse than the lawyers do—much worse than the courtroom does. Forget what you see on "Law and Order SVU," the police end absolutely discourages victims from reporting. Why is this so? Because cops suspect just about every victim is another false accuser, because either he/she has personally dealt with such a problem, or has heard stories from his or her cop buddies to this effect (and yes, in my experience female cops can be even worse offenders). This police behavior is bad, and counterproductive—but it's real. Putting a real stigma on false reports might combat this a bit—and make it a little easier for actual victims at the police station.

False reports also have a disproportionate impact on juries. How I'd hate to be prosecuting a sexual assault right now. Often in sexual assault prosecutions there's no debate as to the sex, but everything falls on proving lack of consent—and can only be proven through a convincing and persuasive victim's testimony. Often, that victim's testimony has to overcome some less than ideal circumstances—she was drinking, people observed her flirting with the perpetrator etc. That's something she can own up to, and overcome on her own. What she can't do on her own is extinguish jury members' memory of reading of some spectacular false accusation case in the newspaper last month. Every false accusation that makes it into the news makes it that much harder for the real victims to receive justice.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2009/10/how_often_do_women_falsely_cry_rape.html

False reports hurt women in the long run - and for that reason we should all want to come down hard on those who do - not try to brush their crimes under the rug. Same with rapists - come down hard on them and don't screw around. Approve more funding for investigating, testing, prosecuting, and kick out non-violent drug offenders from jail to make space for those that abuse others.