Do "unfounded" murder and motor-vehicle-theft claims reduce the credibility of "real victims" of murder and thievery? No, of course not. The claim that "real" rape "victims" are hurt by false accusations is specious. Yet, this idea is used to keep rape rates high and treat all rape accusers as truth tellers.

Also, where is the sensitivity for the men who are accused of rape? When women who cry "rape" are automatically treated as "victims", that means the accused men are automatically treated as "rapists." There can be no justice in such a system.



False rape reports outrank other unfounded crimes
Southtown Star - Chicago,IL,USA

October 19, 2008

BY LAUREN FITZPATRICK Staff writer
She lied.
Who would do that? Lie about being raped?
Well, people lie about everything. Only this kind of fabrication isn't talked about. It's awful to think someone would lie about rape when real victims suffer. Or ruin the life of an innocent man with accusations.

Rape crisis advocates quickly warned after learning a 17-year-old Palos Heights girl concocted a rape story that these fakes are not the norm. More often, victims of real sex crimes aren't believed or remain silent fearing they will not be taken seriously.

But according to the FBI, which compiles nationwide crime statistics, forcible rapes have a higher unfounded rate than other crimes. "Unfounded," in police speak, means baseless or false, or "no crime was committed," said Joe Pollini, a retired veteran New York detective who teaches police law at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.

The FBI reported a 5.4 percent unfounded rate for forcible rapes, compared with a 1.1 percent rate for all crimes in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

Murders had a 3.2 percent unfounded rate; motor vehicle thefts were at 2.3 percent. The unfounded rape rate was down from 1997, when it measured 7.3 percent, compared with 1.7 percent of total crimes.
Rapes are falsely reported for a number of reasons, according to law enforcement authorities.

"Younger (teens) would say they've been raped because they had sex with somebody or got pregnant and now they try to use that as an excuse," Pollini said. "We had cases where 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds fabricated that they were kidnapped because they couldn't stay out late and had strict parents."

Others cry rape to cover up a sexually transmitted disease, or account for time spent with a lover outside a marriage, he said.

Myths and layers
Palos Heights police have not commented on why a 17-year-old girl made up a tale of being kidnapped and sexually assaulted while closing a local sandwich shop. Neither has her attorney, who denies the girl is pregnant. A 24-year-old woman in Hoffman Estates charged Wednesday with making a false rape report explained a man didn't pay her for a consensual sex act she performed on him in a Wal-mart men's room. Security footage showed her walking into the men's room she said she was dragged into.

Advocates at city and suburban rape crisis centers said they fear publicizing false rape reports perpetuates a myth that victims are usually lying about being assaulted.

"Because it is a societal myth anyway that women cry rape when they haven't been raped, we do address that," said Barb McCormick Somerville, manager of sexual violence and support services at the YWCA South Suburban Center in Chicago Heights. "This is a serious crime. It is a crime of opportunity and the opportunity is created by the offender. Victims and survivors are up against so many myths and layers."

Somerville says she believes 2 to 8 percent of rape reports are false. She cites discrepancies with how various departments decide to unfound a case.

"Without empirically sound information, false reporting and making comments about it feed into stereotypes about sexual assault in the first place," she said.

No uniform standards

FBI statistics are all self-reported by local police departments. There is no uniform code to identify which cases are truly unfounded or baseless and which are merely stuck or inactive, said Joe Kocek, a retired Tinley Park police commander who now teaches s ex crime investigations to law enforcement officers.

The bureau's numbers account only for the forcible rapes reported to police. They don't count attacks on men or attacks by women on women, and they don't include molestations, statutory rapes or a handful of other sex offenses, Kocek said.

"Sometimes law enforcement officers may unfound a case because there are no witnesses, they have no evidence," he said.

Rape victims aren't always physically wounded, their clothing isn't typically shredded or torn and their psychological state of being isn't always hysterical, Kocek said. Most experience a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Just because everyone doesn't kick or fight with every last drop of their energy doesn't mean they weren't coerced," he said. "More often than not, there are no signs of violence."

Handling victims

Better training for questioners will help solve real cases without scaring the victim away or making her or him feel overwhelmed.

Kocek said victims weren't always questioned by sensitive officers trained to interpret rape-specific reactions by a victim. Attitudes have improved dramatically in the last 10 or 15 years, from a time "when you have a victim who's not acting the way they believe a legitimate victim should act, they doubt the victim until the investigation is done. It's been a long, uphill battle."

More sensitive handling of victims results in better information, too, with victims forgetting or skipping over fewer details, Kocek said.

"Law enforcement is now trained in the psychological dynamics of a victim of sexual assault," he said. "They're actually able to put together better cases."

Pollini said anyone claiming to be a victim should be treated as such.
"Initially when she would come in, you would treat her as if she were a bonafide victim, sit her down, calm her down," he said.

While forcible rapes are unfounded at a higher rate than other crimes, at about 5 percent in 2006, that still means 95 percent of reported rapes are legitimate. Which means 19 out of 20 women who come to police and say they've been raped are telling the truth and praying like hell they will be treated as credible by their front-line responders.

Lauren FitzPatrick can be reached at lfitzpatrick@southtownstar.com or (708) 802-8832.

AKUUS, both your Introduction and the article miss the point or go off tangentially. In fact they argue incoherently.

.


Let us look at the statement you made that I have numbered.

1 Do "unfounded" murder and motor-vehicle-theft claims reduce the credibility of "real victims" of murder and thievery? No, of course not.

The answer is, Of course they do. Both the police and the insurance companies start with the assumption that someone is going to lie their head off and try to screw the system in order to make a Gain. Murders don't usually just put their hands up. The Insurance companies though have a lot more riding on the outcome than the police do and work harder to establish the truth, otherwise the Insurance companies have to pay-out. This has side effects in itself in that everyone is suspected of making false claims and have to prove that a crime was initially committed. It has to be clearly demonstrable. This reduces the credibility of anyone who makes a claim without proof and is reflected in the Premium cost as well as the investigation rules.

Ref 2. Real victims are likely to be treated with undue scrutiny at a time of distress because of false allegations / false claims by others. That is another result seen everyday in Insurance investigations and again reflected in Premiums.

Your statement at 3. is unconnected in logic to statements 1 and 2.

People Insure Lives and Motor vehicles. If every woman had to carry rape insurance, false reports would be extinguished down to a tiny proportion within a year. Peer pressure from other women so that their Premiums were not ramped up would be applied. Women would condemn false accusers rather than excuse them as they seem to do these days.

An alternative would be to reward Police for uncovering false allegations. Reward Polive for bringing charges of perjury. Reward police for unmasking liars.

Insurance Investigators get bonuses !

I go onto the article.

What she 'believes' is neither here nor there, stupid woman, and this is shown inadvertenly by her follow on about discrepencies; and by the following statement :

What else can they do? If there is no evidence of a crime, just why should a crime be assumed? It would be remiss to do so. We can't have officers inventing crimes. We can't have a situation where someone is going about their lawful occasions and suddenly get accused. Yet that is what happens all too often in false accusation cases.

The article doesn't even address that, falling over itself as it does in trying to use that as an excuse for the 'stereotype'.

It means nothing of the sort. It assumes that all false claims are proven to be false. This is clearly rubbish, evidenced by the huge number of men released through the 'Innocence Project' and the cases of multiple false accusations that get uncovered from time to time. It could have been noted by an honest researcher and an honest reporter that when a false report is uncovered or a man is released from jail after evidence shows that he was convicted on false evidence, the Statistics his or their 'crime' gave rise to are not revised downward.

Percy,
I love your idea about having women required to get rape insurance! I think your logic on that is sound. I also like your analysis of the idea that 95% of rape claims are true.

Regarding my points,
Do "unfounded" murder and motor-vehicle-theft claims reduce the credibility of "real victims" of murder and thievery? No, of course not. The claim that "real" rape "victims" are hurt by false accusations is specious. Yet, this idea is used to keep rape rates high and treat all rape accusers as truth tellers.

I think you have missed my points.
1) Perhaps, insurance companies are influenced by false murder and theft claims. But, cops are not influenced by fear of false rape claims.
Pollini said anyone claiming to be a victim should be treated as such.
"Initially when she would come in, you would treat her as if she were a bonafide victim, sit her down, calm her down," he said.
However, the media and the public are not influenced by false murder or theft claims in terms of their willingness to suspect that real claims are false. That is the point. The average person does not respond to the revelation that a murder or theft claim was a lie by saying, "Oh, no, all those poor people that are real victims of murder and theft won't be believed now! We have to downplay all these stories about fraudulent murder and theft claims or they will hurt 'real victims.' " So, why do people react in such a way to false rape claims?

2) The idea that "real" rape "victims" are hurt by false allegations was dealt with in the preceding paragraph.

3) Yet, this idea is used to keep rape rates high and treat all rape accusers as truth tellers.
This fear of the loss of credibility of "real" rape "victims" due to the revelation of false-rape claim prevelance causes "rape victim" advocates to constantly present high victim rates (95%!) and to insist that all accusers be instantly and ardently treated as full-fledged victims:
Pollini said anyone claiming to be a victim should be treated as such.
"Initially when she would come in, you would treat her as if she were a bonafide victim, sit her down, calm her down," he said.

I understand the argument that you put, AKUUS, and I am not criticising you per se. But the argument needs to be put in the clearest way possible and not mixed up with a totally different argument or questionable claims. Otherwise it loses whatever power it has.

The police ARE influenced. One would like to think that Rules of Evidence are part of their psyche, but they are not. They may claim not to be influenced but both their training programs and practice show otherwise. They are suborned by feminists, bought and paid for. They even use the term 'victim' before the status has been confirmed by evidence.

That is Feminist indoctrination and insistence.

The Police, in their practice, right from the start, as stated by Pollini, assume a woman is a 'victim'. It 'frames' the way they go about investigating.

They don't want to upset her by even implying that she is falsely accusing. They have 'special' rules for treating these cases. Rules that do not apply to other criminal investigations. Impartiality is thrown out of the window.

In my State, for instance, the police are taught at the Cop College that 95% of DV is male on female. They do not bother to investigate with any impartiality.

Can someone from America with knowledge of the legal system answer this...?

I've been led to believe that in some states, as long as there is a complaining witness, the state must continue to prosecute regardless of the evidence gathered (even if the claim appears to be false.)

Rothzael,

Here in WA, the prosecutor has the power to modify the original charges, or to throw the case out before it goes to court. However, even with the lack of concrete evidence (visible injury, witnesses), the chances are, the case will go to court because all that's to define an assault is fear of bodily harm. Not actual bodily harm. "Reasonable fear of serious bodily harm, generated by an action of another" is something abstract, and can only truly be evaluated in court by the alleged victim's testimony. However, in many cases, if not most, the alleged victim does not show up to testify. In absence of testimony, the accused may not be convicted. Sometimes, a police report, and testimony from the officer who responded to the call, is enough for a conviction.

Are you talking about rape in particular or assaults in general? I was assaulted a couple of years ago and reported it to the police. The cop told me he couldn't do anything since he hadn't witnessed the assault. He told a second cop what I had stated, and this second cop threated to arrest me for making "a false report."

Akuus,

Sorry I wasn't entirely clear. I was talking about domestic violence assaults, as defined by RCW 10.31.100.

What applies where you live could be different.

And police corruption is rampant everywhere. It's advisable to know you're rights, know the codes (the laws as they pertain to your jurisdiction), because chances are, you're not going to be told what they are by the officers you deal with. I had an officer tell me once, "Don't quote me the RCW's. I am the law."