Frequent false reports: where's the evidence? (was: Re: Rape Education Story #60

Daran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> On 21 Nov 2003 11:00:29 -0800 Sky King <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in
> message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...

> >> > Gee...according to many feminist women never lie about being
> >> > raped.....:)

> >> Name one.

[They can't.]

> I should like to accept Neil's challenge myself.  I name the Santa Barbara
> Rape Crisis Center as a (corporate) person, and Harriet Eckstein as an
> individual person who was the director of that body.
> 
> Proof that SBRCC says this:
> <http://www.sbrapecrisiscenter.org/04Information/myth2.html>
> 
> Proof that SBRCC is feminist: <http://www.sbrapecrisiscenter.org/01About
> Us/about.html>
> 
> (This is a space in that URL, which might break some newsreader's auto
> linking.)
> 
> Evidence of Eckstein's involvement with the SBRCC:
> <http://www.sbjuggle.org/html/ArticleIndependent.html>

To be fair, the SBRCC page goes on at once to talk about a low level 
of false reports, so they're not really making the obviously incorrect
claim that women *never* lie about rape. So we still don't really have 
an example.

OTOH, the SBRCC do use the oft-quoted FBI/2% claim. I've never been 
able to track this figure back to its origins, though I've seen it in 
many reputable sources. (It may be a misreading of two separate studies 
mentioned cheek-by-jowl in "Against Our Will" - she doesn't make the 
claim, but her online critics seem to think she does.)

I'm researching the incidence of false rape reports for an essay. 
There seems to be little evidence that false reports, let alone false 
accusations or convictions, are commonplace. Clearly they do happen, 
but are infrequent compared to genuine reports, or unreported rapes. 
(Any number of news items of false reports could be countered with 
large numbers of stories about convictions.)

A couple of studies constantly get dredged up - the unpublished Air 
Force study cited by Farrell in "Myth of Male Power", which I'd love 
to get my hands on (the study, not the book :-), and Kanin's study of 
motives for false reports. (Generalising the incidence in the latter 
to all rape reports would be like my generalising the Pitcairn Island 
trial to claim that more than one in ten men are child sex abusers.)

So those aren't convincing as evidence of common false reports. Do 
those claiming a high rate of lies have any other evidence? I'll 
follow up on any cites I'm given. (If anyone can give the original 
source for the FBI/2% figure, I'd be very grateful!)

Yours,
- Kate Orman
http://katesfeminist.info/