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

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kate Orman) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Daran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> 
> > And I disagree
> > with you lumping the courts and the police in with the media and Internet
> > posters.  The level of suspicion appropriate depends, surely, not just upon
> > the false reporting rate, but also upon the consequence that might arise
> > from believing a false story.  If somebody posts here falsely claiming to
> > have been raped, and I believe them, then shame on them, but there's not a
> > great deal of damage.  If a false report is believed by the police and the
> > courts, then the potential damage is truly enormous.
>  
> While I take your point, the media and the net are responsible for a 
> huge number of claims that women habitually lie about rape.

I've never seen anything like this in the media. They won't for the
most
part even print the names of women who make false rape accusations.
 
> That 
> contributes to the mythology that has fuelled the scepticism of police, 
> lawyers, judges, and juries to this day,

I don't suppose you've ever heard of the concept of innocent till
proven
guilty. Nor do I suppose that you support it or anything like it.

But just out of curiosity, what do you think of what Neil posted?

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&group=talk.rape&selm=Xns943CE3DCA1390steakandblackonions%40130.133.1.4

  http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/7332839.htm

  After release from false convictions, many lack survival resources

  BY KIM NORTH SHINE
  Knight Ridder Newspapers

  DETROIT - (KRT) - Sometimes Kenneth Wyniemko wakes in the dark, his
heart
  and mind revving until the soft, thick mattress assures him that
he's
  free - no longer incarcerated for a rape he didn't commit.

  [...]

  Michigan, like 33 other states, doesn't compensate wrongly convicted
  people. There are few apologies, and it can take years to clear
criminal
  records.

  The state corrections Web site lists Wyniemko as discharged, a
status
  with definition that includes death or sentence completion but not
freed
  because of innocence.

  Wyniemko, like many of the 300-plus inmates nationwide who have been
  cleared by DNA evidence in the last decade, left prison with his
freedom
  and empty pockets.

  Parolees, by contrast, are eligible for housing, counseling and job-
  training assistance.

  "Generally, people who are falsely incarcerated struggle just to 
  survive," said Kathy Swedlow, a lawyer and professor and co-director
of
  the Innocence Project at Cooley Law School in Lansing, Mich. "Some
go
  back to drugs. Many people have nowhere to go."

> allowing uncountable rapists to escape scot free.

And yet still managing to imprison many innocent men. Funny that.

> As the Canadian news item points out, what the 
> police must do is to avoid making assumptions and simply investigate 
> properly.

That's what they used to do. But it produced a politically
unacceptable
number of "unfounded" rape cases.

> The media (and anyone discussing this serious issue) ought 
> to do their own "investigations" and get their facts right.

There are no "facts", everything is massaged to make it as politically
acceptable as possible. The data available is all suspect, and
deliberatly
incomplete. I'm sure that you would count false rape accusations as
rapes for which there was not enough evidence to go to court, previous
discussions here show that the very concept of counting false rape
accusations is reprehensible and proves that you must hate women. And
they are not counted, they are counted as rapes.

There's damn little available that counts as data. And opposition to 
even collecting it.

What do you say?

Rich
 
> Yours,
> - Kate Orman