Re: Bad idea: Punishing false accusers

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kate Orman) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Sky King) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kate Orman) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> 
> [bits snipped]
> 
> > > It'd be interesting to learn whether maliciously accusing someone 
> > > of (for example) theft attracts criminal charges.
>  
> > Yes..the person can be charged with making a false report.  The person 
> > could also be sued if he\she named a person they claimed was the thief.
> 
> Should there also be a specific crime of falsely accusing someone of 
> theft? Such a lie could easily wreck someone's career, reputation, and
> relationships.
> 
> > > However, I've seen no good evidence that false reports are a large 
> > > proportion of reports, and false accusations are only a proportion 
> > > of false reports. When women do lie, it's not usually out of malice:
>  
> > Stats have been posted to soc.men and to t.r. concerning the rate of 
> > false complaints.  It is a BIG problem.
> 
> Those are the stats I'm after! Please post some of them.

No offense but I hate to spoon feed folks. You can easily do a search of
soc.men and find the stats.  I would have to do the same thing.
> 
> > How do you know its not usualy out of malice?
> 
> ... uh, I quoted two researchers' opinions:
>  
> > > "... the motivation [for false reports] seemed complicated, but 
> > > rarely fuelled by a wish to get a particular man in trouble. More 
> > > usually, there seemed to be a desire to get herself "out of trouble"."
> > > 
> > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,237693,00.html
> > > 
> > > (This was also the motive of more than half of Kanin's liars.)
>  
> > > If there's no crisis, then existing penalties may already be doing 
> > > the job.
>  
> > What determines a crisis?  Why do you want to wait until there is one?
> 
> Is it a BIG problem, or isn't it?


Yes.  FBI stats have shown that as much as 25% of rape claims are false.
Some say its only 9%.  Either way its a BIG problem.
>  
> > > Moreover, a falsely accused person can sue their accuser; 
>  
> > Extremely hard to do.
> 
> So presumably it's extremely hard for the falsely accused non-thief, 
> as well.

I am not really sure.  A falsely accused thief is usually thought to
be innocent by the general population.  A man that is found innocent
of rape or has the charges dropped still has to face public opinion.
Many feel that he may still be guilty.  Same goes for child abuse charges.
They seem to stick even though the person is innocent.
> 
> Actually, I'm a bit confused about this suing thing. Rich seems to 
> say the falsely accused *can't* sue, then that they *can* sue but it 
> probably won't do any good. I'd be interested to see any evidence 
> yourself or Rich have to back these statements up.
> 
> Yours,
> - Kate Orman

Well they can sue but its going to be hard to prove the accuser lied.  She
just needs to keep saying, "I thought it was him."  Many men have been
released from prison after DNA testing has proven that they were not the
rapist.  Many of the women that sent these men to prison STILL say they picked
out the right man.  It goes to show the eyewitness testimony is not very good
in many cases.