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

Kate Orman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 29 Nov 2003 22:48:18 -0800:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kate Orman) wrote in message
> news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>> Daran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...

>> > Another blunder/fib/distortion (delete as applicable) is that you
>> > are framing the discussion as though all these figures are estimates
>> > of the number of false accusations.  

>> Reports.

>> > This is completely incorrect.  These numbers are all ostensible
>> > *lower limits* to the number of false accusations.  And the firmer
>> > the criteria become for so classifying a report, the more likely it
>> > is, that it is an *underestimate* of the real false reporting rate.

>> While I take your point, that doesn't make evidence of lots of false 
>> reports magically appear.

> And here's another problem, pointed out in the paper cited below. What
> happens when a woman reports, encounters poor treatment and skepticism
> from police (good heavens, some states used to *polygraph* rape
> victims!!!), realises she cannot face going through the whole legal
> process - and so recants? She's counted as a false allegator, ....

Police stations swamped by false allegators.  Now there's an image.  :-)

> .... another "lying bitch", even though she is a genuine rape victim.
> Unless those counting false reports take this issue into consideration,
> their figures may *overestimate* the incidence of lies.

Do the researchers not take this scenario into account?

> Yours,
> - Kate Orman

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)
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