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

Baba Yaga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Daran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote, in talk.rape:
> 
> >the perception that the rate of rape
> >convictions (at 6% of all rape reports) was "too low", (What evidence is
> >there for this?), and that any increase is desirable.
> 
> I know I've visited this teritory before, but still this is something
> I find peculiar, on a level.  
> 
> Warning: much as I dislike it, I'm about to mingle talk of rape with
> talk of FRAs.

Hardly avoidable. 

> I can understand that a victim and his supporters might feel,
> strongly, that lack of a conviction in this case is an injustice, and
> that the lack of a conviction reflects a flaw in the system.  I
> understand that righteous indignation can be contagious, too.  Still,
> and surely unavoidably as soon as one moves beyond emotion into any
> sort of discussion [1], since there'll generally be insufficient
> evidence to prove rape beyond reasonable doubt, and by precisely the
> same token, there'll generally be insufficient evidence to prove false
> accusation (let alone culpably false accusation) prove beyond
> reasonable doubt, surely a low rate of conviction would, in both
> instances, demonstrate that the system is working well?

I liked the cite to Greer. It may be useful for discussions in which I
repeat my favorite refrain that we'll never know the true incidence of
FRAs or even rapes. The plea bargains alone assure that. I did
appreciate the mention of the 25% incidence of DNA mismatches between
the ostensible perp and the real perp, even after a weeding out
process that removed many of the weaker cases. That may be about as
close as we're going to get to the minimum FRA rate. Of course, it
leaves us with the reality that a DNA match does not a rape make.

> [1] As soon as I write it, I realise that that's tosh.  "Assumptions
> are the things we don't know we're making".

Sometimes I feel that it is a waste of time to even analyze this stuff
but if we don't, the Usual Suspects will emerge from their caves and
poison debate with statistical slight-of-hand. And injustices and
abuses inevitably follow. The honest can never rest, because the
dishonest don't. The use of the "6% conviction rate" to support rape
reforms intended to increase that rate, whether appropriate or not, is
a good if frightening example. The verbiage about rape reform's goal
of shifting burden of proof from accuser to victim is even scarier.