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

"Ellen Mercer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
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> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kate Orman) wrote in message
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> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kate Orman) wrote in message
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> > > Daran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
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> >
> > > > 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, 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.
>
> You've pinned down nicely why I love DNA. The info cited by Greer-
> that FBI detected a 25% DNA mismatch between true perp and convincted
> shmuck, even after weeding out the weakest cases, completely bypasses
> the issue of FRA confessions, FRA nonconfessions, etc. I don't often
> believe what *people* say, but I do believe what DNA says.
>
> That 25% is the closest we're going to get to the minimal level of
> FRAs-- minimal, because finding a DNA match does not mean that a rape
> occurred. A match could have been due to consensual sex, for example
> or (probably very rarely) a frameup of some kind.
>

I'm very wary of this TBH. Watson and Crick are deserving of honour for
their dedication, and for their contribution to our understanding of the
mechanics of genetics. They did not however sign up to the dogma that DNA
markers provide an infallible ID. I don't believe we *know* how reliable DNA
markers are - the stats have changed by orders of magnitude in the last
10-15 years. That alone suggests an immature science. I'm writing this from
memory (it's Usenet afer all), but I do recall an analogous situation in
around 1915, when fingerprinting was the new black. The same arguments were
used then as are now being made about DNA marker ID - new science, new
convictions. The guy went to Sing Sing and was executed on the evidence of
an 'expert' on fingerprinting. He was later cleared, and the 'indisputable
evidence' provided by the fingerprint expert was exposed as bogus by the
*new* fingerprint 'expert'. At least he had the cold comfort of a posthumous
pardon.

John James (JJ)
I'll look it up if anyone's interested...

BTW, the evidence quoted above does not relate clearly to FRAs - getting the
wrong perp does not equate to there being no crime.