Re: Bad idea: Punishing false accusers

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Sky King) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> [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.

NYC stats:
40% recant their story
40% proveably false
No figure on how much is overlap between the two groups.

Therefore, for NYC, 40%-80% of their rape accuastions are proveably
false and/or recanted.




> >  
> > > > 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.

Either that, or they've dug the hole WAY tooo deep to admit that they were
lying from the get-go.