In response to my previous post on men fleeing colleges, Dave from the BaltoNorth blog sends in this article from the Baltimore Sun on false rape allegations:
The Baltimore Police Department has for the past four years recorded the highest percentage of rape cases that officers conclude are false or baseless of any city in the country, according to The Baltimore Sun’s review of FBI data. More than 30 percent of the cases investigated by detectives each year are deemed unfounded, five times the national average. Only Louisville and Pittsburgh have reported similar numbers in the recent past, and the number of unfounded rape cases in those cities dropped after police implemented new classification procedures. The increase in unfounded cases comes as the number of rapes reported by Baltimore police has plunged — from 684 in 1995 to 158 in 2009, a decline of nearly 80 percent. Nationally, FBI reports indicate that rapes have fallen 8 percent over the same period.
Many people mistakenly think that women never falsely report rape. You would think that after all the mess with the Duke Lacrosse team and the resulting books such as Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, that academics and others would realize the error of their ways but ideology often wins out against the truth.
As difficult as it is to believe, you are correct Dr. Smith.
“Many people mistakenly think that women never falsely report rape.”
And many people believe children never lie about satanic ritual murders in thier daycare classes.
But then, many people have a cabbage between their ears. It is laughable.
Where is that chicken$!T idiot LeighB who so enlightened us yesterday? She should come back and defend her remarks.
LeighB is out doing some fact checking before she gets back to you.
And for every falsely reported rape, how many false reports of sexual harassment are there? Even a harassment complaint can end a career…
Often with the victim not even knowing that a claim was filed.
And it’s not always false, sometimes it is a Genuine Misunderstanding or Simple Error.
In the Mid 90′s there was a website called http://www.whitehouse.com (it no longer exists) which featured multiple images of “Interns as the President sees them.”
A fellow at a franchise of the particular company I was working for at the time accidently entered whitehouse.com when he wanted whitehouse.gov. Now at this time T1 was kind of a new thing and exiting the site (which would spawn multiple other sites at that time) before the image filled the screen wasn’t quite as easy as it was on the 56K modems.
Long story short, lady sees the images he got, with no intention to do so whatsoever, and the end result was 1) He’s fired! 2) she got a $75,000.00 settlement.
I, as network administrator, had filtering software installed in our internet connection before the EOB for the following week.
And people wonder why I want “kill the connection” ability up front where I can reach it quickly, although I first wanted it back in the eternal popup era.
I would not call what happened a simple misunderstanding. That was a hate filled woman, who should never have made it through the hiring process.
Yeah, but it worked for her, didn’t it? Positive reinforcement abounds.
Getting fired for innocent mistakes or complete fabrications is not a bug in the politically correct workplace, it is a feature. If you don’t believe me, ask your HR VP at the next all hands meeting what the ratio of harassment grievances against men versus women. I’ll bet at your organization, it will be somewhere between five and ten complaints against men for every one against women.
Your next question to the HR VP, who is likely female, should be why is there such a strong bias against men in the harassment program you run?
Your question after that should be isn’t such gender bias against the state and federal equal opportunity laws?
Your question after that should be how do I file a complaint with the state and federal EO offices against you and your harassment program?
I wonder how this will work with gays in the military. Through liberal construction of sexual harassment policies, the military could in effect enforce a de facto ban on homosexuals in the military.
I am surprised that there is not more opposition against sexual harassment policies from gay rights groups, given how easily they can be used against gay people.
The old fashioned cure for false accusations might be in order here. The penalty for false accusations was the same as the alleged crime. For example, if the penalty for rape is twenty years in prison, the penalty for falsely accusing someone of rape is twenty years in prison.
Punishment for false accusations, yes. (And for prosecutors or police who falsify evidence.) But only if the burden of proof for conviction of “false accusation” is as high as the burden of proof for rape. Meaning that a rape accusation to a college disciplinary board only requires the accused to say “No, I didn’t” and both accuser and accused should be expelled.
Dare I bring up the other issue, the one the lefties will undoubtedly raise? How do we know that this is a series of baseless accusations, instead of a pattern of ignoring and brushing off women who were genuinely raped, and are trying to “tell their stories?” There’s no objective way to be sure that the cases the police reject are truly baseless, unless we just trust the cops. I’m afraid that’s something even I’m leery of doing these days. This needs to be investigated further, as in were there more cases of rape reported in Baltimore than other cities, in the first place? What was the age/demographic of the people alleging crimes, that were judged to be lying or mistaken? Were they all alleging a particular race of male rapist?
Frankly I think this maddenly incomplete, because without the answers to these questions there’s so much we don’t know.
I agree with you on this one. I would like to know a bit more about the procedures being followed and the circumstances. I know false rape allegations are more common than is widely believed from the sheer number of horror stories, but the numbers as reported in this case make we believe the pendulum may have swung a bit to far. Always a risk when you start the pendulum swinging, it always comes back too far the other way.
Perhaps Baltimore detectives are the only detectives in the country who actually do any investigating.
Like DNA exonerations in Dallas.
I have a theory about that (at least as it would apply to Baltimore). There is a very large drug problem there and I would bet many of those cases might be women exchanging sex for drugs, then claiming rape if the dealer doesn’t come up with the goods.
Just one possibility. Baltimore also has a lot of college age kids, so there might be a lot of drunken regrets going on too.
I’m perfectly willing to believe that false accusations of rape occur far more often than we’ve been led to believe, but given Baltimore’s history of police corruption I’m not willing accept their outlier statistic, of 30 percent of rape allegations being unfounded, as dispositive on the issue.
So, is anyone gonna ask about race or do I have to do it?
In my legal experience, the Baltimore % is very realistic. The effect of delayed remorse and of sisterly encouragement (everyone wanting to see the woman as a victim not just a person who made a regreatful judgemant to say “yes” or act in an affirmative manner).
The woman can always remove any ambiguity, if SHE chooses to do so.
The only thing unique about the Baltimore finding is the claim that it is unique. About twenty years ago the Journal of Sexual Behavior published the findings of studies in Midwestern towns that showed from 40 to 50 percent of rape accusations were false. They were found to be so after police departments adopted a policy of extensive interviews combined with an offer of taking a lie detector test. As could be expected, the motivations of the lying females were rather banal: an unexplained absence, an unexplained pregnancy, revenge for the boyfriend not calling her again, etcetera.
Dave’s link gives you a snapshot, and it’s one that just scratches the surface. This story broke in the summer of 2010, and in the time since it broke the BPD has made a great many changes. The claims were examined by a new task force, and about half were re-classified as rapes, attempted rapes, or other sex crimes; 8 of 11 of the previous personnel in the unit were “given new assignments”. We’ve got a new prosecutor in Baltimore who replaced a corrupt and less-than-competent predecessor, which probably is helping matters, as is having a new mayoral administration.
Scroll down the linked page. The Baltimore Sun has taken the trouble to add dated links to their follow-on stories, along with teaser descriptions. At the very bottom of the page, you’ll find a link to the original story that started the whole thing, including some names of police officers with quotes from them. The story also cites unnamed “studies” showing the national averages for “unfounded” as “2 to 8 %”; it discusses how classifying can make a difference, such as the difference between “unfounded” and “unsubstantiated”.
We’ve got some serious problems in Baltimore, but there are some good people making great efforts to fix them.
I’m a bit dubious of the 30%. Making a rape claim involves a lot paperwork and question and can require a medical exam. You have to really want to sell the story to go that far. I’d be interested to know how many of the 30% had any forensic evidence.
I will note all three of the “high false rape charge” cities: Baltimore, Louisville and Pittsburgh are all cities under intense financial stress. It is common for politicos and public administrators who can’t fix a problem e.g. don’t have the resources to investigate all rape charges, resort to simply declaring that the problem doesn’t exist.
These police departments might simply be declaring that the a rape allegation without from evidence have no substance because they only have the resources to investigate and prosecute the cases that are slam-dunks. They may also want to make sure their case closure and conviction rates remain high.
If this were true, I would expect to see a lot of assault claims kicked back as well.
It actually makes a lot of sense since rape is extremely difficult to prove today within the boundaries of due process because of the change in societal attitudes toward sex and what constitutes rape.
I am so glad that I am way past the college drinking & dating, post-college nightclub and & dating, etc… scenes. If I were in that arena today, I think I would keep a camera w/mic on at all times, save off the files and keep them for a year or so just in case. And I mean keep it on during any good times that might occur.
I was just reading about this stuff over at the false rape society. This is a bold topic, but one that needs to be discussed, if in fact false rape accusations are becoming as widespread in some areas of the country, as folks are saying.
I was reading recently that a university was recently charged with “manufacturing and inflating” rape statistics in order to cash these manufactured statistics in for more federal dollars. Could manufacturing false statistics be problematic in the long run??