It is hard to know but I have seen stats that suggest false rape accusations are about 10% of the total. So, not a lot in the scheme of things but not rare either.
In 20 years of policing including 5 years in SVU I’ve seen a number of false allegations. It’s usually from someone who is embarrassed by something and they are trying to deflect. I have no idea what the motivation is here. I have no idea what the percentage of false accusations are. I do know it will be difficult to tell how many there are because most of the ones I’ve dealt with were obviously problematic from the start and the story fell apart before an investigation really started. No way of tracking those kinds of incidents.
In addition to Loach’s very valid point, you also have all the people who are assaulted who never come forward at all, for a variety of reasons, such as fear of the attacker, or not being believed, not wanting to relive the attack, not wanting to go through a trial, and so on. Some estimates put this group as high as 63% of victims who never report.
In addition, there are inconsistencies between the way “false” accusations are counted. The category that is tracked is “unfounded” and several types of accusations are rolled up underneath that including false (provably untrue), baseless (does not meet criteria for rape, but is truthful), and there is unsubstantiated (not enough evidence to determine whether or not a crime occurred). The numbers for “false” accusations range from 2-8%. The range seems to be caused largely by conflation of these types of accusations, and different procedures being followed for reporting at different jurisdictions nationwide.
This paper from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center covers more information on the topic. It’s from 2010, so it’s slightly dated. Looking elsewhere, the numbers do not seem to have shifted.
Here is another source: RAINN. This one is depressing reading. Out of 1000 rapes committed, 6 perpetrators will be jailed. If you make it past the infographics, there are other interesting stats at the bottom of the page.
Yes, Flyer, it’s been said to be rare, because compared to the number of rapes, it is.
False = untrue
Baseless = does not meet criteria for rape but is truthful
These are lumped together, so we can’t know how many are truly false. Let’s crunch some numbers anyway.
From the RAINN numbers linked above, 310 of 1000 rapes are reported to the police. That would be 31% of rapes committed. Of those, 5% are false or baseless. 5% * 31% is 1.5%. We can’t know how many of those are false vs baseless, so the actual number of false claims is even less.
While I doubt any breakdown exists, it would be interesting (to me anyway) if there was separation between a general claim (“I was out jogging when a masked man pulled me into the bushes”) and targeted claims (“So-and-So attacked me in his apartment”). Only because there’s the idea among certain circles that men are constantly under siege from targeted false accusations.
Sometimes its “no penis in vagina” in jurisdictions where rape is defined that way - so you can have a sexual assault where the claim is rape, and they are guilty of sexual assault, but not of rape. This was the case with Brock Turner - he had penetrated her, but not with his penis, so the claim of rape was baseless.
I believe that - in contrast to some claims being made here - that these estimates refer to instances where the police have determined in some manner that the claims are false.
There are also many instances where the police (or prosecutors) can’t definitely decide one way or the other. (I’m not aware of any study which has tracked such cases.) But obviously many such accusations will be false. So I think most estimates for the number of false accusations likely significantly underestimate the true percentage.
I will refer questioners on post #8 to my post #6, above, which covers the question of legal definitions and conflation of the same into the category of “false”. In post #7, two of those definitions were immediately referenced, so I repeated them.
Both your cites include rape under “sexual assault” or “sexual violence”. So I am not sure how much “baseless” means “sexually assaulted but not raped”. I would have expected “baseless” to mean “not proven” or “not enough evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt” or the accuser withdrew the accusation because she didn’t want to go thru trial/reconciled with the rapist/just wanted to put it behind her/whatever.
I am not saying these are bad reasons, or good reasons, or that they prove anything. But it’s different from “truthful”.
Since we are now talking about specific cases, the flip side has Marie, who was charged with making a false allegation that an unknown man had broken I’m and raped her knife point. She was the very definition of an unreliable witness, and ended up taking a plea deal to the false accusation charge.