# How to reduce rape by half? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 7, 2017, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943 "2017-11-07T03:50:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/81 "2017-11-07T19:11:50Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > At my gym, I often see women leave at night in their workout clothes (sports bra and yoga pants), earbuds in, staring at their phone as they walk through the dim parking light. They are oblivious of their surroundings in a potentially dangerous environment. That doesn’t mean they are deserving or inviting being attacked, but it does mean that someone will have a much easier time of assaulting them. It seems it would be beneficial if there was some way to tell her to stay aware instead of isolating herself. Yes, the problem is the bad people who attack others, but everyone should take steps to ensure they are not making themselves an easy target. > [@MandaJo](#): > > Is there any evidence that women in that situation are more likely to get raped? I’m serious. I understand the gut response that that is a bad idea, but violent stranger rape is such a small portion of the problem. Walking around oblivious to your surroundings is a good way for _anyone_ to become a victim, male or female. It’s probably worse than the yoga pants/sports bra combo as far as making yourself look like a viable target for the bad guys. It’s not just rapes, it’s also muggings, purse/backpack snatchings, pickpocketing, anything really. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/82 "2017-11-07T19:19:17Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Not very much, unfortunately. > > I’d like to see more evidence that they work as well as the Canadian program allegedly did. At least someone is trying. Apparently there is some effectiveness at least short term - well, that’s better than none from my perspective. More research would be good, to better refine what does and doesn’t work. Keep in mind, too, that some of the places where these programs are being tried have very different cultural norms than the Anglophere along with higher rates of rape and abuse. Not as much effort has been put into the male side of the equation, and not for nearly as long. I wouldn’t expect such programs to be as effective as those on the female side for another generation at least. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/83 "2017-11-07T19:21:35Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Is defensive driving yet another form of victim blaming? Defensive driving isn’t. But having the cops on scene berate you for not doing every single thing you did is. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/84 "2017-11-07T19:30:30Z")
I absolutely agree that the ideal solution would be to stop all the people who commit sex crimes. That way there would be no sex crimes being committed and anybody who wasn’t a criminal could live their life without having to make any changes. But we don’t live in that ideal world. There are men out there who commit sex crimes. And while we should be targeting those men and stopping them as much as possible, we have to acknowledge the reality that it’s a lot easier to reduce sex crimes by trying to alter the behavior of potential victims than by trying to alter the behavior of potential criminals. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/85 "2017-11-07T19:30:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Most men want to avoid raping someone. Out of that group, most already won’t rape anyone, but there are some who want to avoid rape but are ignorant about what it actually entails, and so might rape someone without realizing that it’s rape. Education would be effective at reducing those numbers. > > But there are also, unfortunately, some men who don’t care that they’re committing rape, and will do it anyway even if they know very clearly that it’s rape. You can’t do anything about that group through just education. > > By contrast, 100% of women want to avoid being raped (by definition; if they don’t want to avoid it, then it’s not rape). So if you can teach a woman ways to prevent being raped, it’ll help with _all_ of the cases, including the ones that can’t be addressed by educating men. I think you’re possibly mixing up “motivation” with “effectiveness” here. To take a parallel situation, most motorists don’t want to hit pedestrians, while 100% of pedestrians want to avoid being hit by motorists. So if we can teach pedestrians road safety procedures to prevent being hit by motorists, it’ll help with all of the cases. Although this is true, in reality what has the greatest effect in reducing the incidence of motorists hitting pedestrians is teaching **motorists** proper road safety and punishing them for violating it. As in the case of women getting raped, very often what actually happens is that a pedestrian is doing everything they should be doing and an inattentive or reckless motorist hits them anyway. In other words, **radically changing the behavior of even a small percentage of the perpetrators often does more to actually reduce the incidence of crime than minor tweaks to the behavior of even a large percentage of the potential victims.** (And of course, if the behavior changes we’re proposing are **more** than minor tweaks, then we get into that issue of unduly limiting and restricting women’s lives again.) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/86 "2017-11-07T19:33:12Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > we have to acknowledge the reality that it’s a lot easier to reduce sex crimes by trying to alter the behavior of potential victims than by trying to alter the behavior of potential criminals. This shibboleth is still being insufficiently examined. Given that, as previously noted, altering the behavior of potential victims very often **doesn’t** protect them from sex crimes, on what grounds are you claiming that this assertion is “reality”? ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/87 "2017-11-07T19:35:26Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > By contrast, 100% of women want to avoid being raped (by definition; if they don’t want to avoid it, then it’s not rape). So if you can teach a woman ways to prevent being raped, it’ll help with _all_ of the cases, including the ones that can’t be addressed by educating men. > . No one is arguing against this. What I am suggesting is that not all education is effective, and the wrong sort of education can result in dramatically limiting a woman’s freedoms with little or no impact on her chances of being raped. I have been hearing advice on rape-prevention behavior since before I got my period. The vast bulk of it is some combination of ineffective, disproportionately limiting, or obvious to the point of being insulting. Such programs can also have the effect of creating the impression that a woman’s behavior is the only place that mitigation can make a difference. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/88 "2017-11-07T19:45:49Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > I believe the UCR statistics are **reported** cases. We know for a fact that rape is extraordinarily underreported. This is an [acknowledged problem](https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/bjs_amrsa_poster.pdf). UCR stats are reported crimes, yes. However the issue in the link you gave is a different and much bigger one. UCR and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey differ by a factor of around 3 in the number of rapes, nationally all victims. However NCVS finds that roughly 1/3 of rapes are reported to the police. So those two are roughly\* consistent. The huge gap is between NCVS, which as the name implies is a sample survey of crimes people people say they were victims of (not necessarily that they reported to the police), and the CDC’s stats (and other private stats) behind many headlines about the frequency of college rapes (in the US). The latter imply a total national number of rapes up to an order of magnitude greater than what NCVS finds. The latter is what the poster presentation in your link addresses. But it isn’t simply and clearly a problem of NCVS being too low. Links are a couple of media articles on the topic. For example (see second article) CDC “ask[ed] if the respondents had ever experienced various sex acts while ‘drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent’.” NCVS is looking for crimes, reported or not. It’s not a crime to have sex with somebody who is ‘drunk, high drugged’, but only if they are legally unable to give consent. The ‘or’ in the CDC question would seem to result in describing a much larger hybrid group of criminal plus non-criminal acts. The non-criminal category might be social and public health problem (the CDC is basically looking at public health problems). But it’s not obviously NCVS that’s the ‘problem’ in asking questions aiming to identify _crimes_ of rape (reported or not). This is a basic problem on various social ills now (‘racism’ is the classic example). Narrower definitions aren’t necessarily the only ones which refer to anything meaningful. But if people don’t agree on basic definitions (or aren’t clear where their agreements to disagree lie) they end up talking past one another. > **[The CDC's Rape Numbers Are Misleading](https://time.com/3393442/cdc-rape-numbers/)** > > Men reported being “made to penetrate” at virtually the same rates as women reported rape > **[Why Is it So Hard to Determine Exactly How Many Women Are Raped Each Year?](https://newrepublic.com/article/119364/cdcs-report-one-five-women-raped-other-statistics-disagree)** > > A new study suggests that we're failing to count an enormous number of victims. \*generally in recent years, a bit less consistent in the latest year, but still nothing like the NCVS/CDC discrepancy. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/89 "2017-11-07T20:15:34Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Manda Jo** : > > No one is arguing against this. What I am suggesting is that not all education is effective, and the wrong sort of education can result in dramatically limiting a woman’s freedoms with little or no impact on her chances of being raped. OK, I’ll buy that. But by that measure, we should be applauding the study that’s the topic of this thread, since they’re studying a defensive training program to find out how well it works. Presumably, there are other programs that are also studied but which don’t work very well, and the next step will be to expand the programs which have been found to work well and discontinue the ones that don’t work. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/90 "2017-11-07T20:55:06Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I think you’re possibly mixing up “motivation” with “effectiveness” here. To take a parallel situation, most motorists don’t want to hit pedestrians, while 100% of pedestrians want to avoid being hit by motorists. So if we can teach pedestrians road safety procedures to prevent being hit by motorists, it’ll help with all of the cases. > > Although this is true, in reality what has the greatest effect in reducing the incidence of motorists hitting pedestrians is teaching **motorists** proper road safety and punishing them for violating it. As in the case of women getting raped, very often what actually happens is that a pedestrian is doing everything they should be doing and an inattentive or reckless motorist hits them anyway. > > In other words, **radically changing the behavior of even a small percentage of the perpetrators often does more to actually reduce the incidence of crime than minor tweaks to the behavior of even a large percentage of the potential victims.** > > (And of course, if the behavior changes we’re proposing are **more** than minor tweaks, then we get into that issue of unduly limiting and restricting women’s lives again.) You seem to be advocating making rape illegal and harshly punished. Is that really a step society is willing to take? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/91 "2017-11-07T22:00:28Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > You seem to be advocating making rape illegal and harshly punished. Is that really a step society is willing to take? Apparently not, considering how many rapes go unpunished (and even unreported) although it’s technically illegal. You also seem to have missed the analogy with teaching motorists the details of road safety: namely, the importance of teaching potential rapists exactly what sexual assault is and how to avoid committing it, along with a convincing assurance that it will not be tolerated. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/92 "2017-11-07T22:30:53Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > Are college aged men going to sign up for a “How NOT To Be a Rapist” class? If they think it’s a way to meet chicks, sure. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/93 "2017-11-07T22:40:59Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I think you’re possibly mixing up “motivation” with “effectiveness” here. To take a parallel situation, most motorists don’t want to hit pedestrians, while 100% of pedestrians want to avoid being hit by motorists. So if we can teach pedestrians road safety procedures to prevent being hit by motorists, it’ll help with all of the cases. > [@Kimstu](#): > > This shibboleth is still being insufficiently examined. Given that, as previously noted, altering the behavior of potential victims very often **doesn’t** protect them from sex crimes, on what grounds are you claiming that this assertion is “reality”? I feel that your analogy does not represent the real world. Motorists and pedestrians both want to avoid pedestrians being run over, even though the pedestrians suffer worse from the accident. So both groups are motivated to change their behavior to avoid collisions. This is not the case with rape. Some men will change their behavior if properly educated. But some men will not. Some men fully understand that rape is a crime and choose to commit rape anyway. The same is true with other sex rimes. These men are not seeking to change their behavior. So the only changes that are possible that would reduce sex crimes involving these men are to change their behavior of their potential victims to make them more difficult targets. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/94 "2017-11-07T22:58:44Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > Are college aged men going to sign up for a “How NOT To Be a Rapist” class? > [@epbrown01](#): > > If they think it’s a way to meet chicks, sure. Dunno? How many credits is it? ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2017, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/95 "2017-11-07T23:25:14Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > OK, I’ll buy that. But by that measure, we should be applauding the study that’s the topic of this thread, since they’re studying a defensive training program to find out how well it works. Presumably, there are other programs that are also studied but which don’t work very well, and the next step will be to expand the programs which have been found to work well and discontinue the ones that don’t work. I applaud the study, but think we should remember to focus on the type of education, not the fact of it. And I think that there haven’t been many other studies of programs, because for decades (centuries) it’s been “common sense” that the way to prevent rape is to dress conservatively and have a male escort. The first appears to be useless; the second may be more likely to get you raped than going by yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/96 "2017-11-08T02:47:58Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Motorists and pedestrians both want to avoid pedestrians being run over, even though the pedestrians suffer worse from the accident. That is, **most** motorists want to avoid running over pedestrians. As we’ve seen from recent arguments and laws about the permissibility of hitting protesters who march in the street, there are plenty of motorists who would have no objection to running over at least some kinds of pedestrians, **if they thought they could get away with it**. At the same time, a (hopefully much larger) proportion of motorists **doesn’t** want to run over pedestrians in any circumstances, but need to be taught basic road safety to minimize their chances of doing so accidentally. > [@Little Nemo](#): > > Some men will change their behavior if properly educated. But some men will not. Changing even a small percentage of men’s behavior from “raping” to “not raping” seems likely to have a more substantial impact on rape incidence than changing a large percentage of women’s behavior from “nonzero risk of rape” to “perhaps slightly smaller nonzero risk of rape”. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/97 "2017-11-08T03:08:31Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Changing even a small percentage of men’s behavior from “raping” to “not raping” seems likely to have a more substantial impact on rape incidence than changing a large percentage of women’s behavior from “nonzero risk of rape” to “perhaps slightly smaller nonzero risk of rape”. I disagree with your analysis. Why would a small percentage change in male behavior have a substantial impact when a large percentage change in female behavior will only have a slight small impact? That’s not an obvious conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/98 "2017-11-08T15:10:10Z")
It’s not an obvious conclusion but it a possible outcome. Why the opposition to attempting to change male behavior? No, you can’t change all of it, there will always be frank criminals, but isn’t it a positive good to change those that can be changed? CPR is almost never successful in saving a life, yet we widely promote it and teach it. Why? Because occasionally it works and prevents a tragedy. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/99 "2017-11-08T16:28:43Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > My thought on this is: is there a parallel program for college men, to teach them how to not rape women? That might have equally dramatic results. My point, if it is not obvious, is why is it that only women have the burden of changing and adapting their behavior to prevent rapes? Women shouldn’t drink, women shouldn’t put themselves in awkward or dangerous or potentially intimate situations, women should learn to use their knees to good effect. When is it the men’s turn to learn something? The guys that are most likely to rape are not likely to attend these things or to be paying much attention if forced to attend these things. We might as well be teaching murderers not to murder. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943/100 "2017-11-08T16:44:42Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The guys that are most likely to rape are not likely to attend these things or to be paying much attention if forced to attend these things. We might as well be teaching murderers not to murder. That just makes intuitive sense, like “girls who look sexy are more likely to be raped”–and may well be just as wrong. Do you really feel like you have a firm understanding of who rapes and why? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-rape-by-half/800943.md?page=6)