I know that people say rape crimes go unreported and few get prosecuted but rape is still viewed by society as only second to murder in nearly all places.
So when someone makes an allegation that is appears to have no basis in reality, should they get punished for perverting the court of justice, preventing real rape victims from being taken seriously and more importantly ruining the lives of those accused?
A rape accusation which is false can have devastating consequences on the accused’s life. They often are alienated from family and lose friends, They can be threatened by others in their community, And if convicted get on the sex offenders list.
Here are some stories of deaths relating to false accusations:
And I’m sure you can find plenty of stories on the web
The other question is, how common are these? Are you more likely to be hit by an asteroid that be falsely accused of rape? I’m sure for men the odds are much higher than for women.
According to a friend of mine who worked at a women’s shelter, there are three kinds of incidents that can be referred to as “false accusations.”
is women who claim to have been raped, but may be somewhat vague on the details, and don’t make a police report. They do it for attention, and usually have some kind of diagnosable problem, like Borderline Personality Disorder. They very, very rarely accuse a particular man, because they don’t want to get anyone in trouble, and they know deep down it isn’t true, even if on some level, they may have come to believe it.
is women who were genuinely raped, but don’t know by whom, for whatever reason: it was a stranger rape, or they were drugged or had a head injury. A police investigation turns up the wrong person, somehow, and the woman concurs when the police tell her this is her rapist.
is vindictive accusations where no sex ever happened, but a woman accuses a man of raping her, or molesting or raping her child.
The third group is so vanishingly small, that yeah, you probably have a better chance of being struck by lightning. 2 probably doesn’t happen much anymore either, thanks to DNA. In the case of 1, no man is ever in trouble.
There’s a fourth group, which is the he said/she said cases, and in some of those cases, the man may genuinely believe he didn’t do anything wrong-- he’s usually young when that happens. Personally, though, I tend to think if women feel raped, they were raped. I don’t get men’s libidos. They’ll put so much as risk just to get laid. I personally think a lot of men know that consent is shaky in some situations, they just think it’ll all come out in the wash somehow, and they want to get laid so much, it’s worth whatever smooth talking, outright lying, manipulating, and whatever they have to do to make consent retroactive.
Instead of whining that it isn’t fair, I wish men would take note of those cases and just keep it in their pants more often.
What an incredibly nasty view. A woman who willingly consents to sex in the evening and regrets it in the morning - or any time thereafter (see the Oxford case above) - can claim rape?
When there is a List of “All who falsely accuse an innocent”, and THAT list is a devastating as the “Sex offender*” list, we can maybe have a “level playing field” re vicitim of rape/victim of false accusation.
Yes, I want criminal prosecution and real, live prison time for those who try to destroy another’s life.
when a 6-yr old is actually at risk of getting added to a “Sex Offender” list, we have an Inquisition going on.
(boy hugged a teacher in an “inappropriate” manner)
The argument for treating false rape accusations more harshly than other accusations is that rape is more likely to depend on witness testimony than other crimes. That is a dubious premise. But even if it were true, it is easily outweighed by the reason for not treating false rape accusations more harshly: it deters the reporting of rape, a crime for which victims are disproportionately stigmatized and therefore unlikely to report.
False accusations should be a crime and prosecuted and punished. But it is not the same crime as rape and it’s ludicrous to link their punishment together. And fear of being prosecuted for false accusations should not be such that it deters reporting of rape.
Tell that to the duke lacross team
I’m sure its rare
I’m also sure it is more common than getting struck by lightning
Of course you friend is going to think group 3 is very very rare, she deals with actual real victims. (In other words, she has little contact with the totally lying subset).
If you get caught putting 20 pounds of cocaine in someone’s trunk, you should serve the exact same time they would of if they had been caught/framed. Same for murder. Same for any crime you falsely frame someone for.
This seems to me to be 100% clear, 100% logical and 100% fair.
Yeah, if you’re suggesting that men could be thrown in jail for smooth-talking a women into bed, WTF?
Consent which is grudgingly given, or about which one has second thoughts afterward, is still consent. In such cases the man may well be morally culpable, but how can you call it legal, prosecutable rape?
The weird thing is for a crime that happens with some regularity there are relatively few hard, reliable numbers on the prevalence of false accusation estimates of which range from 2% to around 40% .
I agree with this. If it can be proven that the person tried to frame the other person out of spite, then they should be handed the punishment the other person would have received.
And keep in mind when most of these “I can’t believe the cops shot hands up Johnson” threads come up, I’m thinking “no wonder dumbass Johnson got shot and I have no trouble with that”.