Can always count on you to show up when an argument is winding down and try to extend it.
Thanks for never disappointing.
Agreed. Fortunately, it would appear that currently, false reports of rape only constitute 2-3% of all reported rapes. Conversely, it’s estimated that only 16% of all rapes are reported (pdf, sorry). Of that
Crap. Hit submit too soon. Of that 16%, only 2% see their assailants go to trial, get convicted, and do jail time.
To me, this says rape is an easily convicted offense. It needs to become less so.
Shit. Shit. Shit. :smack:
easily committed offense.
How do we do that? Higher conviction rates? What will lead to higher conviction rates? How about plea bargains? Our court system is so overrun that not every case can actually go to a jury trial these days, so criminals plead to lesser charges when prosecutors believe they have a weaker case.
What do we do to make the business of committing these crimes harder for those who commit them?
Not much we can do on that front, realistically. The essential problem is that unless a rapist is a complete moron and has the most incompetent (or honest, if there is such a thing) lawyer on earth, he’ll say it was consensual, at least in his mind. The only way to prove otherwise is physical signs of a struggle, and women avoid that now because they’re afraid they’ll be killed. Legally speaking, it’s not enough to prove that they had sex, and many women understandably don’t want to give testimony. It’s an intrinsically difficult crime to prove, because the only thing that makes it a crime is state of mind.
Right, she insulted a bunch of raving loons with a mild epithet. The raving loons declared half the human race to be the lowest form of criminal scum imaginable. Absolute equivalancy there. :rolleyes:
I understand that our criminal justice system is overworked. However: 98% of all reported rape cases either overturned or plea bargained down? You don’t find that just a little bit reprehensible? Is there any other category of violent crime with that low of a conviction rate?
The crime is intrinsically difficult to prove, that’s a very good reason for a prosecutor to plea the accused out. Better they do some time and wind up on a sex offenders list than have a good chance of walking free.
No, better it get reported in the first place. That’s okay with you, right? If the victims actually report the crimes and want to see the people who comitted this act against them prosecuted? I realize we only spent 5 pages on this thread and a few on the others discussing how rape victims being made to feel responsible for the rape is only a myth, but y’know, a 2% conviction rate of a crime (of which only 16% of all cases are actually reported) leads me to believe that it’s not especially taken all that seriously. I could be wrong. I mean, maybe the police are just really, REALLY busy catching some kid smoking a joint, or ticketing jaywalkers, and saving the jail time for the way more important criminals, like murderers and rap…oh, wait, no, we’re talking about the rapists… but that conviction rating might have something to do with the victims’ feelings. Maybe. Just, y’know, a little bit.
Unfortunately the judicial system is overworked and understaffed, all in all.
You can tie it up for a very long time and take each rapist to trial, lasting months, with no definitive proof other than he-said-she-said, and have all the other cases in the system build up…
Or you can plea bargon it out.
Unfortuantely, I think most cases are plea bargained, and rape is notoriously difficult to prove.
I didn’t say that was a good thing, I wanted to know what suggestions you have to make the conviction rate higher. Are you really saying though that the conviction rate for reported rape cases is only 2%?
Where did that statistic come from? Because the National Center for State Courts says the conviction rate for rape was 45% in 1998, second to murder at 60% and leading both robbery and aggravated assault (44% and 16%).
So uh, where’d the 2% come from?
Well plea bargains can only happen after a crime is reported and charges have been filed and the suspect has been arraigned on those charges.
How did the National Center for State Courts come up with such a very different number for conviction rates than you?
Okay, someone’s cite is full of shit and has an agenda.
For a Doper, (or at least this Doper) this is very disconcerting.
And, especially after the “1 in 4” statistic turned out to be so much bullshit and distortion, I’m not all that trusting.
And, honestly, if people are distorting facts to fit their agenda, what exactly is their agenda?
This last bit really troubles me.
FinnAgain, sweetie, it might help if when you whined for relief from ad hominem attacks you weren’t so busy doing them yourself.
“Regardless of how many women are raped, it is still a fascist and idiotic action to limit the right of law abiding males. An analogy should suffice”
“Some men are commiting rape, so we should give them all curfews.”
“Some black men are commiting robbery, so we should give them all curfews.”
Fascist–oh, boy!, and the race card as well.
“misandryonystic bullshit”
"loopey. ’
"Are you out of your freakin’ gourd?
Are you honestly going to tell me that walking down dark streets/alley ways at night, alone, isn’t risky? Are you nuts? "
“Honey chile”
“Bullshit, idiot.
You were talking about curfewing men. You think this isn’t equivelent to ‘rounding them up?’
I’ve somehow Godwinized this thread by pointing out that ‘curfewing’ men means placing them under house arrest?”
“Not a strawman you lying bitch, and not a race card either you moron.”
“idiot”
“I’m the idiot”
Yeah, it’s pretty obvious you’re another catsix, up to and including the frothing at the mouth.
“No, the analogy certainly does hold, and you are artificially limiting the word rape to ‘man raping woman’.”
That’s like saying you’re artificially restricting the word pregnancy to 'women get pregnant.
“That’s bullshit! I’m all for curtailing the activities of those who were causing the problem, but simply having a penis does not mean you’re causing the problem!”
Yep, because that’s what EVERYONE here has been saying.
“Yes, and I think that’s bullshit.”
“Neither have the women! Still, you would have us become, in effect, prisoners in our own homes.”
From Siege:
"Versus locking all the men up after dark? You betcha.
Your sense of security is not worth my civil rights, sorry. "
“No, I do. I just think that trying to turn around and somehow punish everybody with a penis is bigoted and idiotic not to mention a violation of civil liberties.”
"“Misandristic bitch.”
“It’s not a strawman you mental midget”
“you idiot!”
"And, yes, I am entitled to psychoanalyze you, because you’re a nutty fool who sees a military commander protecting his female troops as somehow punishing them. "
“Can you hold these too ideas in your head without going on a spate of man-bashing?”
" Listen you dumb bitch,"
" No you dumb bitch,"
“your misandristic bitch!”
Somebody cloned catsix.
The two percent figure comes from the US Department of Justice study.
But of course, coming from someone like FinnAgain, who calls everything he/she doesn’t agree with bullshit, this criticism is entirely valid and fair-minded. Even when they mouth the sort of shit that the IWF does when it wants to distort Mary Koss’ findings.
Do you know what ad hominem means? Give you a hint, insult =/= ad hominem.
And, the ‘ad hominem’ I was concerned about was the phrase “men are rapists”, and that’s been dealt with already.
No, let me break this down for you.
Not all rapists are men. Not all rape is a man raping a woman. It is not the same as restricting it to women give birth to children.
And, you’re a moronic misandristic bitch.
Note, this isn’t ad hominem, I’m not saying your argument is wrong because you’re a misandrist, I’m saying you’re stupid and bigoted, and disproving your argument on its own logical flaws. See, you can become educated even when you’re being a brat.
And yet, Catsix presents different data from the National Center for State Courts . Neither of you include a link to your cites. And, after I’ve seen the “1 in 4” statistic deliberately manipulated, I do not have blind faith in some of those arguments anymore.
If you find my reliance on pesky ‘real’ ‘facts’ to be somehow wrong, ah well.
Spot on rocket scientist. Spot on.
Got anything else to add to this discussion, or would you like to point out all the times I’ve said that you’re an idiot, again?
That would appear to be false:
Regarding the question of dubious percentages, I tried to do some digging to find some cites. Most hits seemed pretty biased to me; certainly not worthy of linking as an actual cite.
As a general rule, if the word “women” was in the domain name, the figure was quoted between 2% and 2.5% of reported rapes led to convictions. If the word “men” was in the domain name, the number was quoted as roughly 1 in 6, or around 17%. That’s quite a disparity.
I did find this one cite that seems reputable, if not woefully out of date. It appears that the good folks of Alaska saw their conviction rate of reported rapes hover in the 40s during the years between 1986 and 1991. 1988 had the highest conviction rate, at 48%, but then began a downward spiral, ending at 40% in 1991, which is the last year covered by the cite. I suppose it could have gotten as low as 2% by now, but the cynic in me isn’t buying it.
There is also quite the debate raging regarding false reports. One fact I found interesting is that the “men” sites and “women” sites both seem to agree that the conviction rate is approximately equal to the false reporting rate. That strikes me as an odd correlation, though clearly there is no causal link between the coincidence. Just a numerical oddity. But where women’s sites claim 2% conviction and 2% false reporting, men’s sites claim 17% convictions and 15% false reporting. At odds with all this is the Alaska cite. Could we really have fallen this far since the eighties, or is Alaska simply a more enlightened locale?
Hey, just found another reputable-looking cite.
While not written very clearly, this cite is asserting that 46% of reported rapes result in conviction, which seems very much in line with the Alaska cite. I’m starting to feel much more comfortable with the 40s% number than the 2% number. If somebody were to assert that 40% of reported rapes resulted in conviction, I would accept that as reasonable. Possibly a little low, but close enough for government work.
I found this thread an interesting read. In my opinion, the proper response to somebody who says that “Men are rapists” would be “Rapists get convicted and sent to prison.”
It just occured to me that the 2% number might be the conviction rate of all rapes, including those that aren’t reported. (My rudimentary calculation puts that number around 6%, with a margin of error enough to make 2% reasonably possible.)
Only if you consider all feminists to be raving loons, and “Nazi” to be a mild epithet. I think many reasonable people would disagree, though.
You may care to review post #212 above, in which catsix explains that she calls feminists “Feminazis” because she has heard of a couple of feminists who hold repulsive views. One of her major examples is Valerie Solanas, who I believe appears in the dictionary under “Lone Wacko”. Another is her unsupported account about what someone once said on another message board (a message board that, as best as I can tell, no longer even exists).
So we’ve got someone classing a whole group of people as horrible monsters because of the vile words of a very few. I’m not seeing how this is better than saying “Men are rapists”. Especially since catsix apparently believes that feminists are Nazis, while the “Men are rapists” thing seems to have been a very, very bad turn of phrase that was actually meant to express a completely different idea – “[Almost all] rapists are men.” “Men are rapists” is still an awful thing to say, but it looks like it was a mistake.