As I’ve said in many other threads, my opinion is that we need a hell of a lot more victim support resources with the specific intention of getting more rape cases through to prosecution and sentencing. Too much of the time, the accuser either backs down or never reports it because she’s traumatized, scared, or made to feel like she’s at fault, and that’s unacceptable in modern society.
And then it cuts the other way too, because the typical false accuser never wants to go to trial in the first place in my experience, she’s aiming at the court of public opinion. Which is one of the reasons the doubt comes into play to begin with, especially when prosecution stops.
I asked the question because that’s a pretty critical data point. If you had said, for example, that you thought less than one percent of rape accusations were false, then we’d be having a different discussion.
But as it happens, I agree with you that 8% is about the right figure.
IMHO, all these stats about false allegations are bogus, for purposes of these discussions. There’s generally no way for anyone to know that a given allegation is false, and these lowball statistics used generally rely on either absolute proof that the allegation is false (which is what gives the 2%-3% numbers) or at most the opinion of the police that an allegation is false, which is what gives rise to slightly higher numbers.
But there are also many many cases in which the police (or anyone else) can’t say definitively whether an accusation is false. These are not classified as false accusations in any study I’ve seen referenced. And yet, many such allegations are undoubtedly false.
Could have happened. Apparently she was such an incompetent prostitute, she actually forgot to ask DSK for the money (or, if it was planned as a scam, she didn’t set it up particularly well).