False allegations and attrition

[Skeptic Ginger]

The initial linkspam was not very enlightening, even after adjusting expectations for a linkspamming. Below is the list of links with the result of following them.



http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journal...v/1997/29.html-404

http://www.justice.govt.nz/bill-of-r...ence-bill.html-404

http://wwwcj.mnstate.edu/classes/CJ4.../Proclaw1.html-404

http://www.bris.ac.uk/sps/downloads/...s/sps07_nw.pdf-404

http://www.bris.ac.uk/sps/downloads/...s/sps07_nw.pdf-404

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=225512005-non-specific error

http://www.cer.truthaboutrape.co.uk/4.html-info in the Sexual Offences Act 2003, no immediate relevance

http://www.journalonline.co.uk/article/1000084.aspx-404

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hors293.pdf-only touches on the point in question briefly, noting that the author wishes the police did not emphasize their role in questioning whether a crime occurred, this in a discussion of factors which inhibit the conviction of rapists.

That's common when you post links from old sources. I'll let Fiona respond before I comment other than to say I have old threads saved because I did a lot of work supporting a position. If I re-post something, it is common for 404 errors to occur. It isn't link spamming when one merely cites overwhelming evidence. That is an unfair charge here.

 

[quixotecoyote]

That's common when you post links from old sources. I'll let Fiona respond before I comment other than to say I have old threads saved because I did a lot of work supporting a position. If I re-post something, it is common for 404 errors to occur. It isn't link spamming when one merely cites overwhelming evidence. That is an unfair charge here.

I'm willing to accept overwhelming evidence, but so far the two sources she managed to link successfully don't support her point and the strongest evidence I've seen has come from gumboot.

So far, leaning toward linkspamming.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You should really let everyone see all the statistics:


...

While I have so far only read the introduction, I can say that a large number of domestic violence laws were re-written in this country in the last 30 years specifically because the data consistently supported the conclusions in the introduction of Fiona's link.


I should add the response to this has been a lot of 'activist men's groups' crying foul claiming 'feminists' are behind it all. But the data is what it is.

 

[Fiona]

@ quixotecoyote. You are perfectly correct. I did not realise this when I posted but I did notice it this morning and when I have time I will try to find the articles again. The quotes I have given are from those articles and they represent a considerable amount of time spent on this issue some time ago: it is unfortunate that I was not aware this is a common problem, because I assume I could have copied the articles somehow rather than saving the links, if I had known. But I do apologise, because this is less than helpful. Of course if you consider posting of evidence to be "link-spam" it may not be proper for me to try to repost them when I find those or other sources?

@gumboot. I posted the link so that the statistics were available. What is your complaint?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

This article describes the history of the change in domestic abuse arrest laws. While it is not a primary data source, it does have a good description of the changes and reasons for the changes without pointing the finger at male cops looking the other way. Rather, the point of view of the author is that the idea was to mediate rather than get the courts involved. That is really painting the police roll in a rosy light. In reality, the gender bias, male cops, female victims had a lot to do with it as well. But at least for those who think the laws changed because of feminist activists this article does not support that view at all.

When laws tell victims to turn the other cheek

Old ways, new days

Most police departments' policies are based on procedures of the 1970s, when those who are now police policy-makers were taught to mediate domestic violence.

"An officer would basically say to kiss and make up," said Jeff Acklen, an investigator with the Arlington Police Department's domestic crimes unit. "Back then, you didn't make an arrest. You didn't even make someone leave the household."

I'm not saying all male cops had the attitude of "she deserved it", many studies show many cops do hold that view, or at least they did in the 70s and earlier.

 

[gumboot]

As for citing a study that supports our world view, one must also make an effort to find valid studies and other data. As we know, anyone can find studies with a Google search that support just about any view from 911 CTs to acupuncture. If you just pull up crap, the people interested in actually looking for less biased or unbiased information are going to call you on your crap. In the thread that sparked this one, there are dozens of crap studies cited. I know because I debunked the same ones in another thread.

I already called you on this claim but let's look in more detail at the links I provided...


Study finds women as violent as men

This is a news article on a website for Webster University which discusses the findings of a study published by Harvard Medical Publications.

The journalist compliments the study with comments from various people including people from the University who deal with the subject, and two interest groups.

The publication in question is here and cites the study:

Whitaker DJ, et al. "Differences in Frequency of Violence and Reported Injury between Relationships with Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner Violence," American Journal of Public Health (May 2007): Vol. 97, No. 5, pp. 941–47.

A quick Google Search seems to indicate this Whitaker person has got quite a few studies published in reputable journals. Interest group? Doesn't look like it.

This was the second reference which refers to a study conducted by the University of Florida and University of South Carolina.

Obviously "male matters" is an "interest group" but what about the University of Florida itself?

(The UF article is directly linked from the first article).

This article, as well as quoting the people who conducted the study, cites a second study conducted by the University of Florida with similar results.

Interest group? Maybe you can email the people who conducted the study and ask them (emails given at the end of the article).


I also cited this article from the American Psychiatric Foundation which was also looking at DJ Whitaker's work, and provided additional information about the study, and who this Whitaker was:

These findings on intimate partner violence come from a study conducted by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The lead investigator was Daniel Whitaker, Ph.D., a behavioral scientist and team leader at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (which is part of the CDC). Results were published in the May Journal of Public Health.

So apparently the US Government is an "interest group" and their nationwide study can be dismissed on the face of it as "crap information" from "begrudging activists groups"

For what it's worth the CDC is widely regarded as one of the leading organisations for health research in the world.

The last link I gave was this one.

It is entitled:

REFERENCES EXAMINING ASSAULTS BY WOMEN ON THEIR SPOUSES OR MALE PARTNERS:
AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

And is assembled by Martin S. Fiebert, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, California State University, Long Beach.

His resume is extensive. "Interest group"?

Anyway, back to the list.

SUMMARY: This bibliography examines 246 scholarly investigations: 187 empirical studies and 59 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 237,750.

Now, I haven't read all 246 of these investigations, but scanning through them briefly, the overwhelming majority cite publication in respectable peer-reviewed journals. This summary provides a brief account of sample sizes and findings.

Now, it could be that all of these are just "interest groups" presenting "crap information" and that Dr. Fiebert is himself part of these deceitful interest groups, but frankly I find that rather hard to swallow, and it would seem to suggest that quite a few reputable medical journals have lowered their standards somewhat.

These studies include some like:

White, J. W., & Kowalski, R. M. (1994). Deconstructing the myth of the nonaggressive woman: A feminist analysis. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 18, 487-508.

Which the summary describes as:

A review and analysis which acknowledges that "women equal or exceed men in number of reported aggressive acts committed within the family." Examines a variety of explanations to account for such aggression.

These studies cover an expansive period of time and have been conducted in numerous different countries.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

A lot of what I previously investigated and posted about was domestic violence. So here I've looked for information about police attitudes toward the truthfulness of rape victims's claims. This study found the police occupation wasn't the variable so much as gender made the difference in who believed the victims and of course the majority of police are still males.

Gender differences in police officers attitudes towards rape; Results of an exploratory study

Abstract
Attitudes towards women in general, rape and aggressive sexual behaviour were measured in a sample of police officers (N = 50) and compared with a sample of students (N = 50). Results indicated no differences in attitudes between the students and the police. There were however a number of gender differences with women expressing more liberal views towards women than men whilst men holding more strongly to rape myths than women. Results are discussed in terms of progress in the police's handling of rape victims, given nearly a decade of attempts to improve services. Attitudinal positions were linked to aspects of gender and occupational socialisation. Implications for police practice are also highlighted.

(emphasis mine)

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Gumboot, until you can show that men are seriously injured or murdered by women as often as women are seriously injured or murdered by men, all your links are showing is that some researcher is equating door slamming with physical violence.

Take this back to the other thread.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Here is another primary source:

Behind the Blue Line: Investigating Police Officers’ Attitudes Toward Rape

Abstract The current study contributes to what is known about police officers’ attitudes toward rape. A survey was administered to 891 sworn police officers in two states in the southeastern United States. The surveys were designed to assess police officers’ acceptance of rape myths. It was hypothesized that police officers would be accepting of rape myths, which are inherently misogynistic. Attitudes toward rape were expected to vary according to educational attainment and experience with rape investigations, such that higher levels of education and more experience with rape investigations would lead to the rejection of rape myths. There was a significant difference in the acceptance of rape myths with varying levels of educational attainment and experience with rape investigations.

While I can't get free access to the whole article, there is a tad more here. The author does speak of rape myths as being inherently misogynistic.

 

[CyCrow]

Sticking my hand briefly into this hornets nest...

A large majority of women know they will never make false accusations, but they cannot be sure they will never be raped. Similarly, most men know they will never rape anyone, but they cannot fully protect themselves against false accusations.

This means that the intuitive starting points are different for men and women, but also somewhat symmetrical. Both sexes can reduce their risk, but not eliminate it, by reducing their freedom. Women can substantially reduce their risk of "date rape" by not drinking, not being alone with men etc. Men can reduce their risk by avoiding casual sex, especially with intoxicated women. These are not tradeoffs most young people are willing to make (for good reasons!).

That being said, I'll add my stance. 2% as often given by radical feminists is way low. The NZ report seems fairly credible, and seems to indicate a likely 10-40% range.

As for the high attrition, it's natural that cases that have no conclusive forensic evidence, no independent witnesses etc. are hard to prosecute. Presumption of innocence means that we cannot accept a 50/50 chance of guilt, we require a higher standard of evidence. So it comes down to the credibility of the alledged perpetrator and victim.

This means that many cases will fall into they gray area of possible but unprovable. But multiple independent allegations against a man will make all of them more credible, so reporting a rape that is not prosecuted is not useless. Similarily, it is natural that women making many unproven allegations are considered less trustworthy, although I know this is somewhat controversial. I have no doubt that police take this factor into account.

There is some criticism against the distinction of "real rape", but different categories of rapes are fairly clear. The likelyhood of a rape allegation being true / unprovable / false is highly dependent on certain factors. The ability to prosecute and convict depend on different factors for different categories.

Examples:
- unknown assailant, violence used, DNA found: Very high conviction rate if perp is identified.
- known defendant, admits intercourse, no signs of violence: Comes down to credibility and behaviour patterns of both victim and defendant.

To conclude: Men and women are likely to have opposite starting points in this debate. Both rape and false accusations can destroy lives. High attrition is an unfortunate consequence of the nature of available evidence. Care must be taken with legal measures designed to reduce it, especially if unrealistic figures like 2% are assumed.

// CyCrow

 

[CyCrow]

Fiona, several of your links contain "...", presumably because they were incorrectly copy-pasted. If you have the original links you can correct them.

// CyCrow

 

[Fiona]

CyCrow. Thank you for that. This has proved to be very helpful indeed.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/SydLRev/1997/29.html

This is an article which actually discusses the status of questions about "motives to lie" in rape and sexual assault cases. This is relevant (though tangentially) because it speaks to the importance of the idea of false allegations in this field. As has been discussed this perception is very strong, and indeed as one of gumboots links shows it was thought that false allegation was extremely common in the past, on the basis of very dubious psychological theory. Before the reforms to the law in the uk a judge was required to remind the jury that women often lie about rape in every case as part of his summing up: this practice went on for a long time and I believe it has had a strong effect on public attitudes to this issue which persist though the law has been changed. In view of the attrition rates at every stage in the legal process this aspect is important to this discussion: and the article is balanced in its consideration of the implications, I think

http://www.justice.govt.nz/bill-of-rights/bill-list-2005/e-bill/evidence-bill.html

This is the legal advice as to whether the New Zealand Evidence Bill of 2005 is compatible with the Bill of Rights there. It is relevant because it speaks to the change in the law regarding the admissibility of questions about sexual history. This change is mirrored in many jurisdictions during the period since about 1990 and I contend that those changes have been seen as necessary because of the irrelevant perceptions which bedevil this area.

The comments of Lord Steyn in R v A (No 2) are particularly relevant to a consideration of this qualification. He stated:[5]
Discriminatory stereotypes which depict women as sexually available have been exposed as an affront to their fundamental rights. Nevertheless, it has to be acknowledged that in the criminal courts of our country, as in others, outmoded beliefs about women and sexual matters lingered on. In recent Canadian jurisprudence they have been described as the discredited twin myths, viz "that unchaste women were more likely to consent to intercourse and in any event, were less worthy of belief": R v Seaboyer (1991) 83 DLR (4th) 193, 258, 278C, per McLachlin J. Such generalised, stereotyped and unfounded prejudices ought to have no place in our legal system.

http://wwwcj.mnstate.edu/classes/CJ400/Monograph/Proclaw1.html

This article is important in the part of the discussion which relates to the fear of being falsely accused. It is important because the presumption of innocence seems to be forgotten in this debate; or is in some way seen to be inadequate protection for the defendant in the particular instance of rape trials but not in others. And it also emphasises that the contest is not between a man and a woman but between a defendant and the state, which I have mentioned before (or was that in the other thread? can't remember but it is relevant here if not already stated)

http://www.bris.ac.uk/sps/downloads/working_papers/sps07_nw.pdf

Don't think I need to comment on this.

The other two do not seem to work no matter what I do. I am not sure why - perhaps they have been deleted or something. But I will just add this one:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/html/cjusew96/cpp.htm

The conviction rates for rape vary widely between countries and my own (Scotland) had a particularly poor record in this respect. The rate is approximately half that in the US and although England and Wales are slightly better the attached graphs do show the problem. Since I cannot believe that british women make false allegations of rape at a drastically higher rate than american women: and since research into differential prosecution and conviction rates within and between countries have been researched and no evidence has been found to suggest these are explicable by differential rates of rape or of false allegations I think this shows that the procedural and attitudinal aspects are important and that many, many rapists are falsely acquitted. This is of course arguable, but the presumption of innocence together with the obstacles to bringing cases in the first place seem to be working quite well to stack the system against the victims of rape. This case was made and accepted all over the western world by judicial systems not noted for their willingness to make major reforms without evidence.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I started a relevant poll here just to see if we could get an idea how common sexual assault was among the forum member's experiences. Maybe it can shed some light on how frequent false accusations are if we know how common sexual assault is.

 

[Fiona]

I appreciate what you are trying to do skeptigirl but such a poll cannot shed any light on anything: the sample is small and skewed: the definitions are imprecise; and I, for one, am not prepared to discuss my experience of this here

 

[tyr_13]

I appreciate what you are trying to do skeptigirl but such a poll cannot shed any light on anything: the sample is small and skewed: the definitions are imprecise; and I, for one, am not prepared to discuss my experience of this here

Ditto.

 

[Lonewulf]

Ditto.

Tritto.

Or something.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I appreciate what you are trying to do skeptigirl but such a poll cannot shed any light on anything: the sample is small and skewed: the definitions are imprecise; and I, for one, am not prepared to discuss my experience of this here

You could vote without saying anything else so the fact you don't want to discuss the specifics shouldn't matter.

I certainly wasn't claiming the poll was going to have a huge impact on the discussion. I just became curious what a non-random survey of forum members would show. Every time I read more than a few papers on this subject there is always some statistic that 2/3 to 3/4 of all women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. That number always sounds exaggerated to me. Yet it shows up in paper after paper.

If the rate of sexual assault is really that high, then claims of rape are more likely statistically to be true. If the rate of real assault is low, then claims of rape are more likely to be false. While that may sound like disregard for other variables, it is a statistical fact of interpretation of test results. Prevalence in a population shifts the bell curve when evaluating the rate of false positives and true positives. It doesn't tell you the actual rate, but the prevalence in the population does shift the actual rate.

For example, in a population where 1% of the population is positive for hepatitis C, and you get 2% positive tests, then 50% of hep C tests are false positives. But if you apply that same test to a population where 50% of the people tested actually do have hep C, you will not get 100% positive results which would give you a 50% false positive rate. Instead, you will get some false positives, but the fact the prevalence in the population is higher means far fewer of your results will be false positives.

If rape is very common, fewer claims of rape are going to be false regardless of other variables and vice versa.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

A couple of links on attrition that were posted in a thread about rape on another forum I read:

http://www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/sexual/sexual13.htm
http://www.cer.truthaboutrape.co.uk/3.html
http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:h3Qy41hbOokJ:www.bps.org.uk/downloadfile.cfm%3Ffile_uuid%3DCD5B884D-1143-DFD0-7E88-E7E33BA2E925%26ext%3Dppt+Stanko+2005+rape+alcohol&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=uk&client=firefox-a
http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:...acts.doc&ct=clnk&cd=20&gl=uk&client=firefox-a


And from the British Crime Survey - to give an idea of how common rape and sexual assault is - note that the BCS recognises their figures are probably underestimates because of the sensitive nature of the subject matter.

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r159.pdf

 

[CFLarsen]

So it went from violence in general, to murder in particular.

Moving the goalpost.

 

[Fiona]

What on earth are you talking about, CFLarsen?