Can't we all just get along?

[Magenta]

Actual statistics are here.

Link goes to a blank page.

Actually I'd suggest that this sort of Blog actually backs up Gumboots point. Reading the blog the basic belief of the author is that all rape reports are true and thus if the jury doesn't find guilty there is problem in the system.

[...]

Merely looking at a blog and taking what it says at face value rather then understanding the background and situation it is written in really doesn't help.

The blog doesn't say that, eg:

[...] There may be a high number of acquittals because the Police policy now seems to be to prosecute no matter how flimsy the evidence. Any suggestion that people should be more easily convicted despite a lack of evidence is somewhat chilling.

As I said, no problems with changes to make it more complainant or victim friendly. But any move to make it easier to get convictions would be of concern. We should not throw away all principles of guilty beyond reasonable doubt just because most people think Clint Rickards unfairly was found Not Guilty.

Link

Professor Yaffle will no doubt clarify, but I think the relevant bit was the link in the comment to a 2002 UNICRI rape victimisation survey that shows NZ at #1.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Ahh, I see it was a comment on the Blog that Professor Yaffle posted, not the Blog itself. Interestingly the blog itself was fully supprting Gumboot's position and mine, that the low convection rate could be from a low threshold of proof to procecute.

I'd suggest that oneof the reasons that NZ is so high in the statistics is because due to the way our police now treat rape complaints, more people are likely to complain about it knowing they'll be taken seriously.

 

[gumboot]

I'd suggest that oneof the reasons that NZ is so high in the statistics is because due to the way our police now treat rape complaints, more people are likely to complain about it knowing they'll be taken seriously.

Which is a result of a major overhaul of the entire way sexual and domestic violence crime is dealt with in this country, and which has resulted in the substantial spike in reported crime (over 30% for domestic violence, over 20% for rape).

 

[Magenta]

As we're focussing on New Zealand for the time being, here are some useful links:

Crime in New Zealand: 1996–2005, a downloadable report from Statistics New Zealand, from which:

Sexual offences

The smallest crime category is sexual offences, accounting for less than 1 percent of all recorded crime in 2005 and every year since 1994. However, crime victimisation surveys, such as the 2006 NZCASS, report sexual offences to be the most underreported group of offences. It is estimated that fewer than one in 10 sexual incidents were reported to the Police in 2005 (Mayhew & Reilly forthcoming).

Over recent years, the number of sexual offences recorded by the Police has decreased. Between 1996 and 2005, the total number of sexual offences decreased by 13 percent, from 3,780 to 3,271. Over the 10-year period, the overall sexual offence rate varied between a high of 10.1 per 10,000 population in 1996 and a low of 7.6 per 10,000 population in 2004.

Sexual offences are presented in four classes:
• sexual attacks (includes abduction for sex, indecent assault, rape and attempted rape)
• sexual affronts (such as obscene exposure)
• immoral behaviour (includes sexual intercourse or attempted sex with underage children and other indecent acts)
• other (abnormal sex, indecent videos, and immoral behaviour/miscellaneous offences).

The majority of recorded sexual offences were sexual attacks (see Figure 14). Between 1996 and 2005, this class contributed between 57 percent and 66 percent of the total proportion of sexual offences. However, the rate of sexual attacks declined from 5.9 per 10,000 population in 1996 to 5.0 per 10,000 population in 2005.
Factors likely to influence the recorded sexual crime rate included the willingness of victims to report such crime, changes in social attitudes, initiatives by the Police, and the influence of welfare and other community agencies in uncovering sexual offending. Because of the way the police statistics dataset is generated, it should be noted that historical offences reported to the Police do not appear in official statistics.

[...]

The resolution rate for each of the sexual offence classes was above 50 percent in 2005. The immoral behaviour offence class had the highest resolution rate (68.0 percent). However, over the 10-year period, it varied between a low of 55.5 percent and a high of 73.3 percent. The resolution rate for sexual attacks ranged between 48.2 percent and 57.0 percent. The resolution rates in 2005 for sexual affronts and other sexual offences were 51.1 and 53.7 percent, respectively

New Zealand Criminal Justice Sector Outcomes Report, June 2008 - downloadable report from Ministry of Justice:

Convictions for sexual violence (including rape, unlawful sexual connection, attempted sexual violation, and indecent assault) have decreased from 601 to 461, or 23%, in the 10 years since 1997

NZ-based Dr Jan Jordan's paper: To Believe or not to Believe? Police Responses to Women Rape Complainants. This interesting paper was linked in the other thread but didn't get much discussion:

Abstract

This paper reviews issues concerning perceptions of women's credibility in the context of police responses to sexual assault complainants. The data presented are drawn from an extensive study of policing in New Zealand that included interviews with detectives and rape complainants, as well as in-depth analysis of police rape files for 1997 from three major cities: Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Particular attention is paid to identification of the principal factors affecting police perceptions of rape complainants, addressing such issues as demeanour, intoxication, concealment, delayed reporting, injuries, perceived immorality, and intellectual disability or psychiatric history. Comment is made regarding the significance of police training, policies and procedures in the identification of possible false rape complaints. The overall aim of the paper is to prompt critical evaluation of police culture and practice in order to enhance the quality of police responses to victims of sexual trauma and abuse.

 

[Francesca R]

It is not--for example--a place where women who make rape reports are instantly believed, and men are wrongly convicted, and they live in fear of it as a result. Gumboot's post speaks to a personal position/impression that I believe is both overblown and not representative, however much it might drive gumboot's actions.

Polarising a situation into a ridiculous strawman doesn't help your argument. I never made the above argument.

I go by what you posted:

In my society, as a young male, the spectre of being falsely accused of a sexual crime looms heavy over my head. I am distinctly aware that any woman has enormous power over me because, almost without exception, she will be believed. [ . . . ] A rape accusation is a very real weapon in my society because the crime carries such a dark connotation (much worse than murder) and because it is almost always believed simply on the word of the accuser. [ . . . ] Society has so thoroughly hammered it into my head that men are, by default, out of control, violent, raping pigs, that I even sometimes begin to believe it about myself

I am wondering if, therefore, there has been a sudden dramatic surge in false reporting as a result of the country's obsession with domestic violence in recent years [ . . . ] it's not hard to think that the country's fixation on domestic violence is having the detrimental affect of causing an increase in false complaints.

What you actually think--if different from this--I can't divine unless you post it. You probably don't really believe the above assertions because you also say this:

I wouldn't say I am "afraid" of false rape allegations, I'm just conscious of the possibility and take precautions accordingly. [ . . . ] My caution isn't a result of some perception that women are running around willy nilly accusing innocent men of rape.

. . . yet you chose to make the unsupported, unwarranted statements anyway. And you suggest it is me doing the polarising . . .

 

[Fiona]

http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:...+rape+in+NZ+research&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=uk

With respect to the notion of ‘delayed’ reporting - often a factor used to suggest corroboration inlegal cases - Jan Jordan’s (1998) study of women reporting rape in New Zealand shows that thepolice were the first to be told in only 6 percent of cases. In this sample, for almost half of thereported cases (46%) someone other than the woman made the initial contact with the police. Inthe majority of instances this took place with her consent and/or co-operation, but a minority did notmake the decision to report and were catapulted into a situation not of their choosing. Whether thisis a factor in some subsequent decisions to withdraw complaints has yet to be systematically studied.The focus on reporting to the police as a route into the legal process has meant that the potentialcosts of this decision have emphasised those associated with formal criminal justice processes.The reasons given for not making a public disclosure reveal a much wider set of risks: the possibilityof retribution from the assailant/his family/friends; disbelief and blame from members of their ownnetwork and community; an increased sense of shame; loss of support by friends and family wherethe assailant is part of this social network. There are, therefore, significant social and material costs involved. Additionally, the implications for safety and protection measures, of both the data onrepeat victimisation and the fact that most assailants are known, have yet to be carefully consideredwithin responses to rape. The decision to report to the police or not is, therefore, clearly connected to the circumstances ofthe assault, whether the woman defines herself as having been raped in the first instance and thenwhether she thinks that others will (Williams, 1984). The closer the circumstances to the real rapetemplate the greater the likelihood that it will be reported.

Jodan’s research also unpicks the category of actual false complaints, demonstrating through analysis of police files and interviews with police officers, that these are invariably accusations ofassaults by unidentified strangers. The popular stereotype of false complaints being accusations thatname individual men, and are motivated by revenge or other personalised motives, were challenged bythis detailed study. Not only this, but within the file analysis were three cases that were designatedfalse reports which subsequently turned out be assaults by serial offenders. Additional analysis ofone serial rapist case showed that an early report by a young woman who named her attacker hadbeen discounted as a false report; the man was convicted of 24 rapes eight years later.All research involving police officers finds that the issue of false reports is at the forefront of theirminds at time of the initial report (Jamieson et al, 1998; Lees and Gregory, 1993; Temkin, 1999;Wilson, 1978). Studies in Australia, New Zealand and the USA find high levels of disbelief, withthe proportion of cases officers believe to be false ranging from 10 percent to half of all officialcomplaints (Campbell, 1995, p251; Department of Justice, 1996, p13; Jordan, 2001). Certaingroups of women appear to have even greater problems with respect to belief and credibility,especially those with learning difficulties and mental health problems (see also Harris and Grace,1999; Jordan. 2001). Unsurprisingly the cases least likely to be considered false reports are thosewhich are close to the real rape template

in the UK, and elsewhere, a culture of scepticism continues to informpolice responses; despite guidelines that encourage a culture of belief, unless there is strongevidence suggesting the contrary. This preoccupation with false complaints is reinforced by mediareporting, and leads police officers to focus overly on the complainant and her credibility, rather thanother aspects of evidence gathering

hey also note that the idea that rape cases are often ‘his’ wordagainst ‘hers’ is a misnomer, since defendants rarely takes the stand, and if they do they are notquestioned about their sexual history:... the asymmetrical nature of the adversarial system means that the complainer may bemore sorely tested than the accused.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Given that the legal system is very poor at determining if a rape allegation is true, why should we have any confidence in it's ability to determine if a rape allegation is false?

Would you rather have a legal system which identifies a large proportion of the guilty at the cost of convicting more innocent people, or a legal system which identifies a large proportion of the innocent at the cost of convicting fewer guilty people?

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

...the asymmetrical nature of the adversarial system means that the complainer may bemore sorely tested than the accused.

And this is wrong?

 

[Francesca R]

And this is wrong?

If it is driven by unwarranted juducial and legal system predjudices--such as:

--Uncorroborated rape claims are more likely to be lies than other uncorroborated claims of criminal acts
--The clothing that rape complainants were wearing/not wearing should be taken to indicate consent (etc . . .)
--The recent or distant sexual history of the rape complainant is relevant to the question of consent (etc . . .)

Then yes, it's wrong in the sense that it does not optimise justice, it serves to perpetuate false myths.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Fair enough.

In your opinion what should the defence be able to question the complainant about?

 

[Francesca R]

Would you rather have a legal system which identifies a large proportion of the guilty at the cost of convicting more innocent people, or a legal system which identifies a large proportion of the innocent at the cost of convicting fewer guilty people?

Another thread that might be more relevant for that perhaps.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Fiona: thanks for having the guts to risk your private experience with us. After reading it twice, I am unable to put myself in your shoes, and likewise completely unable to grasp the mind set of the guy to whom you offered your hospitality. That betrayal of trust is profoundly wrong. I don't have a better word for that. I am still mulling over what child rearing and learning went on inside his brain housing group that resulted in the series of decisions that brought him into your bed without a single flag going off. I've been drunk and horny before: what I've not been is anything as callous as this person was.

Likewise, I don't grasp all of the excellent point Elizabeth I made: the fight, flight, or freeze responses. Maybe it was me to growing up fighting and scrapping, but I cannot grasp that third respose, so I will not go further. What you have reminded me of is what we taught our daughter and our son. I think we have most of it right, and in particular, the interaction you describe is one I need to recalibrate: are they both sufficiently prepared to make sure that a link in the chain of events, in the scenario you described and experienced, is broken? The causal chain needs to be broken so that your outcome isn't repeated in either of their lives. Might be a topic for discussion in the future. The world has more users and takers in it that it ought to, so one must be prepared.

As to the OP's question, my answer is: perhaps not. It depends upon the "we" we are referring to.

DR

 

[Morrigan]

Sounds like it.

Haha. I don't mean to be callous, but gumboot just seems to be more paranoid than the average man. I know another New Zealander, and he has mentioned before that he likes to get rough in the sack. Guess he's not that afraid of being considered a "rapist" just for that...

And yet the police - the only people actually in a position to assess rates of false complaints - say otherwise. I wouldn't say I am "afraid" of false rape allegations, I'm just conscious of the possibility and take precautions accordingly. When driving a car I'm conscious of the fact I could be killed by some moron on the road and take precautions accordingly. Despite the fact that the odds of that happening are likewise very small.

Based on what you posted about your personal experience, I disagree that you are not "afraid". You are so deeply afraid of false accusation that you are uncomfortable in being "rough" with your lady (whom I presume is someone you actually trust, respect and care about, and not a casual lay). Hell, your entire post went on about how deeply this fear has reached in your conscious and subconscious. Now you're saying you're just being cautious? Come on.

I'm sorry that your personal experience has made you so fearful, but only assuming it's true and that you didn't exaggerate it in order to make a point -- which seems to be the case to me since you're now saying you're merely being "cautious"...

 

[gumboot]

Likewise, I don't grasp all of the excellent point Elizabeth I made: the fight, flight, or freeze responses. Maybe it was me to growing up fighting and scrapping, but I cannot grasp that third respose, so I will not go further.

Lt Col Grossman identifies it as a psychological non-response to the "wind of hate" - that is the psychological shock of another human behaving in such a brutal inhuman way renders the victim incapable of responding. This is quite common for victims of violent crime - researchers who looked into victims of serial killers usually found that the victims easily could have saved themselves, however acted so incompetently to the attack that they effectively assisted in their own murders (don't recall the study - it's referenced in Grossman's book On Killing).

 

[gumboot]

I won't make the mistake of discussing anything personal here again.

 

[tyr_13]

Again @Tyr. I do not know how much a man modifies his behaviour because of fear of false accusation but I imagine quite a lot.

What you and Francesca were talking about was what women do in face of fear of sexual assault: and from the beginning we have been talking to some people here who have tried to argue that is equal. I do not think it is and most men here agree, so far as I can tell: indeed your lift example seems to show you are actually very well aware of this

I raised the complementary male fear in the OP: I am not trying to devalue it nor to suggest it is not important: the fear is unreasonable in terms of the facts: but it is real nonetheless, and it is an important reason for our failure to communicate because we focus on such different things. So I am very interested to hear the ways this fear does in fact modify male behaviour, if people are willing to share.

I have determined that it might be helpful to some people for me to discuss my personal experiences here. If it isn't useful to you, just ignore it.

I'm both a rape victim, of a female rapist, and someone who has been falsely accused of sexual harassment and sexual coercion. When I was young, about ten years old, a female relative of mine molested me off and on, and raped me once. I told her that we shouldn't do that, and that we should stop, but I still did as I was told. It felt so sickening to be following her instructions even while I was pleading to stop. Why did I let that happen? It feels as though I must have wanted it; why else would I listen? I didn't want to, but I did anyway. This has made me very disgusted with my overly ample sex drive. You think Catholics have a lot of sexual guilt? I think I have them beat. Constantly I'm feeling bad about even having sexual attraction, let alone making a woman feel uncomfortable.

Even worse is being accused of sexual misdeeds. This was the case after the first time I gave my love to a woman. Long story short, she went back to her boyfriend and accused me of seducing her, or coercing her depending on what day it is. Long story mid length, she initiated all but one (and not the first) sex act and obviously consented. Hell, she tied me to the bed. Now, for someone who has been raped before to allow someone to tie him to a bed should indicate the level of trust I had in her. Blaming me for everything turned out to be one of the prerequisites for getting back together with her now fiance. Do you know what kind of hell I went through considering that I had coerced a woman, one that I was in love with, into sex. Logically, I knew that this was not the case, but I kept thinking that maybe I was fooling myself into thinking it was not the case. It was my fault again. Forcing or tricking a woman into sex is abhorrent to me, and it felt like I had done just that. In my head I was a rapist.

Her allegation deeply hurts me personally, but not further than that. This was due to her not wanting anyone to know about it at all. For a long time I honored my promise to her to not tell anyone about what we had done. Thankfully she released me from that promise or I wouldn't be telling anyone at all.

A false allegation that scared me greatly happened at work. There was a girl working there for a company that rented space in the store who liked to talk to me. I didn't see anything wrong with that. However, she talked about sexual things a lot. Again, this in and of itself didn't seem odd to me, but she hugged me a lot. This confused me, but I didn't see the direct harm. When she told me that her boss was sexually harassing her, I was very angry, as those things tend to anger me. He was kind of creepy in my view anyway, and I could see no reason to doubt her. The man was fired, and I was pleased. Then it was brought to my attention that during a review of her work, one critical of her poor effort and poorer sales, she accused me of sexual harassment and distracting her by hugging her. I had never even initiated a hug. She had always hugged me. The only time I could even remember initiating a conversation with her was when she brought her son in one day.

I was terrified of what people would think. Could I loose my job? What would the people I worked with tell other people? I became physically ill. Three things saved me. As it turned out, she had accused almost every man she worked with of the same thing. At some point people stopped believing (note after getting two men fired, deserved or not I don't know). Secondly, we didn't work for the same company. They told her that if I was a problem that she would obviously have to tell my superiors, which she did not. And lastly, no one believed her because of my well established reputation as a non-sexual person. As it turns out, several people I worked with believed I was gay. That's what you get when you treat women with respect and don't stare at them.

The other instance that might count as sexual assault happened while at a state park. I had brought my friend who is rather afraid of being alone with women, although that wasn't a huge fear of his at the time, to hang out with mutual female friends and one girl's family. Well it came to sleeping arrangements it became clear that either him or I would have to share an inflatable mattress with one of the girls, because they all refused to use the cot and let the two of us share a bed. Knowing that my friend was adverse to sharing a bed with any of the women. This was exacerbated by two of the three women fighting all day for the attention, if not the affection, of him. Naturally, I took the bed with the woman I had just that day met and let my younger friend take the cot alone.

I woke up when she grabbed my hand and put it down her pants. That time I stopped it. Unfortunately that didn't stop her from tying the same thing all that week. What could I do? I couldn't submit my friend to that. I didn't want to cheat on my then girlfriend. Well, in the end all those girls and most of their friends dropped me as a friend. Still great friends with my ex though. She rocks.

That's kind of rambling, I know. Perhaps it isn't in the least useful. Thanks for listening.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

To provide some balance to this thread, I'll just say I've never had two women fighting to have sex with me.

Oh, how the other half live...

 

[Morrigan]

I won't make the mistake of discussing anything personal here again.

Is this addressed to me? Look, I AM sorry that your personal experience has troubled you so much, but all I wanted to do was to address a contradiction. In your initial post, you explicitly stated that you were so afraid of false accusations that it made you uncomfortable to even play rough, and in another post, you say you're not afraid but merely "cautious". This simply does not follow.

 

[Francesca R]

It may be addressed to me as well, due to post 165. I've been a bit bothered by the rush in this and other threads to play up the risks men face, the readiness with which rape complaints are believed and the incidence of over-reporting and false conviction.

But I do not mean to make (and do not think I have conveyed) any comment at all about people's personal experiences, except that some of them do not represent the situation as it generally is.

 

[tyr_13]

I don't think most people are 'playing up' the risk men face in order to detract from the horror of sexual attacks on women. The point is that sexual assaults aren't a woman only problem.

The situation as it generally is is that people are raped. Focusing solely on one or the other, or characterizing women as victims and men as monsters, isn't productive.

Want a completely rational reason to be concerned with the sexual assault on men? As many of the men and women on this forum are very, very quick to point out is that most assailants are men. But many assailants were victims of sexual assault themselves. What to help stop the crime? Recognize and address one of the many causes.

Why is it that when men talk about their problems with this issue, people are quick to point out, "Oh well, that's not how it generally happens," or, "most men don't have this problem, most rapists are men and most victims are women,"? This tends to sound like, "You don't matter," or, "You don't matter as much as women."

Not directed at anyone specifically, but something that I wanted to say.