Women Tell The Truth: the evidence 5
A couple more statistics:
These opinions can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Faced with suspicion and disbelief from police, genuine rape victims may withdraw their complaints in despair or fear, and police may then record those withdrawn complaints as false reports - "proving" they were right to doubt the victim. "Surveys of US rape crisis centers revealed 17 states where adult rape complainants, unlike adult victims of other crimes, are required to take a polygraph exam before their charges are accepted. Many survivors faced with these unsupportive early warning signs withdrew their charges, and police listed their cases as false rape allegations or 'recantations'." (Rozee and Ross, 2001).
Despite the lack of evidence to support it, the belief that false reports are a significant percentage of rape reports is held by police, lawyers, judges, jurors, the media, and members of the public. It's all over the net. The baseless belief that women often falsely report rape is "one of the most important barriers to successfully investigating and prosecuting sexual assault" (Lonsway et al 2009). Countless genuine victims have been turned away by police because of the myth; countless rapists have escaped punishment because of it. There is no other crime in which victims are subject to this baseless scepticism.
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Rozee, Patricia and Mark P. Koss. Rape: a Century of Resistance. Psychology of Women Quarterly 25 2001 pp 295-311. (Citing Sloan, L.M. (1995) Revictimization by polygraph: The practice of polygraphing survivors of sexual assault. Journal of Medicine and Law 14 pp 255-276.)
Lonsway et al. False Reports: Moving Beyond the Issue to Successfully Investigate and Prosecute Non-Stranger Sexual Assault. The Voice 3(1) 2009. (Newsletter from the American Prosecutors Research Institute.)
- In the Australian state of Victoria, from 2000-2003, police classified only 2.1% of reported rapes as false reports. (Statewide Steering Committee to Reduce Sexual Assault. Study of reported rapes in Victoria. Office of Women's Policy, Department for Victorian Communities, Melbourne, July 2006.)
- In 1991, the San Francisco Examiner reported that "in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Richmond last year, the unfounding rate on sexual assault cases was less than 1%". Actual false reports would have only been part of that figure. (Quoted in Benedict, Helen. Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes. Oxford University Press, New York, 1992.)
These opinions can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Faced with suspicion and disbelief from police, genuine rape victims may withdraw their complaints in despair or fear, and police may then record those withdrawn complaints as false reports - "proving" they were right to doubt the victim. "Surveys of US rape crisis centers revealed 17 states where adult rape complainants, unlike adult victims of other crimes, are required to take a polygraph exam before their charges are accepted. Many survivors faced with these unsupportive early warning signs withdrew their charges, and police listed their cases as false rape allegations or 'recantations'." (Rozee and Ross, 2001).
Despite the lack of evidence to support it, the belief that false reports are a significant percentage of rape reports is held by police, lawyers, judges, jurors, the media, and members of the public. It's all over the net. The baseless belief that women often falsely report rape is "one of the most important barriers to successfully investigating and prosecuting sexual assault" (Lonsway et al 2009). Countless genuine victims have been turned away by police because of the myth; countless rapists have escaped punishment because of it. There is no other crime in which victims are subject to this baseless scepticism.
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Rozee, Patricia and Mark P. Koss. Rape: a Century of Resistance. Psychology of Women Quarterly 25 2001 pp 295-311. (Citing Sloan, L.M. (1995) Revictimization by polygraph: The practice of polygraphing survivors of sexual assault. Journal of Medicine and Law 14 pp 255-276.)
Lonsway et al. False Reports: Moving Beyond the Issue to Successfully Investigate and Prosecute Non-Stranger Sexual Assault. The Voice 3(1) 2009. (Newsletter from the American Prosecutors Research Institute.)