When it comes to investigating a crime, it's neither. It's not up to the police (or the public) to determine guilt; that's a job for the court. The job of the police is to investigate what happened. When a crime is reported to the police they must believe what the victim is saying until they have a damn good reason not to. If they started with a presumption of the victim making a false allegation very few domestic abuse crimes would ever get investigated, let alone prosecuted.
The potential for abuse is obvious.
Domestic abusers already claim they're being accused falsely. If the police and public assumed they were telling the truth they would get away with it much more, and they already get away with it a lot. That's the abuse that people should be much more concerned about.
> If they started with a presumption of the victim making a false allegation very few domestic abuse crimes would ever get investigated, let alone prosecuted.
I agree that these crimes must be investigated thoroughly. Is it really okay that men can be arrested based on allegations though? I don't think that should ever happen unless guilt is proven.
> Domestic abusers already claim they're being accused falsely.
I don't deny that. The guilty will lie to protect themselves, this is a fact. However, claiming false accusations does not imply guilt. It could be true. The possibility cannot be dismissed.
> If the police and public assumed they were telling the truth they would get away with it much more, and they already get away with it a lot.
Are you prepared to sacrifice innocents to make sure all these slippery abusers are punished? Stopping an abuser or making sure the innocent are not wrongfully punished, what's more important?
> That's the abuse that people should be much more concerned about.
Does the suffering of innocent men not matter? It certainly doesn't seem to bother the people I've talked to. I've always thought this was pretty interesting.
Aren't people supposed to go to prison after they're sentenced?
> many more people would refuse to make an accusation if they weren't going to be believed
Of course. That's the point. Why should people be able to accuse others of serious crimes without one shred of evidence?
Are people innocent or guilty by default? That's what this boils down to.
> There are significantly fewer false allegations than real ones.
Does it matter how many false allegations are made? If there's a chance that it could be false, you must assume it is until proven otherwise.
Fundamentally, this is an issue of false positives and false negatives. Most societies are founded on the principle that false negatives are better than false positives: better to let a criminal go free than convict an innocent. It seems at some point western societies experienced an inversion of values: now it's better to convict innocents than let a criminal go free.
This is dangerous. The potential for abuse is obvious.