How Likely Is Someone Accused of Assault by Multiple People to Be Innocent?

Re:How Likely Is Someone Accused of Assault by Multiple Peop... by dahart on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @04:17PM (#8790278)

> But how can we combine multiple accusations of assault, given that survivors are usually unaware of each other and often reluctant to come forward?

I see the other comments pointing at this potential problem as well, but I'll phrase it as a question - since the article opens with a reference to Bill Cosby, is it even valid to combine multiple accusations of assault when the accusers are aware of each other, possibly through media exposure, and may have come forward as a result?

And while there is a (perhaps unsurprising?) correlation between independent accusations and probability of guilt, how can this statistical approach be responsibly used, and should it, and what for?

Assault is awful and I'm sure the majority of assaults with even one accuser is (or should be) straightforward), but it seems like there are other uncontrolled possibilities here besides the independence of accusations, like whether the accuser and accused know each other.

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Re:How Likely Is Someone Accused of Assault by Multiple Peop... by kaitai on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @06:01PM (#8790713)

One way to deal with this is discussed in the article -- if details of reports are not widely publicized (often the case), then details of reports/allegations can be compared. In many cases, as noted in the post, methods are consistent. You could use some Bayesian analysis to figure out the probability that independent reports would come up with the same details.

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