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 glenra on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @05:18PM (#8790538)

You're correct, the rate of false accusations might be quite high. The "2-8%" stat given in OP really should be "2-10%" - advocates somehow tend to lose track of a couple studies that came out on the high end - but even that number range is only the percentage of rape accusations that were brought to the police which were deemed demonstrably false. For instance: the alleged victim reported it to the cops but later recanted or changed their story so much that it couldn't be trusted, or the facts on the ground made the story as stated impossible.

Advocates are correct to note that this "2-10%" includes some mistakes - true rape victims might be very confused in their testimony or might recant because they get frustrated with the justice system - but it still should probably be regarded as a lower bound on the actual number of false accusations, as it's a subset of the full total.

False accusations that wouldn't show up in this measurable "2-10%" include (a) those in which the accusation is plausible, consistent and the accuser does not recant, (b) false accusations that aren't ever brought to the police.

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Re:How Likely Is Someone Accused of Assault by Multiple Peop... by clay_to_n on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @06:47PM (#8790853)

Are you sure this can be considered a "lower bound"?

The amount of people who were raped and never went to the police could be much higher than the amount of people who lied to the police about being raped.

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Re:How Likely Is Someone Accused of Assault by Multiple Peop... by glenra on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @07:43PM (#8791000)

> Are you sure this can be considered a "lower bound"?

Pretty sure. my guess is that the true number is at least 15%, based largely on the sort of accounting found here:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/17/lies-damned-lies-and-so...

(The lower bound is 2-10%; the upper bound is 20-40%)

> The amount of people who were raped and never went to the police could be much higher than the amount of people who lied to the police about being raped.

This is true, but here is a factor you are overlooking:

"While rape victims have some incentives to report their cases to the police – a desire for justice, a desire for safety, the belief that the evidence will support them – false accusers have very strong incentives not to – too much work, easier revenge through other means, knowledge that the evidence is unlikely to support them, fear of getting in trouble for perjury if their deception gets out. So I consider it a very conservative estimate to say that the ratio of unreported to reported false accusations is 4:1 – the same as it is with rapes. A more realistic estimate might be as high as double or triple that."

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Re:How Likely Is Someone Accused of Assault by Multiple Peop... by philwelch on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @11:43PM (#8791569)

Rape victims have many more reasons not to go to the police than to go to the police. The experience of being raped very commonly causes PTSD, and all of the steps involved in going to the police--having a rape kit done (i.e. being touched and examined in the very intimate parts that were just violated), recounting your experience, seeing the suspect--would all cause a PTSD sufferer to essentially relive the traumatic experience.

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Re:How Likely Is Someone Accused of Assault by Multiple Peop... by philwelch on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @11:06PM (#8791497)

If anything, the police see a disproportionately high number of false accusations. A false accuser isn't deterred from the justice system by PTSD.

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Re:How Likely Is Someone Accused of Assault by Multiple Peop... by s_q_b on Wednesday December 24, 2014 @02:02AM (#8791902)

Its a lower bound on the number of false allegations (out of allegations made to the police), so the number of people who never went to the police isn't relevant, mathematically speaking.

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Re:How Likely Is Someone Accused of Assault by Multiple Peop... by rayiner on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @06:37PM (#8790827)

If we're not going to count false accusations that don't carry the threat of jail time, we should also look at cases where there was a rape but nothing was taken to the police.

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