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Over the past few days, I removed content that cited sources that only referenced false accusations in a very small community. Their focus was too narrow to be generalizable or comparable to any other population. These were the sources and my reasons:
Please take this into consideration before posting more content that's vague, anecdotal and/or relevant only to a narrow population. Permstrump ( talk) 16:51, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
I can imagine the thought process for using the 8% stat for false accusations in the US in the lead. Even though it's a 20-years-old stat, it's cited in basically every paper on the topic and it’s the most recent official stat put out by US govt. However, even one of the studies that we used as a source for that figure contests its validity (Rumney 2006). And the FBI (2015) and DOJ (2011) acknowledge major issues with the data they've collected and published about crime rates. We do say in the lead that this is something difficult to measure, but I think that’s a pretty big understatement, especially considering the next sentence gives a stat from a presumably reliable source (the U.S. DOJ and FBI) without acknowledging the wide body of internal and independent sources that criticize that dataset specifically. These are some points that, IMHO, should be clarified or added in the lead (in a more concise way) so people can make an informed decision about how much weight they want to give the stats in the lead and the rest of the article.
I think making those nuances clear in the lead would give a more accurate picture of the fact that not only is it “difficult to assess the prevalence of false accusations,” it’s almost impossible to judge the accuracy of the UCR figures due to our inability to separate false accusations from the total number of false reports and the lack of empirical research supporting the UCR figures to begin with (Rumney 2006, Lonsway et al. 2009, Nolan et al. 2006, Sampson 2011, CJIS 2015, Marcotte 2013). I'm not so great at being concise though, so feel free to let me know which parts you think are extraneous/don't belong in the lead or better ways to word things. Permstrump ( talk) 00:50, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
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An unregistered user added a section about "America's Top Sex Crimes Expert" who apparently told Penthouse that "There are 4000 reports of rape each year in Manhattan. Of these, half simply didn't happen" (and other related content). I reverted because Penthouse clearly is not a reliable source for this (and because the addition had lots of other problems).
A shorter version has now been added. Penthouse is still the only source. I have responded to the user's comment on my talk page, but I'm not interested to edit war. The content still seems inappropriate to me, but I'll leave it to a third party to revert (and if it's inappropriate, it's also worth considering the same addition to the Linda Fairstein article). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 03:55, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
The MoJ entry edited Nov 20 made use of referenced statistics on the fractional incidence of false rape accusation and the number of rape reports to estimate an actual number of false accusations per year. Is that really considered "original research"? Wouldn't it be helpful to provide some real numbers instead of sterile percentages to help people evaluate the extent of the problem. After all, on a percentile basis murder is also an "insignificant" crime - and there are more false accusations per year than there are murders.
Is the editing out of this part of the MoJ entry an attempt to keep the false accusation issue well sanitized?
Removal of this section suggests a failure to abide by the neutrality pillar!
The impact of false accusations of rape and sexual assault have non-trivial consequences for the accused, their families and sometimes the community. The section included references to concerns raised in government sponsored reports and reports of two high-profile cases in which the victims described the traumatic experience of a false accusation. How is this "original research"? It seems to me that an "honest" contributor/editor would recognize that an account of the impact and challenges of a false accusation is a valid section for this page. It would inform more rational minds of the impact of false accusations and contribute to the dialog of how to approach the issue of false accusations in a way that maximises justice on both sides of this dreadful issue.
It also seems appropriate to use known and referenced statistics to attempt to estimate the numbers of people afflicted in the absence of better references.
Completely removing the section seem irresponsible and biased. If an editor disagrees, then let's work together to produce an improved and informative section rather that whitewash the entire issue out of existence. Make the issue available and let the community contribute.
Unfortunately, there seems to be very little referrable information on the topic, particularly on bail conditions, Social Services involvement, job loss etc. other than newspaper reports. The continued whitewashing and dismissing of an issue that impacts thousand of individuals per year and breaks up families discourages efforts at correcting this deficiency. If you feel concerned by the lack of citations, treat the section as other entries are treated - add a notice that the section lacks citations ... etc. etc.
~~~~
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It seems discussion is required of a passage describing the consequences of false accusations. Since I am unable to complete the section as it is undone as I am typing, here is the draft of the entire section. The references do not copy although many of them are in the removed versions I was in the middle of entering. Maybe someone would show some willingness to collaborate on an informative narrative instead of deleting everything before it is completed.
I also note that some of the 'dubious' references objected to were government publications. Are newspaper reports not considered valid references? Are newspaper reports quoting government ministers not considered valid references? I also note that many articles leave uncited material but add a note that a citation is needed rather than delete an entire section. Why is deletion the preferred option on this page?
The argument of 'original research' for deleting estimates of incidence are not well justified. The entire purpose of statistical analysis is to allow extrapolation of sample research to an entire population. That is precisely what I was doing. What is the objection to providing an estimate of the incidence of a crime? Rather than deleting such efforts, perhaps offer an improved calculation.
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Number of false accusations The most explicit analysis of rape in the UK appears to be the Ministry of Justice report which suggested that 12% of all rape accusations were suspected of being incorrect and that 3% of rape accusations were identified as 'malicious'. The figures seem roughly aligned with other reports described above. Using the conservative 3% figure and a conserative number rapes reported per year in the UK, ~30,000 https://www.statista.com/statistics/283100/recorded-rape-offences-in-england-and-wales-uk-y-on-y/ provides an estimate of 'malicious' false accusations of ~1,000. This does not include sexual assault which is about 3 times more prevalent. A recent research article suggested that 70% of allegations of sexual assault of a child in contested family law cases in the UK were false https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265346094_False_allegations_of_child_abuse_in_contested_family_law_cases_The_implications_for_psychological_practice. Consequences to Accuser Prosecution Individuals suspected of making a false accusation of rape may be charged with the civil crime of "wasting police time" or the criminal charge of "Perverting the Course of Justice" with a maximum penalty of life in prison.( http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/research/perverting_course_of_justice_march_2013.pdf http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/perverting_the_course_of_justice_-_rape_and_dv_allegations/) Over a five-year period ending in 2014, a total of 109 women were prosecuted for crimes related to making false accusations of rape.[ http://time.com/3613506/prosecuting-women-for-false-rape-allegations/. The report did not indicate the verdicts following prosecution.] Another report identified 121 charging decisions involving allegations of false accusations of rape and an additional 11 false allegations of both domestic violence and rape between January 2011 and May 2012 and found of these cases, 35 were prosecuted based upon false accusations of rape. A further 3 were prosecuted based upon charges of false accusations of both rape and domestic abuse. The report did not indicate the verdicts following prosecution. http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/research/perverting_course_of_justice_march_2013.pdf These numbers of prosecutions for false accusations, together with the above estimates of false accusations per year suggets a prosecution rate for false accusations of less than 2.5%. Compensation All individuals who claim to be victims of sexual abuse are entitled to awards under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) regardless of the outcome of the police investigation. Compensation for a single incident of rape is £11,000. ( https://abuseandassaultclaims.co.uk/criminal-injuries-compensation-calculator/). Payments are made regardless of arrest or convictions of perpetrators and are difficult to recover from the false accusers. 'Nick', the discredited false accuser of 'Operation Midland is reported to have retained £50,000 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/09/operation-midland-police-helped-nick-claim-compensation-for-fals/. Jemma Beale who falsely accused 15 men, one of whom was convicted and jailed for almost 3 years received £11,000 that has reportedly not been recovered http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/03/fantasists-lied-sex-abuse-allowed-keep-compensation/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_fb. Accused Two categories of misdirected accusations of rape are recognised. Accusations motivated by malice and 'inadvertent' accusations due to a number of reasons such as 'misremembering' and psychological issues. From an investigative point of view all accusations are treated in the same way and there are widespread concerns that current investigative policies place an unjust burden on those who are falsely accused and upon their families. Investigatory Bias There is a police policy that investigators of crime reports 'believe the victim' ( http://www.college.police.uk/News/College-news/Pages/College_comments_on_belief_of_victims_-.aspx, https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/wp-content/uploads/crime-recording-making-the-victim-count.pdf). Serious concerns have been raised that this position has been unfairly biases the investigation in favour of the accuser, placing the burden of proof upon the accused to prove their innocenceWalker and Starmer, 1999. In the Elish report, Dame Elish stated "‘always believing’ the complainant may prejudice the impartiality of the officer’s role and lead to their failing to recognise or give weight to other evidence inconsistent with the complainant’s account." ( http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/equality/vaw/dame_elish_angiolini_rape_review_2015.pdf - para 222) The recommendation in these documents go on to state.... "Our guidance on investigating these allegations calls for a thorough investigation of the facts. It is the credibility of the evidence, not solely the victim, that should be investigated”, concern has been expressed at the apparent misinterpretation of this directive by some investigators. Dame Elish stated "It was, however surprising to hear the suggestion made in several focus groups, that it is police policy for officers always to ‘believe the victim’. It was clear too that this understanding caused resentment amongst some officers, especially when it led to a perception that they must continue to investigate cases regardless of whether or not the allegation was true, while being required to suspend disbelief(para 220 p 57)( http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/equality/vaw/dame_elish_angiolini_rape_review_2015.pdf). Metropolitan Police Chief confirmed this ( https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/18/police-watchdog-criticises-met-chiefs-comments-on-sexual-abuse-policy) and the same article quoted Sir Tom Winsor, head of the police watchdog HMIC was quoted as saying that the directive applied only to recording the crime and not to the entire investigation. Sir Richard Henriquez in his report to the Metropolitan Police Service states (para 1.24) "The effect of requiring a police officer, in such a position, to believe a complaint reverses the burden of proof. It also restricts the officer's ability to test the complainant's evidence"( http://nyenquirer.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/HENRIQUES-Report-Independent-Review-of-the-Metropolitan-Police-Services-handling-of-non-recent-sexual-offence-investigations.pdf). Lord Finkelstein, writing in The Times stated "The new principle is dangerous not just because it defies common sense. The real problem is that the police don't seek the truth, they construct cases. Starting with a rock-solid assumption that the victim is indeed a victim and the victim's story is correct, the temptation is strong to fit the facts to the story rather than test the story with the facts.( https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/destroyed-by-false-accusations-of-child-abuse-ljhv2w5q3) Personal impact A 2013 Huffington Post article quoted then Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer " "Where false allegations of rape and domestic violence do occur however, they are serious - reputations can be ruined and lives can be devastated as a result. This sentiment is also echoed in the Henriques and Elish reports. The most comprehensive report of the impact of false accusations of sexual assault perhaps comes from the Oxford Center for Criminology which reviewed the available literature and reported their analysis of interviews with 30 individuals who described their experiences of false accusations The impact of being wrongly accused of abuse Hoyle , Speechley & Burnett et al. 2016 University of Oxford Centre for Criminology . Alleged offences against elderly people or children may require police to demand that the alleged offender remove themselves from the vicinity of their accuser. The police may also make a safeguarding alerts ( https://patient.info/health/safeguarding-children) which may require separation of the alleged offender from other 'at-risk' individuals such as children or the elderly, resulting in loss of a business or suspension if the accused works in a field involving these at-risk groups. If the accused lives with, or visits their own children, police are obliged to alert Social Services who often require the accused to move away from their family or restrict visitation rights, thus impacting the entire family of the accused. In the United Kingdom, the accused may also be added to the Home Office Disclosure and Barring Service(DBS).[31] These restrictions remain at least until the police case is terminated which may take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years. Social Services and other safeguarding restrictions may require a further hearing to meet their safeguarding requirements, since their criteria rely on the "preponderance of evidence" rules rather than the stricter "burden of proof" required by a criminal court. In some cases, even in a "he said, she said" case, organizations may decide to keep restrictions in place. Family life can be disrupted for years with negative impacts, particularly on young children. According to Webster (2005) "at least 10,000 former residents of care homes had made complaints by the end of 2004, with between 7,000 and 9,000 care workers having had accusations made against them: ‘Most of these care workers have not been charged with any offence, but many … had their lives blighted by false allegations. And in the last 15 years, as many as a hundred may have been wrongly convicted.’ (Webster 2005, p.550, and fn. 605)." Jensen and Jensen - ‘Hundreds more have been caught up in widespread police investigations and as a result have lost their professional reputation and personal standing. Lives have been shattered, careers have been lost and families have been torn apart.’ (Jensen and Jensen, 2011, p.iii) Curtis-Thomas - Their reputations have been blighted and even though we see them and their families emerge from the court looking happy, we know that the blight has not been removed, because beyond that court there are many organizations and authorities who will hold on to that reputation of guilt, making it impossible for an individual to return to a life. That sort of injustice, which is not covered by legal redress must remain a huge concern to all of us that there can be these organizations who still treat you as guilty and will affect their lives forever.’ (Curtis-Thomas, 2012)
The psychological impact of a false accusation has been widely publicized in media reports of some celebrity accusations.[32][33] It is further underlined in the Oxford Centre for Criminology report..... "Formal investigations, whether in a civil or criminal context, are harrowing for the accused person, and may result in immediate suspension from work and temporary restrictions on contact with children, and a record of having been reported and investigated, which can cause longer term damage to employment prospects and relationships. For cases which result in a guilty verdict, the punishment will be a lengthy period of imprisonment. When a defendant continues to assert their innocence, there will be added deprivations and barriers against privileges and parole." Stigma and vilification The stigma attached to being accused of abuse cannot be underestimated. It was a prevalent theme in each account. Stigma arose in two forms. First, from the actions and comments from others, who actively judged and excluded them, causing them to feel 32 shame and hurt. p 31 stigma was also generated within the accused themselves; the combination of abhorrence at what they had been accused of, and their inability to fully clear their name, caused extreme pain and embarrassment. At the broadest level, loss of self-confidence and ruined personal and professional reputation significantly affected the participants. p 32 Collateral damage to family and friendship circles Research suggests that one of the greatest effects of wrongful conviction is damage to significant relationships (Grounds 2005, p.34). Experiences of estrangement (even from those who have fully supported them) and resulting feelings of guilt are not uncommon (Jamieson and Grounds, 2005, p.173). In some cases, this can result in the breakdown of marital relationships (Grounds, 2005, p.32). There are considerable financial burdens accruing from this but loss of earnings is not the sole consequence; the wrongly accused may also face steep legal fees, the loss of a home, and financial pressure on their partner. For many, the loss of a vocation they had trained for and worked at for years caused multiple other harms. In our view, the cumulative impact of these interviews is both shocking and immense. It is widely accepted that to be described as a paedophile will be damaging. However, until we conducted this study, we had little grasp of the extent to which a false allegation is likely to affect every aspect of a person’s life, psychological, material and physical. Most of the participants, it should be recalled, were able to refute the accusations made against them at a relatively early stage of the legal process. Despite this, their lives were, to put it simply, wrecked. A survey by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers of 685 of its members found in 2015 that 22 per cent of school and college staff had been the subject of a false allegation of abuse by a pupil (Association of Teachers and Lecturers, 2015). |
189.172.136.72 ( talk) 06:03, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
"The entire purpose of statistical analysis is to allow extrapolation of sample research to an entire population. That is precisely what I was doing."And that is exactly why this would be WP:SYNTH. I've not delved into the wall-o-text, but it seems like you're compiling your own list of statistics. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:21, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
Number of false accusations The most explicit analysis of rape in the UK appears to be the Ministry of Justice report which suggested that 12% of all rape accusations were suspected of being incorrect and that 3% of rape accusations were identified as 'malicious'.Who says that this MoJ report is the most explicit analysis of false accusations of rape? What sources back up that claim? If it "appears" to you to be the most explicit analysis, then that claim is original research. Are there any secondary or tertiary sources that single out this MoJ report as particularly in depth, accurate, or notable?
The figures seem roughly aligned with other reports described above.Again, "the figures seem roughly aligned" to whom? Whose voice is this statement being made in? If this alignment is something you yourself recognized without a source to back it up, then this is original research. Are there any sources that analyze multiple reports on false accusations and compare their results?
Using the conservative 3% figure and a conserative number rapes reported per year in the UK, ~30,000 https://www.statista.com/statistics/283100/recorded-rape-offences-in-england-and-wales-uk-y-on-y/ provides an estimate of 'malicious' false accusations of ~1,000.Who is using that 3% number, applying it to the number of rapes reported in the UK and coming up with a "conservative" estimate of false accusations of rape? Unless it's a reliable source that makes this connection, you cannot use that number. It's original research and synthesis. Why the 3% number for malicious reports and not the 12% number for all false reports? Do the authors of that report claim their results can be extrapolated from their sample to the entire population of the UK? Do other sources back that up?
This does not include sexual assault which is about 3 times more prevalent. A recent research article suggested that 70% of allegations of sexual assault of a child in contested family law cases in the UK were false https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265346094_False_allegations_of_child_abuse_in_contested_family_law_cases_The_implications_for_psychological_practice.This study is about a very specific situation (children of parents who are involved in family court proceedings) and finds that many of the claims made by the parents against each other are false - they're claiming child abuse in order to gain leverage in legal proceedings. These results are not generalizable. Unless you have a very strong reliable source linking this study to the larger problem of false accusations of sexual assault, it really should not be in the same paragraph as false accusations in general, and probably shouldn't be in this article to begin with, since it's such a specific case. I think that should be obvious just from reading the summary of that study, since its main focus is educational psychology, not criminal justice. Here's where they describe the accusations in their sample: "Of the total sample of 107 children, no allegations of physical or sexual abuse had been made by either party in 70 cases (65 percent). Allegations had been made in 37 cases (35 per cent). Of these cases, 20 (54 percent) were of physical abuse only, 11 (30 percent) were of sexual abuse only and the remaining six (16 per cent) were of both physical and sexual abuse.... Of the 37 cases where allegations of abuse had been made, 26 (70 per cent) were found in Court or were judged on the best available evidence to be false." Even in this incredibly specific scenario, your claim "70% of accusations of sexual abuse are false" is not supported - they do not separate sexual abuse from other types of abuse, and additionally it's based on a sub sample of just 37 cases. This is not a study you can use for any kind of general statement on false accusations of sexual assault.
"The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject." Talk about a totally worthless expression of opinion... This is why so many people refuse to participate in Wikipedia, too many self-inflated "editors". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flybd5 ( talk • contribs) 15:05, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
I saw the notice, looking at the article, it would probably be good to add statistics from more countries.
I saw this article about research done in India
[1]
I think it would be a good idea to add to make the article a bit more 'international'?
AspiringCheetah (
talk)
06:34, 21 December 2017 (UTC)AspiringCheetah
References
The different studies here use different definitions of false accusation: particularly malicious accusations, prosecuted false accusations, and unintentionally false accusations. This deserves introduction and explanation. ( Pulu ( talk) 14:54, 29 January 2018 (UTC))
This article opens with a false sense of consensus on 2-10% rate of false accusations of rape. The numbers are all over the map and reflecting nothing like a 2-10% consensus. I'm particularly concerned that the highest statistics surveys reported here all show rates out of this range; Kelly et al. (N=2,643) 25%, McCahil (N=1,198) 18.2%, HMCPSI/HMIC (N= 1,198) 11.8%, UK Ministry of Justice (N= 1,149) 12%. (I'm not counting the Crown Prosecution Service report here because they have a very different criteria.) A statistics-weighted average of these gives a rate of 16.4%. A statistics weighted average of all studies listed in this article gives 15.7%, which again is outside of the 2-10% range. I charted the false rape accusation rates reported in this article vs their statistical power below. For lack of better options, I put the studies that don't report their statistics at a power of 0. The chart shows nothing remotely resembling a 2-10% consensus.
( Pulu ( talk) 15:15, 29 January 2018 (UTC))
The Tuerkheimer section does not address or discuss the subject of false accusation of rape, and should be moved to another page that addresses under reporting. Similarly, the first sentence in the National Sexual Violence Resource Center section. ( Pulu ( talk) 14:54, 29 January 2018 (UTC))
Hi, just noting that I reverted the addition of the percentage to the CPS section since none of the sources make that comparison. Other studies do, but not this one. We can't go emulating calculations by other studies unless this one has too. Stickee (talk) 23:16, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
Some of the other papers have also been calculatedWhich ones? Stickee (talk) 08:16, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
I propose removing the chart of sources from the "Rumney (2006)" section. None of the other studies have a chart like that and there's no reason to keep it for just one study. Additionally, the chart doesn't include enough information about any source to actually look it up, so it contains no usable information. This is due to the fact that the sources were copy-pasted from the original paper without actually bringing over the citations from the bibliography, which could also possibly be a copyright violation. Lastly, the study has been specifically criticized for its sourcing, so it's especially odd this is the only study that lists its sources with percentages in a prominent chart. Lonehexagon ( talk) 01:40, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
References
The current intro:
A false accusation of rape is the reporting of a rape where no rape has occurred. It is difficult to assess the prevalence of false accusations because they are often conflated with non-prosecuted cases under the designation "unfounded". However, in the United States, the FBI Uniform Crime Report in 1996 and the United States Department of Justice in 1997 reported that 8% of accusations for forcible rape had been determined through investigation to be unfounded.
It uses FBI's "unfounded" designation and statistics from 1995-97, which was not reported similarly across all police jurisdictions, and can include cases where the victim did not physically fight off the suspect, the suspect did not use a weapon, or cases where the victim had a prior relationship to the suspect. Additionally, this isn't an article about false rape accusations in the US, but in general, so it doesn't make sense to have 20-year-old FBI statistics in the intro. It's generally agreed as a range of 2% to 10%, so I feel like the beginning should be changed to this:
A false accusation of rape is the reporting of a rape where no rape has occurred. It is difficult to assess the true prevalence of false rape allegations, but it's generally agreed that rape accusations are false about 2% to 10% of the time.
I think that's pretty uncontroversial, and much more straightforward. Plantlady223 ( talk) 04:18, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
In regards to the "handy graph" added in this edit. I don't think it quite characterises the content is summarises. Plus there's the issue acknowledged with this edit:There are different definitions used to determine what constitutes a "false" accusation, including particularly malicious accusations, prosecuted false accusations, and unintentionally false accusations.. Furthermore the studies used in there are measuring vastly different things: some are estimates of overall rate, some are confirmed cases only, some are prosecuted cases only. For us to compare them like that is not only factually incorrect, but probably OR too. Stickee (talk) 12:26, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
When the article gives numbers, it should also give numbers for rape accusations made to police forces. No-one can prove the real reasons the women had when making or withdrawing the claims, and they must be taken simply as what their are: accusations made to authorities. Feminist questionnaries are not trustable there as they, and their handling is politically biased. The common sense tells many of the accusations were just malevolent tries to hurt the another side and if they didn't reach the stage of court, that doesn't diminish the try to lie.
The only trustable number we have is the claimed and court decided cases. The relation of those to all accusations made to police gives us the only reliable number for false accusations. And that is not 2% -- J. Sketter ( talk) 17:49, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
I simply fail to understand how many otherwise intelligently honest Wikipedia editors seem to think via the following line:
In real world we just can't know without a detailed examination (that's why we have courts) and the sensible attitude is to a attach probability to each case as 50%. Now the current dominating POW in the article and talk page seems to be that almost in every case the claims are made by real victims, only to withdrawn by some outer force. Like violent partner, family, lack of trust to authorities etc.
And these are backed up by questionnaries. As if a dishonest person would really confess their lies there. And not to whitewash themselves. Also studies made by feminists are not much more trustable in general. Again in the real world we know politically motivated science is not good or honest science. For start drawing conclusions from base of polls is a very difficult art. It might tell us more of the intentions of the replyee (as the subject of study is not any, say subatomic particle, but a human with own will and own motives). Most importantly it gives trends, and those it gives right. Whatever the reason behind the trend is. -- J. Sketter ( talk) 00:20, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
I would like to add this data from Germany to the article. The current version is:
A false accusation of rape is the reporting of a rape where no rape has occurred. It is difficult to assess the true prevalence of false rape allegations, but it is generally agreed that, for about 2% to 10% of rape allegations, a thorough investigation establishes that no crime was committed or attempted.
I would like to edit it by adding the following text about regional variations:
A false accusation of rape is the reporting of a rape where no rape has occurred. It is difficult to assess the true prevalence of false rape allegations, but it is generally agreed that, for about 2% to 10% of rape allegations, a thorough investigation establishes that no crime was committed or attempted. But this may vary by country and region, according to Chief Criminal Investigator Britta Rabe, 80% of rape allegations in Germany's Rostock don't hold up to scrutiny. [1]
Alternatively, it can also be added as: 1.14 Police in Rostock, Germany (2015).
Well, after thinking about it, I guess we should add it to Estimates of prevalence. Domen von Wielkopolska ( talk) 12:17, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
@ Roscelese: What exactly is off topic in my comment? a) that an article providing estimates on false accusations of rape in Germany does seem to belong in this page in the estimates of prevalence section? b) that the German word “vorgetauscht” in the headline of the article means “false”, not simply “baseless” or “not leading to a conviction due to lack of evidence”, hence the article seems to apply to the criteria of this page? c) that having estimates of prevalence from countries other than the USA would make this page more complete? Isananni ( talk) 18:10, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
I don't quite see what @ Bilby: means when saying we need better sources? The Finnish sources in question are: our national broadcast company, a respected daily newspaper and one tabloid. And of course in every three ocassion the Helsinki Police. All three articles from separate years 2009, 2010 (altho these 2 might be partially from the same statistics), 2014 follow a consistent view of the police. All in all they are reliable to present that exact stance. That doesn't mean all the accusations/reports were made maliciously, but do include eg. cases where the woman simply drank her memory and came to police to get the medical examination pass the queue. Just in case. And that is IMO quite acceptable use of tax payers money. When The Helsinki Police went to Facebook it was even slightly humorous about the subject; that IMHO tells that police itself was quite confident in it's ability to filter out also the liers.-- J. Sketter ( talk) 14:59, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
@ Bilby: higher rates were recorded in academical studies in the US too: Kanin's work is an excellent study, albeit coding an accusation as "false" only when the accuser ultimately admitted to lying, and the rate was 41%. We have similar rates of 40% accusations of rape being ultimately labelled as false in Italy after judicial reviews, with or without the accuser's recantation, a recantation that is not exactly to be expected even though it is desirable since we can all agree false accusations in general, not only false rape accusations, are a plague that destroys the victim's life, where the victims are the falsely accused and their families of course. Rates may vary according to location of course. It comes to me as no surprise that cities have higher rates of false accusations than smaller towns and villages since proximity makes it easier to unmask the lie. Rates can be also culture driven. The sooner civil rights for women were won in a country, the sooner someone started taking advantage of the system. I honestly do not see why an article reporting on a police study should not be considered a reliable source and why we should be afraid of reading higher rates for false rape accusations than propaganda feeds us. Isananni ( talk) 20:02, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
The HPD had observed, however subjectively, that many of the reporters 2008-2014 had drunk their memory or intoxicated themselves to point where actions to regret happened. The phenomenom had got so widespread that it pushed police to make several public pleas. The more women drink, the more often they come to the police station to make very uncertain claims of rape. This observation is worth of mentiong in itself (But hardly surprising nor unique, globally). I'm not sure what exact quantitative statements you did mean?
1) hardly controversial 2) yes, a statement of Mrs. Sgt. Vuento who had specialized in handling sexual crimes 3) not controversial as soon as we got to know what exactly "completely wrong" stands for in statistics.
"Can you provide some contrary evidence to demonstrate that police in Helsinki are considered authoritative on the subject of false accusations of rape and sexual assault?" This and much of the previous post of yours is just a try of wikilawyering. I already said a police force is clearly an expert on crime in it's area. I don't see any need to "prove" self-evident things. -- J. Sketter ( talk) 18:18, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I wish to add a line to the first paragraph as follows:
False accusation in regards to rape has been found to be 5 times higher than for most other offense types.
Source: The Prevalence of False Allegations of Rape in the United States from 2006-2010
Quote: "Approximately 5% of the allegations of rape were deemed false or baseless. That was at least five times higher than for most other offence types."
Thoughts?
Flamous7 ( talk) 16:36, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Iwog please discuss proposed changes here. WP:RS use that percentage range. EvergreenFir (talk) 20:46, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
No, you are wrong. The conclusions are being misread and misreported because you are not willing to dive deeper into the data. ALL ESTIMATES EXCEPT KAGEN are an attempt to find provable false allegations the exact same way that a trial attempts to find provable legitimate accusations. However the vast majority of allegations are neither proven or disproven so making any representation of a false accusation rate is extremely dishonest. I find it vile that you would support such bias in a Wiki article.
Again I'll ask you this question. If I lead the article this way: "95% of rape allegations do not result in a rape conviction" I could connect hundreds of credible sources and I would be technically correct. Would you allow it? No of course you wouldn't. Data about conviction rates are entirely missing from an article and why is that exactly?
In this spirit, I have prepared an additional paragraph that reads "The conviction rate for initial rape allegations is only around 5%." (numerous citations given) How could anyone complain about the inclusion of this data in a discussion ABOUT FALSE AND LEGITIMATE RAPE ALLEGATIONS?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iwog ( talk • contribs)
I'm writing about the actual evidence here, it's the current state of the article is making assumptions about the gaps. In this case, that ALL accusations outside of those few proven to to be false are true leading to the conclusion that the false rape report is 2-10%. Not only is this impossible considering the data but it EXCLUDES many of the studies listed on the page such as the ONLY study that actually attempts to quantify the ACTUAL number of false rape reports. I will give an example of how this reckless treatment of the data translates into the real world:
[2] "Fact: Only 2-8% of rapes are falsely reported, the same percentage as for other felonies."
This is simply a bald faced lie and comes directly from the reckless nature of this page and the bias that is created from the opening paragraph. There is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that the actual rate is under 10%. NONE! So why is such a paragraph being included if it's not to mislead and create bias? Iwog ( talk) 13:04, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
According to RAINN, a source that references FBI statistics, only 3.5% of rapes reported to the police result in prosecution. [3] Would I be justified in editing the Wikipedia page on the crime of Rape to preface with: "It is difficult to assess the true prevalence of legitimate rape allegations, but it is generally agreed that, for only about 3.5% of rape allegations, a thorough investigation will result in the prosecution for a crime." Can anyone explain to me why the exact same language is allowed on a page devoted to the crime of false reporting of rape?? Iwog ( talk) 13:51, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
@ Isananni: when you said "other editors" favored your 80%, I hope you weren't referring to obvious throwaway or single-purpose accounts. Please behave like a reasonable person here. This 80% in the lede is a non-starter and the 2% is not an outlier. – Roscelese ( talk ⋅ contribs) 03:28, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Roscelese: I am not a single purpose account and I am not the one behaving unreasonably here. The 2% rate was NEVER scientifically proven, more than one reliable source shows higher rates than 10%, and 80% is actually the rate of false rape accusations emerging from such allegations made in the context of divorce in my country. So, either we mention outliers on both extremes in the lead or we leave out statistics alltogether from that section and only state rates with each specific study. Otherwise it is biase, a deliberate attempt to dismiss false rape accusations as statistically irrelevant, which is not the case. Isananni ( talk) 04:00, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Roscelese: The same can be said about you. The present rephrasing clearly states that a 2-10% is a generally agreed rate but at the same time does not dismiss higher rates from perfectly reliable sources as urban legend. It respects WP:NEUTRAL (while this was not the case before), and encourages the user to read further in the article to discern the different studies that have been reported so far, hoping for further contributions. What exactly is your problem with all this?!? Where exactly is wiki policy not respected in allowing for a wider and neutral perspective? Isananni ( talk) 19:15, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Roscelese: you have moved from bordering harassment against me to being downright offensive. 1) as far as my interest for encyclopedia editing is concerned, you may note I was awarded a Good Article badge for my extensive editing on this article /info/en/?search=Richard_III_of_England so you’re not exactly addressing a naive beginner, while I understand you were implicated in canvassing and have not been awarded a similar badge yet. 2) I never implied every person convicted of rape is a Brian Banks, but it is a fact people wrongly convicted of rape like Brian Banks still exist (two were freed after 26 years in prison after a very belated recantation last May in the USA) and such cases do not add up to the data of cases filed as false allegations by the FBI after the initial investigations in the 2017 research, just like all the other cases that were proved to be false allegations based on evidence produced during the proceedings, and that by admission of the researchers themselves whom I happen to know personally aside from actually reading their paper and I am not aware you can boast either of these circumstances, you certainly do not seem to. As for the Asia Argento case, it is a fact that rape is not a universally agreed concept, national laws do differ on what is considered rape, marital rape e.g. is a very modern western world idea that is still not shared in several islamic countries as far as I am aware and this different approach based on cultural and legal differences would of course weigh in in any serious statistical study. How you can accuse me of pursuing any agenda by merely giving examples in the talk page when all I have done IN THE ARTICLE is curbing the blatant biase in the lead and rephrasing it in a perfectly neutral way (as well as adding the section on the 2017 research you do not seem to have objected) is beyond me. So far the only one pursuing an agenda seems to be you. Isananni ( talk) 05:56, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Martinevans123: could you PLEASE state your opinion on my latest edit? That would help avoid edit warring. It’s barely two lines to read. Thanks. Isananni ( talk) 10:30, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Martinevans123: I wasn’t shouting, I was begging, I am sorry I gave the wrong impression, but I am close to tears, with no one, mot even yiu, simply adding their opinion to a thread where I have been called names from nonsensical to unreasonable to pursuing my agenda with total lack of respect for my good faith. Why wait for the others to give your opinion Martin? Don’t you have an opinion of your own that you prefer to follow the others? What exactly is wrong with my edit stating both extremes of the percents in the lead? What? Isananni ( talk) 10:42, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
@ PeterTheFourth: could you please add your opinion? What exactly is wrong with my edit stating both extremes of the percents in the lead? What? I would appreciate it if one of you had the decency to tell me instead of hiding behind an unargued revert button. What is wrong with my perfectly neutral rephrasing of the lead? Isananni ( talk) 10:52, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
I think the visitor of this page would be better served with a more detailed explanation of what is understood under “false accusation of rape” instead of trying to find an average among studies where not one report is based on the same criteria and therefore cannot be compared to the others. In terms of percents of estimates given the different criteria, scope of the study, legal aspects etc. at best we don’t know, as this article in Bloomberg states https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-09-19/how-many-rape-reports-are-false.
I may be wrong, but I have a feeling many, including some editors and researchers, are under the delusion that a false rape allegation is such only when no sexual intercourse has occured. While this represents one of the instances, the other instance of false accusation of rape is when a sexual intercourse has indeed occured but one of the parties lies about the lack of consent on their part during the intercourse. This partiality may account for the dissent on at least part of the percents found in the different studies, which is why one cannot throw figures around without explaining exactly what they are based on, as one can do in detail only in the section dedicated to the respective study.
Another issue that would be useful to hint at in the lead and would probably be worthy of a section of its own is the motives behind such false accusations. So far we only have a few words about it in Kanin’s section, when there is more recent research about it https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313830325_Motives_for_Filing_a_False_Allegation_of_Rape
After all, I support editors Martinevans123’s and Lwarrenwiki’s opinion that percents do not belong in the lead in general and especially in this page, but there are other aspects to improve on. Isananni ( talk) 05:39, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
If you would research for 15 minutes rather than only 5, you'll quickly learn that 2-10% (as written in the lead) is documented but likely inflated. ● Those numbers come from police reporting that is volunteer based and without defined terminology, likely including reports that are difficult to substantiate but not proven false ( "False Reporting: Overview," National Sexual Violence Resource Center, nsvrc.org). ● For example, a study of 216 "false reports" found only 2 were proven false in an investigation ( Francie Diep, "What the Research Says About (The Very Rare Phenomenon of) False Sexual Assault Allegations" Sep 26 2018). ● On the flip side, only about 0.6% (6 out of 1000) of perpetrators of sexual assault end up in prison ([[ RAINN.org|RAINN.org]]). ● "Research shows that rates of false reporting are frequently inflated, in part because of inconsistent definitions and protocols, or a weak understanding of sexual assault. Misconceptions about false reporting have direct, negative consequences and can contribute to why many victims don't report sexual assaults" (Lisak et al., 2010, "False accusations of sexual assault: An analysis of ten years of reported cases," Violence Against Woman, 16, 1318-1334).
...(And that last quote is why it is SO IMPORTANT that we get this right--because most people will see those numbers before they see anything else on this Wiki page. And they will make up their mind that those are the percentages. And they may not read on after that, because they just came to this page wanting to know how often it happens--and now walking away thinking it's as high as TEN PERCENT?! (FYI, I was so upset by this misrepresentation--especially one that has direct consequences on the wellbeing of humans--that I chose to figure out how to write to the writers, pleading for an edit. I have NEVER, in fact, written on the talk page or edited a Wikipedia post before. So I'm sorry if my sources or my name aren't documented correctly.) ...Additionally, there are MANY good stats/quotes/takeaways that someone could excerpt from this article (too many for me to list here): "False Reporting," National Sexual Violence Resource Center, www.nsvrc.org. ...I also think the following should be stated before any stats: "Sexual violence is notoriously difficult to measure, and there is no single source of data that provides a complete picture of the crime" ( RAINN.org). Thanks for reading and considering. 09:57 Oct. 1, 2018 HHH-- 166.70.63.4 ( talk) 16:02, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
I blanked the #Germany section in the article because the assertions about it based on the Rostock police statement were not supported by the reference given.
former content of Germany section from the article
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In 2015 the Rostock police in Germany observed the false allegations had increased in number and claimed 80% of sexual attack allegations in the town were "faked ones". Chief Criminal Investigator to district Britta Rabe opinied the reason for faked allegations was in many instances the women trying to justify her mistaken conduct to her husband, friend or parent. [4] |
I blanked it because the WP section asserted that:
Since this article is about false claims of rape, and the entire paragraph rests on a source which says nothing verifiable about this, I removed the section. Consequently, since we have no reliable source for a figure of 80% of false reports in the body of the article, it cannot be included in the lead, either. Mathglot ( talk) 23:56, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
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Direct quote: "A false accusation of rape is the reporting of a rape where no rape has occurred. It is difficult to assess the true prevalence of false rape allegations, but it is generally agreed that, for about 2% to 10% of rape allegations, a thorough investigation establishes that no crime was committed or attempted.[1][2]"
I have no problem with the first sentence. The second sentence sets up the subject as "true prevalence of false rape allegations" which the reader will now presume will be addressed following the word "but". However there is a grossly disingenuous bait and switch here. Instead of countering the "true prevalence of false rape allegations", a new subject: "prevalence of provable false rape allegations" is substituted as if it is connected and applies to the first subject. It is LITERALLY connected by the word "but" except it does not apply at all and instead addresses an entirely new subject. This is cleverly done and results in nearly every media source in the world claiming that 2-10% of false rape allegations is the known rate. It is certainly not the known rate and it can be empirically proven to be far greater than 2-10%.
Furthermore the deception is continued at the header where the published studies are listed. The title is: "A selection of findings on the prevalence of false rape allegations." This is false and furthermore none of the studies except Kanin even claim to be measuring the prevalence of false rape allegations. This page is overflowing with errors, deception, and bias and I think it's worth going to war over I would respectfully ask for very specific replies to these criticisms and not more citation of policy or the claim that apples and oranges deserve to be treated the same way and that oranges are perfectly capable of conveying apple information.
Iwog (
talk)
21:11, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
This page is overflowing with errors, deception, and bias and I think it's worth going to war over"... please review WP:BATTLEGROUND. This, as it stands, is a non-starter imho. EvergreenFir (talk) 21:30, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Just stumbling by. (Was bored and had a look at recent edit wars.) If you peruse this talk page only and have a look at recent behavior by the Isananni account, this smells like tons of bad faith and even sockpuppetry. Just look at the User:Iwog account's contributions. Created only to support Isananni's position on this talk page.
If I cared enough to get an account, I would add Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Isananni | checkuser = yes | sock1 = Iwog
2.247.242.145 ( talk) 13:03, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Martinevans123: thank you for ackowledging my good faith. User Iwong remains an enigma, that does not make their points less worthy of attention. Isananni ( talk) 07:38, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Is this a serious discussion? I assure everyone speculating about this that I am not a sock puppet. Now that I've cleared the air of the attempted character assassination, can we please correct this page? I once again heard the false 2-8% citation given in the mainstream media. In this case on KGO radio San Francisco. I would like to point out that the Kanin study remains the only scientific research that attempts to estimate the TOTAL number of false rape allegations. Unfortunately it is being listed with a lot of research that does not attempt to do the same thing. This is extremely misleading to the point of being pure propaganda. ALL THE STUDIES THAT REPORT A RATE OF 2-8% ARE TALKING ABOUT PROVABLY FALSE ACCUSATIONS. They are not measuring TOTAL false accusations and in most cases the conviction rate WITHIN THE STUDY is only 5-10%. This means in every singe case except Kanin, over 80% of rape allegations are UNDETERMINED and neither provably true nor provably false. I would like someone.......anyone.......to reply to these specific criticisms and stop muddying the water. Iwog ( talk) 18:50, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Likewise it is also generally agreed upon only about 1 to 5% of total rape allegations will lead to a conviction by a court of law and can be presumed to be true. * "The Criminal Justice System: Statistics | RAINN". rainn.org. Retrieved 2018-09-27.*
@ Iwog: I do appreciate Kanin’s work but it’s too limited in scope. I agree percents do not belong in the lead, each percent must make clear what the underlying criteria of the study were, what country/legislation was being considered etc. and that’s simply too long for any lead. The lead should better specify what constitutes a false accusation, especially a false accusation of rape. However, your last edit was simply unacceptable. If a rapist escapes justice, it does not mean the allegations were false, and your source clearly spoke of perpetrators who escape justice, not of innocent people who are wrongly accused. Find a better source or hold your digits. Isananni ( talk) 20:26, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Iwog: What you're proposing is original research. There is nothing more to discuss about it. – Roscelese ( talk ⋅ contribs) 22:07, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
The determination that a report of sexual assault is false can be made only if the evidence establishes that no crime was committed or attempted. This determination can be made only after a thorough investigation. This should not be confused with an investigation that fails to prove a sexual assault occurred. In that case the investigation would be labeled unsubstantiated. The determination that a report is false must be supported by evidence that the assault did not happen. (IACP, 2005b, pp. 12-13; italics in original)
This clearly indicates "fails to prove" as a second (and totally ignored) category in the study. Thus inclusion of the word "Provable" is necessary to distinguish the cases identified in the study as provable false accusations as separate from unsubstantiated. You will discover that in no case, none, zero, zilch does any study on this page claim to be citing TOTAL or TRUE or ACCURATE false allegations. The only language you will ever see is provable, thoroughly investigated and determined to be false, unfounded, no-crime, and other descriptors which indicate cases that can be scientifically shown to be false. The VAST number of cases in every study on this list will openly admit to containing a large unknown. This makes both the opening paragraph and the cited conclusions for each study extremely bad summaries of each study and all of it should be stricken. Iwog ( talk) 05:32, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
Over the past few days, I removed content that cited sources that only referenced false accusations in a very small community. Their focus was too narrow to be generalizable or comparable to any other population. These were the sources and my reasons:
Please take this into consideration before posting more content that's vague, anecdotal and/or relevant only to a narrow population. Permstrump ( talk) 16:51, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
I can imagine the thought process for using the 8% stat for false accusations in the US in the lead. Even though it's a 20-years-old stat, it's cited in basically every paper on the topic and it’s the most recent official stat put out by US govt. However, even one of the studies that we used as a source for that figure contests its validity (Rumney 2006). And the FBI (2015) and DOJ (2011) acknowledge major issues with the data they've collected and published about crime rates. We do say in the lead that this is something difficult to measure, but I think that’s a pretty big understatement, especially considering the next sentence gives a stat from a presumably reliable source (the U.S. DOJ and FBI) without acknowledging the wide body of internal and independent sources that criticize that dataset specifically. These are some points that, IMHO, should be clarified or added in the lead (in a more concise way) so people can make an informed decision about how much weight they want to give the stats in the lead and the rest of the article.
I think making those nuances clear in the lead would give a more accurate picture of the fact that not only is it “difficult to assess the prevalence of false accusations,” it’s almost impossible to judge the accuracy of the UCR figures due to our inability to separate false accusations from the total number of false reports and the lack of empirical research supporting the UCR figures to begin with (Rumney 2006, Lonsway et al. 2009, Nolan et al. 2006, Sampson 2011, CJIS 2015, Marcotte 2013). I'm not so great at being concise though, so feel free to let me know which parts you think are extraneous/don't belong in the lead or better ways to word things. Permstrump ( talk) 00:50, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
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An unregistered user added a section about "America's Top Sex Crimes Expert" who apparently told Penthouse that "There are 4000 reports of rape each year in Manhattan. Of these, half simply didn't happen" (and other related content). I reverted because Penthouse clearly is not a reliable source for this (and because the addition had lots of other problems).
A shorter version has now been added. Penthouse is still the only source. I have responded to the user's comment on my talk page, but I'm not interested to edit war. The content still seems inappropriate to me, but I'll leave it to a third party to revert (and if it's inappropriate, it's also worth considering the same addition to the Linda Fairstein article). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 03:55, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
The MoJ entry edited Nov 20 made use of referenced statistics on the fractional incidence of false rape accusation and the number of rape reports to estimate an actual number of false accusations per year. Is that really considered "original research"? Wouldn't it be helpful to provide some real numbers instead of sterile percentages to help people evaluate the extent of the problem. After all, on a percentile basis murder is also an "insignificant" crime - and there are more false accusations per year than there are murders.
Is the editing out of this part of the MoJ entry an attempt to keep the false accusation issue well sanitized?
Removal of this section suggests a failure to abide by the neutrality pillar!
The impact of false accusations of rape and sexual assault have non-trivial consequences for the accused, their families and sometimes the community. The section included references to concerns raised in government sponsored reports and reports of two high-profile cases in which the victims described the traumatic experience of a false accusation. How is this "original research"? It seems to me that an "honest" contributor/editor would recognize that an account of the impact and challenges of a false accusation is a valid section for this page. It would inform more rational minds of the impact of false accusations and contribute to the dialog of how to approach the issue of false accusations in a way that maximises justice on both sides of this dreadful issue.
It also seems appropriate to use known and referenced statistics to attempt to estimate the numbers of people afflicted in the absence of better references.
Completely removing the section seem irresponsible and biased. If an editor disagrees, then let's work together to produce an improved and informative section rather that whitewash the entire issue out of existence. Make the issue available and let the community contribute.
Unfortunately, there seems to be very little referrable information on the topic, particularly on bail conditions, Social Services involvement, job loss etc. other than newspaper reports. The continued whitewashing and dismissing of an issue that impacts thousand of individuals per year and breaks up families discourages efforts at correcting this deficiency. If you feel concerned by the lack of citations, treat the section as other entries are treated - add a notice that the section lacks citations ... etc. etc.
~~~~
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It seems discussion is required of a passage describing the consequences of false accusations. Since I am unable to complete the section as it is undone as I am typing, here is the draft of the entire section. The references do not copy although many of them are in the removed versions I was in the middle of entering. Maybe someone would show some willingness to collaborate on an informative narrative instead of deleting everything before it is completed.
I also note that some of the 'dubious' references objected to were government publications. Are newspaper reports not considered valid references? Are newspaper reports quoting government ministers not considered valid references? I also note that many articles leave uncited material but add a note that a citation is needed rather than delete an entire section. Why is deletion the preferred option on this page?
The argument of 'original research' for deleting estimates of incidence are not well justified. The entire purpose of statistical analysis is to allow extrapolation of sample research to an entire population. That is precisely what I was doing. What is the objection to providing an estimate of the incidence of a crime? Rather than deleting such efforts, perhaps offer an improved calculation.
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Number of false accusations The most explicit analysis of rape in the UK appears to be the Ministry of Justice report which suggested that 12% of all rape accusations were suspected of being incorrect and that 3% of rape accusations were identified as 'malicious'. The figures seem roughly aligned with other reports described above. Using the conservative 3% figure and a conserative number rapes reported per year in the UK, ~30,000 https://www.statista.com/statistics/283100/recorded-rape-offences-in-england-and-wales-uk-y-on-y/ provides an estimate of 'malicious' false accusations of ~1,000. This does not include sexual assault which is about 3 times more prevalent. A recent research article suggested that 70% of allegations of sexual assault of a child in contested family law cases in the UK were false https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265346094_False_allegations_of_child_abuse_in_contested_family_law_cases_The_implications_for_psychological_practice. Consequences to Accuser Prosecution Individuals suspected of making a false accusation of rape may be charged with the civil crime of "wasting police time" or the criminal charge of "Perverting the Course of Justice" with a maximum penalty of life in prison.( http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/research/perverting_course_of_justice_march_2013.pdf http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/perverting_the_course_of_justice_-_rape_and_dv_allegations/) Over a five-year period ending in 2014, a total of 109 women were prosecuted for crimes related to making false accusations of rape.[ http://time.com/3613506/prosecuting-women-for-false-rape-allegations/. The report did not indicate the verdicts following prosecution.] Another report identified 121 charging decisions involving allegations of false accusations of rape and an additional 11 false allegations of both domestic violence and rape between January 2011 and May 2012 and found of these cases, 35 were prosecuted based upon false accusations of rape. A further 3 were prosecuted based upon charges of false accusations of both rape and domestic abuse. The report did not indicate the verdicts following prosecution. http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/research/perverting_course_of_justice_march_2013.pdf These numbers of prosecutions for false accusations, together with the above estimates of false accusations per year suggets a prosecution rate for false accusations of less than 2.5%. Compensation All individuals who claim to be victims of sexual abuse are entitled to awards under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) regardless of the outcome of the police investigation. Compensation for a single incident of rape is £11,000. ( https://abuseandassaultclaims.co.uk/criminal-injuries-compensation-calculator/). Payments are made regardless of arrest or convictions of perpetrators and are difficult to recover from the false accusers. 'Nick', the discredited false accuser of 'Operation Midland is reported to have retained £50,000 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/09/operation-midland-police-helped-nick-claim-compensation-for-fals/. Jemma Beale who falsely accused 15 men, one of whom was convicted and jailed for almost 3 years received £11,000 that has reportedly not been recovered http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/03/fantasists-lied-sex-abuse-allowed-keep-compensation/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_fb. Accused Two categories of misdirected accusations of rape are recognised. Accusations motivated by malice and 'inadvertent' accusations due to a number of reasons such as 'misremembering' and psychological issues. From an investigative point of view all accusations are treated in the same way and there are widespread concerns that current investigative policies place an unjust burden on those who are falsely accused and upon their families. Investigatory Bias There is a police policy that investigators of crime reports 'believe the victim' ( http://www.college.police.uk/News/College-news/Pages/College_comments_on_belief_of_victims_-.aspx, https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/wp-content/uploads/crime-recording-making-the-victim-count.pdf). Serious concerns have been raised that this position has been unfairly biases the investigation in favour of the accuser, placing the burden of proof upon the accused to prove their innocenceWalker and Starmer, 1999. In the Elish report, Dame Elish stated "‘always believing’ the complainant may prejudice the impartiality of the officer’s role and lead to their failing to recognise or give weight to other evidence inconsistent with the complainant’s account." ( http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/equality/vaw/dame_elish_angiolini_rape_review_2015.pdf - para 222) The recommendation in these documents go on to state.... "Our guidance on investigating these allegations calls for a thorough investigation of the facts. It is the credibility of the evidence, not solely the victim, that should be investigated”, concern has been expressed at the apparent misinterpretation of this directive by some investigators. Dame Elish stated "It was, however surprising to hear the suggestion made in several focus groups, that it is police policy for officers always to ‘believe the victim’. It was clear too that this understanding caused resentment amongst some officers, especially when it led to a perception that they must continue to investigate cases regardless of whether or not the allegation was true, while being required to suspend disbelief(para 220 p 57)( http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/equality/vaw/dame_elish_angiolini_rape_review_2015.pdf). Metropolitan Police Chief confirmed this ( https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/18/police-watchdog-criticises-met-chiefs-comments-on-sexual-abuse-policy) and the same article quoted Sir Tom Winsor, head of the police watchdog HMIC was quoted as saying that the directive applied only to recording the crime and not to the entire investigation. Sir Richard Henriquez in his report to the Metropolitan Police Service states (para 1.24) "The effect of requiring a police officer, in such a position, to believe a complaint reverses the burden of proof. It also restricts the officer's ability to test the complainant's evidence"( http://nyenquirer.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/HENRIQUES-Report-Independent-Review-of-the-Metropolitan-Police-Services-handling-of-non-recent-sexual-offence-investigations.pdf). Lord Finkelstein, writing in The Times stated "The new principle is dangerous not just because it defies common sense. The real problem is that the police don't seek the truth, they construct cases. Starting with a rock-solid assumption that the victim is indeed a victim and the victim's story is correct, the temptation is strong to fit the facts to the story rather than test the story with the facts.( https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/destroyed-by-false-accusations-of-child-abuse-ljhv2w5q3) Personal impact A 2013 Huffington Post article quoted then Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer " "Where false allegations of rape and domestic violence do occur however, they are serious - reputations can be ruined and lives can be devastated as a result. This sentiment is also echoed in the Henriques and Elish reports. The most comprehensive report of the impact of false accusations of sexual assault perhaps comes from the Oxford Center for Criminology which reviewed the available literature and reported their analysis of interviews with 30 individuals who described their experiences of false accusations The impact of being wrongly accused of abuse Hoyle , Speechley & Burnett et al. 2016 University of Oxford Centre for Criminology . Alleged offences against elderly people or children may require police to demand that the alleged offender remove themselves from the vicinity of their accuser. The police may also make a safeguarding alerts ( https://patient.info/health/safeguarding-children) which may require separation of the alleged offender from other 'at-risk' individuals such as children or the elderly, resulting in loss of a business or suspension if the accused works in a field involving these at-risk groups. If the accused lives with, or visits their own children, police are obliged to alert Social Services who often require the accused to move away from their family or restrict visitation rights, thus impacting the entire family of the accused. In the United Kingdom, the accused may also be added to the Home Office Disclosure and Barring Service(DBS).[31] These restrictions remain at least until the police case is terminated which may take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years. Social Services and other safeguarding restrictions may require a further hearing to meet their safeguarding requirements, since their criteria rely on the "preponderance of evidence" rules rather than the stricter "burden of proof" required by a criminal court. In some cases, even in a "he said, she said" case, organizations may decide to keep restrictions in place. Family life can be disrupted for years with negative impacts, particularly on young children. According to Webster (2005) "at least 10,000 former residents of care homes had made complaints by the end of 2004, with between 7,000 and 9,000 care workers having had accusations made against them: ‘Most of these care workers have not been charged with any offence, but many … had their lives blighted by false allegations. And in the last 15 years, as many as a hundred may have been wrongly convicted.’ (Webster 2005, p.550, and fn. 605)." Jensen and Jensen - ‘Hundreds more have been caught up in widespread police investigations and as a result have lost their professional reputation and personal standing. Lives have been shattered, careers have been lost and families have been torn apart.’ (Jensen and Jensen, 2011, p.iii) Curtis-Thomas - Their reputations have been blighted and even though we see them and their families emerge from the court looking happy, we know that the blight has not been removed, because beyond that court there are many organizations and authorities who will hold on to that reputation of guilt, making it impossible for an individual to return to a life. That sort of injustice, which is not covered by legal redress must remain a huge concern to all of us that there can be these organizations who still treat you as guilty and will affect their lives forever.’ (Curtis-Thomas, 2012)
The psychological impact of a false accusation has been widely publicized in media reports of some celebrity accusations.[32][33] It is further underlined in the Oxford Centre for Criminology report..... "Formal investigations, whether in a civil or criminal context, are harrowing for the accused person, and may result in immediate suspension from work and temporary restrictions on contact with children, and a record of having been reported and investigated, which can cause longer term damage to employment prospects and relationships. For cases which result in a guilty verdict, the punishment will be a lengthy period of imprisonment. When a defendant continues to assert their innocence, there will be added deprivations and barriers against privileges and parole." Stigma and vilification The stigma attached to being accused of abuse cannot be underestimated. It was a prevalent theme in each account. Stigma arose in two forms. First, from the actions and comments from others, who actively judged and excluded them, causing them to feel 32 shame and hurt. p 31 stigma was also generated within the accused themselves; the combination of abhorrence at what they had been accused of, and their inability to fully clear their name, caused extreme pain and embarrassment. At the broadest level, loss of self-confidence and ruined personal and professional reputation significantly affected the participants. p 32 Collateral damage to family and friendship circles Research suggests that one of the greatest effects of wrongful conviction is damage to significant relationships (Grounds 2005, p.34). Experiences of estrangement (even from those who have fully supported them) and resulting feelings of guilt are not uncommon (Jamieson and Grounds, 2005, p.173). In some cases, this can result in the breakdown of marital relationships (Grounds, 2005, p.32). There are considerable financial burdens accruing from this but loss of earnings is not the sole consequence; the wrongly accused may also face steep legal fees, the loss of a home, and financial pressure on their partner. For many, the loss of a vocation they had trained for and worked at for years caused multiple other harms. In our view, the cumulative impact of these interviews is both shocking and immense. It is widely accepted that to be described as a paedophile will be damaging. However, until we conducted this study, we had little grasp of the extent to which a false allegation is likely to affect every aspect of a person’s life, psychological, material and physical. Most of the participants, it should be recalled, were able to refute the accusations made against them at a relatively early stage of the legal process. Despite this, their lives were, to put it simply, wrecked. A survey by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers of 685 of its members found in 2015 that 22 per cent of school and college staff had been the subject of a false allegation of abuse by a pupil (Association of Teachers and Lecturers, 2015). |
189.172.136.72 ( talk) 06:03, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
"The entire purpose of statistical analysis is to allow extrapolation of sample research to an entire population. That is precisely what I was doing."And that is exactly why this would be WP:SYNTH. I've not delved into the wall-o-text, but it seems like you're compiling your own list of statistics. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:21, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
Number of false accusations The most explicit analysis of rape in the UK appears to be the Ministry of Justice report which suggested that 12% of all rape accusations were suspected of being incorrect and that 3% of rape accusations were identified as 'malicious'.Who says that this MoJ report is the most explicit analysis of false accusations of rape? What sources back up that claim? If it "appears" to you to be the most explicit analysis, then that claim is original research. Are there any secondary or tertiary sources that single out this MoJ report as particularly in depth, accurate, or notable?
The figures seem roughly aligned with other reports described above.Again, "the figures seem roughly aligned" to whom? Whose voice is this statement being made in? If this alignment is something you yourself recognized without a source to back it up, then this is original research. Are there any sources that analyze multiple reports on false accusations and compare their results?
Using the conservative 3% figure and a conserative number rapes reported per year in the UK, ~30,000 https://www.statista.com/statistics/283100/recorded-rape-offences-in-england-and-wales-uk-y-on-y/ provides an estimate of 'malicious' false accusations of ~1,000.Who is using that 3% number, applying it to the number of rapes reported in the UK and coming up with a "conservative" estimate of false accusations of rape? Unless it's a reliable source that makes this connection, you cannot use that number. It's original research and synthesis. Why the 3% number for malicious reports and not the 12% number for all false reports? Do the authors of that report claim their results can be extrapolated from their sample to the entire population of the UK? Do other sources back that up?
This does not include sexual assault which is about 3 times more prevalent. A recent research article suggested that 70% of allegations of sexual assault of a child in contested family law cases in the UK were false https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265346094_False_allegations_of_child_abuse_in_contested_family_law_cases_The_implications_for_psychological_practice.This study is about a very specific situation (children of parents who are involved in family court proceedings) and finds that many of the claims made by the parents against each other are false - they're claiming child abuse in order to gain leverage in legal proceedings. These results are not generalizable. Unless you have a very strong reliable source linking this study to the larger problem of false accusations of sexual assault, it really should not be in the same paragraph as false accusations in general, and probably shouldn't be in this article to begin with, since it's such a specific case. I think that should be obvious just from reading the summary of that study, since its main focus is educational psychology, not criminal justice. Here's where they describe the accusations in their sample: "Of the total sample of 107 children, no allegations of physical or sexual abuse had been made by either party in 70 cases (65 percent). Allegations had been made in 37 cases (35 per cent). Of these cases, 20 (54 percent) were of physical abuse only, 11 (30 percent) were of sexual abuse only and the remaining six (16 per cent) were of both physical and sexual abuse.... Of the 37 cases where allegations of abuse had been made, 26 (70 per cent) were found in Court or were judged on the best available evidence to be false." Even in this incredibly specific scenario, your claim "70% of accusations of sexual abuse are false" is not supported - they do not separate sexual abuse from other types of abuse, and additionally it's based on a sub sample of just 37 cases. This is not a study you can use for any kind of general statement on false accusations of sexual assault.
"The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject." Talk about a totally worthless expression of opinion... This is why so many people refuse to participate in Wikipedia, too many self-inflated "editors". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flybd5 ( talk • contribs) 15:05, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
I saw the notice, looking at the article, it would probably be good to add statistics from more countries.
I saw this article about research done in India
[1]
I think it would be a good idea to add to make the article a bit more 'international'?
AspiringCheetah (
talk)
06:34, 21 December 2017 (UTC)AspiringCheetah
References
The different studies here use different definitions of false accusation: particularly malicious accusations, prosecuted false accusations, and unintentionally false accusations. This deserves introduction and explanation. ( Pulu ( talk) 14:54, 29 January 2018 (UTC))
This article opens with a false sense of consensus on 2-10% rate of false accusations of rape. The numbers are all over the map and reflecting nothing like a 2-10% consensus. I'm particularly concerned that the highest statistics surveys reported here all show rates out of this range; Kelly et al. (N=2,643) 25%, McCahil (N=1,198) 18.2%, HMCPSI/HMIC (N= 1,198) 11.8%, UK Ministry of Justice (N= 1,149) 12%. (I'm not counting the Crown Prosecution Service report here because they have a very different criteria.) A statistics-weighted average of these gives a rate of 16.4%. A statistics weighted average of all studies listed in this article gives 15.7%, which again is outside of the 2-10% range. I charted the false rape accusation rates reported in this article vs their statistical power below. For lack of better options, I put the studies that don't report their statistics at a power of 0. The chart shows nothing remotely resembling a 2-10% consensus.
( Pulu ( talk) 15:15, 29 January 2018 (UTC))
The Tuerkheimer section does not address or discuss the subject of false accusation of rape, and should be moved to another page that addresses under reporting. Similarly, the first sentence in the National Sexual Violence Resource Center section. ( Pulu ( talk) 14:54, 29 January 2018 (UTC))
Hi, just noting that I reverted the addition of the percentage to the CPS section since none of the sources make that comparison. Other studies do, but not this one. We can't go emulating calculations by other studies unless this one has too. Stickee (talk) 23:16, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
Some of the other papers have also been calculatedWhich ones? Stickee (talk) 08:16, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
I propose removing the chart of sources from the "Rumney (2006)" section. None of the other studies have a chart like that and there's no reason to keep it for just one study. Additionally, the chart doesn't include enough information about any source to actually look it up, so it contains no usable information. This is due to the fact that the sources were copy-pasted from the original paper without actually bringing over the citations from the bibliography, which could also possibly be a copyright violation. Lastly, the study has been specifically criticized for its sourcing, so it's especially odd this is the only study that lists its sources with percentages in a prominent chart. Lonehexagon ( talk) 01:40, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
References
The current intro:
A false accusation of rape is the reporting of a rape where no rape has occurred. It is difficult to assess the prevalence of false accusations because they are often conflated with non-prosecuted cases under the designation "unfounded". However, in the United States, the FBI Uniform Crime Report in 1996 and the United States Department of Justice in 1997 reported that 8% of accusations for forcible rape had been determined through investigation to be unfounded.
It uses FBI's "unfounded" designation and statistics from 1995-97, which was not reported similarly across all police jurisdictions, and can include cases where the victim did not physically fight off the suspect, the suspect did not use a weapon, or cases where the victim had a prior relationship to the suspect. Additionally, this isn't an article about false rape accusations in the US, but in general, so it doesn't make sense to have 20-year-old FBI statistics in the intro. It's generally agreed as a range of 2% to 10%, so I feel like the beginning should be changed to this:
A false accusation of rape is the reporting of a rape where no rape has occurred. It is difficult to assess the true prevalence of false rape allegations, but it's generally agreed that rape accusations are false about 2% to 10% of the time.
I think that's pretty uncontroversial, and much more straightforward. Plantlady223 ( talk) 04:18, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
In regards to the "handy graph" added in this edit. I don't think it quite characterises the content is summarises. Plus there's the issue acknowledged with this edit:There are different definitions used to determine what constitutes a "false" accusation, including particularly malicious accusations, prosecuted false accusations, and unintentionally false accusations.. Furthermore the studies used in there are measuring vastly different things: some are estimates of overall rate, some are confirmed cases only, some are prosecuted cases only. For us to compare them like that is not only factually incorrect, but probably OR too. Stickee (talk) 12:26, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
When the article gives numbers, it should also give numbers for rape accusations made to police forces. No-one can prove the real reasons the women had when making or withdrawing the claims, and they must be taken simply as what their are: accusations made to authorities. Feminist questionnaries are not trustable there as they, and their handling is politically biased. The common sense tells many of the accusations were just malevolent tries to hurt the another side and if they didn't reach the stage of court, that doesn't diminish the try to lie.
The only trustable number we have is the claimed and court decided cases. The relation of those to all accusations made to police gives us the only reliable number for false accusations. And that is not 2% -- J. Sketter ( talk) 17:49, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
I simply fail to understand how many otherwise intelligently honest Wikipedia editors seem to think via the following line:
In real world we just can't know without a detailed examination (that's why we have courts) and the sensible attitude is to a attach probability to each case as 50%. Now the current dominating POW in the article and talk page seems to be that almost in every case the claims are made by real victims, only to withdrawn by some outer force. Like violent partner, family, lack of trust to authorities etc.
And these are backed up by questionnaries. As if a dishonest person would really confess their lies there. And not to whitewash themselves. Also studies made by feminists are not much more trustable in general. Again in the real world we know politically motivated science is not good or honest science. For start drawing conclusions from base of polls is a very difficult art. It might tell us more of the intentions of the replyee (as the subject of study is not any, say subatomic particle, but a human with own will and own motives). Most importantly it gives trends, and those it gives right. Whatever the reason behind the trend is. -- J. Sketter ( talk) 00:20, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
I would like to add this data from Germany to the article. The current version is:
A false accusation of rape is the reporting of a rape where no rape has occurred. It is difficult to assess the true prevalence of false rape allegations, but it is generally agreed that, for about 2% to 10% of rape allegations, a thorough investigation establishes that no crime was committed or attempted.
I would like to edit it by adding the following text about regional variations:
A false accusation of rape is the reporting of a rape where no rape has occurred. It is difficult to assess the true prevalence of false rape allegations, but it is generally agreed that, for about 2% to 10% of rape allegations, a thorough investigation establishes that no crime was committed or attempted. But this may vary by country and region, according to Chief Criminal Investigator Britta Rabe, 80% of rape allegations in Germany's Rostock don't hold up to scrutiny. [1]
Alternatively, it can also be added as: 1.14 Police in Rostock, Germany (2015).
Well, after thinking about it, I guess we should add it to Estimates of prevalence. Domen von Wielkopolska ( talk) 12:17, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
@ Roscelese: What exactly is off topic in my comment? a) that an article providing estimates on false accusations of rape in Germany does seem to belong in this page in the estimates of prevalence section? b) that the German word “vorgetauscht” in the headline of the article means “false”, not simply “baseless” or “not leading to a conviction due to lack of evidence”, hence the article seems to apply to the criteria of this page? c) that having estimates of prevalence from countries other than the USA would make this page more complete? Isananni ( talk) 18:10, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
I don't quite see what @ Bilby: means when saying we need better sources? The Finnish sources in question are: our national broadcast company, a respected daily newspaper and one tabloid. And of course in every three ocassion the Helsinki Police. All three articles from separate years 2009, 2010 (altho these 2 might be partially from the same statistics), 2014 follow a consistent view of the police. All in all they are reliable to present that exact stance. That doesn't mean all the accusations/reports were made maliciously, but do include eg. cases where the woman simply drank her memory and came to police to get the medical examination pass the queue. Just in case. And that is IMO quite acceptable use of tax payers money. When The Helsinki Police went to Facebook it was even slightly humorous about the subject; that IMHO tells that police itself was quite confident in it's ability to filter out also the liers.-- J. Sketter ( talk) 14:59, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
@ Bilby: higher rates were recorded in academical studies in the US too: Kanin's work is an excellent study, albeit coding an accusation as "false" only when the accuser ultimately admitted to lying, and the rate was 41%. We have similar rates of 40% accusations of rape being ultimately labelled as false in Italy after judicial reviews, with or without the accuser's recantation, a recantation that is not exactly to be expected even though it is desirable since we can all agree false accusations in general, not only false rape accusations, are a plague that destroys the victim's life, where the victims are the falsely accused and their families of course. Rates may vary according to location of course. It comes to me as no surprise that cities have higher rates of false accusations than smaller towns and villages since proximity makes it easier to unmask the lie. Rates can be also culture driven. The sooner civil rights for women were won in a country, the sooner someone started taking advantage of the system. I honestly do not see why an article reporting on a police study should not be considered a reliable source and why we should be afraid of reading higher rates for false rape accusations than propaganda feeds us. Isananni ( talk) 20:02, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
The HPD had observed, however subjectively, that many of the reporters 2008-2014 had drunk their memory or intoxicated themselves to point where actions to regret happened. The phenomenom had got so widespread that it pushed police to make several public pleas. The more women drink, the more often they come to the police station to make very uncertain claims of rape. This observation is worth of mentiong in itself (But hardly surprising nor unique, globally). I'm not sure what exact quantitative statements you did mean?
1) hardly controversial 2) yes, a statement of Mrs. Sgt. Vuento who had specialized in handling sexual crimes 3) not controversial as soon as we got to know what exactly "completely wrong" stands for in statistics.
"Can you provide some contrary evidence to demonstrate that police in Helsinki are considered authoritative on the subject of false accusations of rape and sexual assault?" This and much of the previous post of yours is just a try of wikilawyering. I already said a police force is clearly an expert on crime in it's area. I don't see any need to "prove" self-evident things. -- J. Sketter ( talk) 18:18, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I wish to add a line to the first paragraph as follows:
False accusation in regards to rape has been found to be 5 times higher than for most other offense types.
Source: The Prevalence of False Allegations of Rape in the United States from 2006-2010
Quote: "Approximately 5% of the allegations of rape were deemed false or baseless. That was at least five times higher than for most other offence types."
Thoughts?
Flamous7 ( talk) 16:36, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Iwog please discuss proposed changes here. WP:RS use that percentage range. EvergreenFir (talk) 20:46, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
No, you are wrong. The conclusions are being misread and misreported because you are not willing to dive deeper into the data. ALL ESTIMATES EXCEPT KAGEN are an attempt to find provable false allegations the exact same way that a trial attempts to find provable legitimate accusations. However the vast majority of allegations are neither proven or disproven so making any representation of a false accusation rate is extremely dishonest. I find it vile that you would support such bias in a Wiki article.
Again I'll ask you this question. If I lead the article this way: "95% of rape allegations do not result in a rape conviction" I could connect hundreds of credible sources and I would be technically correct. Would you allow it? No of course you wouldn't. Data about conviction rates are entirely missing from an article and why is that exactly?
In this spirit, I have prepared an additional paragraph that reads "The conviction rate for initial rape allegations is only around 5%." (numerous citations given) How could anyone complain about the inclusion of this data in a discussion ABOUT FALSE AND LEGITIMATE RAPE ALLEGATIONS?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iwog ( talk • contribs)
I'm writing about the actual evidence here, it's the current state of the article is making assumptions about the gaps. In this case, that ALL accusations outside of those few proven to to be false are true leading to the conclusion that the false rape report is 2-10%. Not only is this impossible considering the data but it EXCLUDES many of the studies listed on the page such as the ONLY study that actually attempts to quantify the ACTUAL number of false rape reports. I will give an example of how this reckless treatment of the data translates into the real world:
[2] "Fact: Only 2-8% of rapes are falsely reported, the same percentage as for other felonies."
This is simply a bald faced lie and comes directly from the reckless nature of this page and the bias that is created from the opening paragraph. There is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that the actual rate is under 10%. NONE! So why is such a paragraph being included if it's not to mislead and create bias? Iwog ( talk) 13:04, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
According to RAINN, a source that references FBI statistics, only 3.5% of rapes reported to the police result in prosecution. [3] Would I be justified in editing the Wikipedia page on the crime of Rape to preface with: "It is difficult to assess the true prevalence of legitimate rape allegations, but it is generally agreed that, for only about 3.5% of rape allegations, a thorough investigation will result in the prosecution for a crime." Can anyone explain to me why the exact same language is allowed on a page devoted to the crime of false reporting of rape?? Iwog ( talk) 13:51, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
@ Isananni: when you said "other editors" favored your 80%, I hope you weren't referring to obvious throwaway or single-purpose accounts. Please behave like a reasonable person here. This 80% in the lede is a non-starter and the 2% is not an outlier. – Roscelese ( talk ⋅ contribs) 03:28, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Roscelese: I am not a single purpose account and I am not the one behaving unreasonably here. The 2% rate was NEVER scientifically proven, more than one reliable source shows higher rates than 10%, and 80% is actually the rate of false rape accusations emerging from such allegations made in the context of divorce in my country. So, either we mention outliers on both extremes in the lead or we leave out statistics alltogether from that section and only state rates with each specific study. Otherwise it is biase, a deliberate attempt to dismiss false rape accusations as statistically irrelevant, which is not the case. Isananni ( talk) 04:00, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Roscelese: The same can be said about you. The present rephrasing clearly states that a 2-10% is a generally agreed rate but at the same time does not dismiss higher rates from perfectly reliable sources as urban legend. It respects WP:NEUTRAL (while this was not the case before), and encourages the user to read further in the article to discern the different studies that have been reported so far, hoping for further contributions. What exactly is your problem with all this?!? Where exactly is wiki policy not respected in allowing for a wider and neutral perspective? Isananni ( talk) 19:15, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Roscelese: you have moved from bordering harassment against me to being downright offensive. 1) as far as my interest for encyclopedia editing is concerned, you may note I was awarded a Good Article badge for my extensive editing on this article /info/en/?search=Richard_III_of_England so you’re not exactly addressing a naive beginner, while I understand you were implicated in canvassing and have not been awarded a similar badge yet. 2) I never implied every person convicted of rape is a Brian Banks, but it is a fact people wrongly convicted of rape like Brian Banks still exist (two were freed after 26 years in prison after a very belated recantation last May in the USA) and such cases do not add up to the data of cases filed as false allegations by the FBI after the initial investigations in the 2017 research, just like all the other cases that were proved to be false allegations based on evidence produced during the proceedings, and that by admission of the researchers themselves whom I happen to know personally aside from actually reading their paper and I am not aware you can boast either of these circumstances, you certainly do not seem to. As for the Asia Argento case, it is a fact that rape is not a universally agreed concept, national laws do differ on what is considered rape, marital rape e.g. is a very modern western world idea that is still not shared in several islamic countries as far as I am aware and this different approach based on cultural and legal differences would of course weigh in in any serious statistical study. How you can accuse me of pursuing any agenda by merely giving examples in the talk page when all I have done IN THE ARTICLE is curbing the blatant biase in the lead and rephrasing it in a perfectly neutral way (as well as adding the section on the 2017 research you do not seem to have objected) is beyond me. So far the only one pursuing an agenda seems to be you. Isananni ( talk) 05:56, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Martinevans123: could you PLEASE state your opinion on my latest edit? That would help avoid edit warring. It’s barely two lines to read. Thanks. Isananni ( talk) 10:30, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Martinevans123: I wasn’t shouting, I was begging, I am sorry I gave the wrong impression, but I am close to tears, with no one, mot even yiu, simply adding their opinion to a thread where I have been called names from nonsensical to unreasonable to pursuing my agenda with total lack of respect for my good faith. Why wait for the others to give your opinion Martin? Don’t you have an opinion of your own that you prefer to follow the others? What exactly is wrong with my edit stating both extremes of the percents in the lead? What? Isananni ( talk) 10:42, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
@ PeterTheFourth: could you please add your opinion? What exactly is wrong with my edit stating both extremes of the percents in the lead? What? I would appreciate it if one of you had the decency to tell me instead of hiding behind an unargued revert button. What is wrong with my perfectly neutral rephrasing of the lead? Isananni ( talk) 10:52, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
I think the visitor of this page would be better served with a more detailed explanation of what is understood under “false accusation of rape” instead of trying to find an average among studies where not one report is based on the same criteria and therefore cannot be compared to the others. In terms of percents of estimates given the different criteria, scope of the study, legal aspects etc. at best we don’t know, as this article in Bloomberg states https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-09-19/how-many-rape-reports-are-false.
I may be wrong, but I have a feeling many, including some editors and researchers, are under the delusion that a false rape allegation is such only when no sexual intercourse has occured. While this represents one of the instances, the other instance of false accusation of rape is when a sexual intercourse has indeed occured but one of the parties lies about the lack of consent on their part during the intercourse. This partiality may account for the dissent on at least part of the percents found in the different studies, which is why one cannot throw figures around without explaining exactly what they are based on, as one can do in detail only in the section dedicated to the respective study.
Another issue that would be useful to hint at in the lead and would probably be worthy of a section of its own is the motives behind such false accusations. So far we only have a few words about it in Kanin’s section, when there is more recent research about it https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313830325_Motives_for_Filing_a_False_Allegation_of_Rape
After all, I support editors Martinevans123’s and Lwarrenwiki’s opinion that percents do not belong in the lead in general and especially in this page, but there are other aspects to improve on. Isananni ( talk) 05:39, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
If you would research for 15 minutes rather than only 5, you'll quickly learn that 2-10% (as written in the lead) is documented but likely inflated. ● Those numbers come from police reporting that is volunteer based and without defined terminology, likely including reports that are difficult to substantiate but not proven false ( "False Reporting: Overview," National Sexual Violence Resource Center, nsvrc.org). ● For example, a study of 216 "false reports" found only 2 were proven false in an investigation ( Francie Diep, "What the Research Says About (The Very Rare Phenomenon of) False Sexual Assault Allegations" Sep 26 2018). ● On the flip side, only about 0.6% (6 out of 1000) of perpetrators of sexual assault end up in prison ([[ RAINN.org|RAINN.org]]). ● "Research shows that rates of false reporting are frequently inflated, in part because of inconsistent definitions and protocols, or a weak understanding of sexual assault. Misconceptions about false reporting have direct, negative consequences and can contribute to why many victims don't report sexual assaults" (Lisak et al., 2010, "False accusations of sexual assault: An analysis of ten years of reported cases," Violence Against Woman, 16, 1318-1334).
...(And that last quote is why it is SO IMPORTANT that we get this right--because most people will see those numbers before they see anything else on this Wiki page. And they will make up their mind that those are the percentages. And they may not read on after that, because they just came to this page wanting to know how often it happens--and now walking away thinking it's as high as TEN PERCENT?! (FYI, I was so upset by this misrepresentation--especially one that has direct consequences on the wellbeing of humans--that I chose to figure out how to write to the writers, pleading for an edit. I have NEVER, in fact, written on the talk page or edited a Wikipedia post before. So I'm sorry if my sources or my name aren't documented correctly.) ...Additionally, there are MANY good stats/quotes/takeaways that someone could excerpt from this article (too many for me to list here): "False Reporting," National Sexual Violence Resource Center, www.nsvrc.org. ...I also think the following should be stated before any stats: "Sexual violence is notoriously difficult to measure, and there is no single source of data that provides a complete picture of the crime" ( RAINN.org). Thanks for reading and considering. 09:57 Oct. 1, 2018 HHH-- 166.70.63.4 ( talk) 16:02, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
I blanked the #Germany section in the article because the assertions about it based on the Rostock police statement were not supported by the reference given.
former content of Germany section from the article
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In 2015 the Rostock police in Germany observed the false allegations had increased in number and claimed 80% of sexual attack allegations in the town were "faked ones". Chief Criminal Investigator to district Britta Rabe opinied the reason for faked allegations was in many instances the women trying to justify her mistaken conduct to her husband, friend or parent. [4] |
I blanked it because the WP section asserted that:
Since this article is about false claims of rape, and the entire paragraph rests on a source which says nothing verifiable about this, I removed the section. Consequently, since we have no reliable source for a figure of 80% of false reports in the body of the article, it cannot be included in the lead, either. Mathglot ( talk) 23:56, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
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Direct quote: "A false accusation of rape is the reporting of a rape where no rape has occurred. It is difficult to assess the true prevalence of false rape allegations, but it is generally agreed that, for about 2% to 10% of rape allegations, a thorough investigation establishes that no crime was committed or attempted.[1][2]"
I have no problem with the first sentence. The second sentence sets up the subject as "true prevalence of false rape allegations" which the reader will now presume will be addressed following the word "but". However there is a grossly disingenuous bait and switch here. Instead of countering the "true prevalence of false rape allegations", a new subject: "prevalence of provable false rape allegations" is substituted as if it is connected and applies to the first subject. It is LITERALLY connected by the word "but" except it does not apply at all and instead addresses an entirely new subject. This is cleverly done and results in nearly every media source in the world claiming that 2-10% of false rape allegations is the known rate. It is certainly not the known rate and it can be empirically proven to be far greater than 2-10%.
Furthermore the deception is continued at the header where the published studies are listed. The title is: "A selection of findings on the prevalence of false rape allegations." This is false and furthermore none of the studies except Kanin even claim to be measuring the prevalence of false rape allegations. This page is overflowing with errors, deception, and bias and I think it's worth going to war over I would respectfully ask for very specific replies to these criticisms and not more citation of policy or the claim that apples and oranges deserve to be treated the same way and that oranges are perfectly capable of conveying apple information.
Iwog (
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21:11, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
This page is overflowing with errors, deception, and bias and I think it's worth going to war over"... please review WP:BATTLEGROUND. This, as it stands, is a non-starter imho. EvergreenFir (talk) 21:30, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Just stumbling by. (Was bored and had a look at recent edit wars.) If you peruse this talk page only and have a look at recent behavior by the Isananni account, this smells like tons of bad faith and even sockpuppetry. Just look at the User:Iwog account's contributions. Created only to support Isananni's position on this talk page.
If I cared enough to get an account, I would add Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Isananni | checkuser = yes | sock1 = Iwog
2.247.242.145 ( talk) 13:03, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Martinevans123: thank you for ackowledging my good faith. User Iwong remains an enigma, that does not make their points less worthy of attention. Isananni ( talk) 07:38, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Is this a serious discussion? I assure everyone speculating about this that I am not a sock puppet. Now that I've cleared the air of the attempted character assassination, can we please correct this page? I once again heard the false 2-8% citation given in the mainstream media. In this case on KGO radio San Francisco. I would like to point out that the Kanin study remains the only scientific research that attempts to estimate the TOTAL number of false rape allegations. Unfortunately it is being listed with a lot of research that does not attempt to do the same thing. This is extremely misleading to the point of being pure propaganda. ALL THE STUDIES THAT REPORT A RATE OF 2-8% ARE TALKING ABOUT PROVABLY FALSE ACCUSATIONS. They are not measuring TOTAL false accusations and in most cases the conviction rate WITHIN THE STUDY is only 5-10%. This means in every singe case except Kanin, over 80% of rape allegations are UNDETERMINED and neither provably true nor provably false. I would like someone.......anyone.......to reply to these specific criticisms and stop muddying the water. Iwog ( talk) 18:50, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Likewise it is also generally agreed upon only about 1 to 5% of total rape allegations will lead to a conviction by a court of law and can be presumed to be true. * "The Criminal Justice System: Statistics | RAINN". rainn.org. Retrieved 2018-09-27.*
@ Iwog: I do appreciate Kanin’s work but it’s too limited in scope. I agree percents do not belong in the lead, each percent must make clear what the underlying criteria of the study were, what country/legislation was being considered etc. and that’s simply too long for any lead. The lead should better specify what constitutes a false accusation, especially a false accusation of rape. However, your last edit was simply unacceptable. If a rapist escapes justice, it does not mean the allegations were false, and your source clearly spoke of perpetrators who escape justice, not of innocent people who are wrongly accused. Find a better source or hold your digits. Isananni ( talk) 20:26, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Iwog: What you're proposing is original research. There is nothing more to discuss about it. – Roscelese ( talk ⋅ contribs) 22:07, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
The determination that a report of sexual assault is false can be made only if the evidence establishes that no crime was committed or attempted. This determination can be made only after a thorough investigation. This should not be confused with an investigation that fails to prove a sexual assault occurred. In that case the investigation would be labeled unsubstantiated. The determination that a report is false must be supported by evidence that the assault did not happen. (IACP, 2005b, pp. 12-13; italics in original)
This clearly indicates "fails to prove" as a second (and totally ignored) category in the study. Thus inclusion of the word "Provable" is necessary to distinguish the cases identified in the study as provable false accusations as separate from unsubstantiated. You will discover that in no case, none, zero, zilch does any study on this page claim to be citing TOTAL or TRUE or ACCURATE false allegations. The only language you will ever see is provable, thoroughly investigated and determined to be false, unfounded, no-crime, and other descriptors which indicate cases that can be scientifically shown to be false. The VAST number of cases in every study on this list will openly admit to containing a large unknown. This makes both the opening paragraph and the cited conclusions for each study extremely bad summaries of each study and all of it should be stricken. Iwog ( talk) 05:32, 9 October 2018 (UTC)