Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ahtman wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:I'd like to see this data.

Ok.

That made me smile and clap my hands.

Exalted.

biccat wrote:
Given this knowledge - that a false allegation of rape would almost never meet the standard for obstruction of justice - you still think that obstruction of justice provides a sufficient punishment for the false allegation?

I'll just quote the part of my previous post that you don't seem to have read:

dogma wrote:
I believe that you should be permitted to file a false claim, because it is extremely difficult to establish whether or not you knowingly did so; especially as regards something as emotionally traumatizing as rape. Further I cannot see any scenario in which making such a thing a crime does anything other than increase the rate at which rape goes unreported, or expands the actual work load on the justice system. As it is, any false claim of rape that makes it to trial will almost certainly see the claimant commit an existing crime in the course of pursuing the case.

biccat wrote:
Do you think that the real victim - the accused who had their life virtually destroyed by the false accusation - deserves some sort of state-administered justice, if only as a deterrent?

I don't think anyone deserves anything, you get what you're given, or what you can take; that's all.

I also don't think, as outlined above, that punishment for filing a false claim necessarily has any deterrent effect.

As for justice, what kind? Retributive? I'm not big on retributive justice. Insofar as the law is concerned I'm only interested in the net effect on society, and thus consider the establishment of what is legally wrong to be contingent on that consideration.

You're also assuming the worst case scenario, in which a person's life is severely impacted by a false allegation.

biccat wrote:

Hazardous Harry wrote:Just saying.

You're not going to win this.

Men are more abusive than women, everyone knows it. Any statistics that suggest the opposite are invalid.

Hazardous Harry wrote:Unfortunately in many cases, wielding a knife is not going to be viewed kindly by any officers on the scene.

EDIT: I'm not condemning women using weapons to defend themselves, just saying this is a possible explanation for the arrests.

You might have jumped the gun a bit there, I wasn't arguing anything of the sort.

dogma wrote:You're also assuming the worst case scenario, in which a person's life is severely impacted by a false allegation.

Respectfully, I think that's the most likely scenario of being falsely accused of rape, not the worst case.

I suspect being accused of murder holds less social stigma.

Melissia wrote:... use a weapon for self defense.

Apparently defending yourself from domestic abuse is domestic abuse.

Men don't need a weapon to defend themselves from domestic abuse. Most violent relationships are more two-way than a lot of women would like to believe.

dogma wrote:I'll just quote the part of my previous post that you don't seem to have read

I did read it. You're only addressing one side of the argument.

Does the risk of over-reporting (if false claims aren't punished) outweigh the risk of under-reporting (if false claims are punished)?

dogma wrote:As for justice, what kind? Retributive? I'm not big on retributive justice. Insofar as the law is concerned I'm only interested in the net effect on society, and thus consider the establishment of what is legally wrong to be contingent on that consideration.

Does the same reasoning apply to actual rapists?

dogma wrote:You're also assuming the worst case scenario, in which a person's life is severely impacted by a false allegation.

I think the damage to a person who is falsely accused of rape is quite significant. More significant than a person who is actually raped and accused of making a false accusation.

Ouze wrote:I suspect being accused of murder holds less social stigma.

As I've said before, I'd rather be falsely accused of murder than falsely accused of rape.

Your (?) point on prosecutor discretion is well taken, but doesn't really answer the question. Prosecutor discretion is important, but they should use that discretion wisely.

Joey wrote:

Melissia wrote:... use a weapon for self defense.

Apparently defending yourself from domestic abuse is domestic abuse.

Men don't need a weapon to defend themselves from domestic abuse. Most violent relationships are more two-way than a lot of women would like to believe.

Not according to the statistics I read. There are a lot of mutually abusive relationships, but they weren't the majority.

biccat wrote:
I did read it. You're only addressing one side of the argument.

Does the risk of over-reporting (if false claims aren't punished) outweigh the risk of under-reporting (if false claims are punished)?

I addressed the question that you asked, and then asked again. This balance of risks is a new question.

To answer, possibly. I suspect that the balance favors over-reporting, but without statistical evidence I can't definitively comment.

biccat wrote:
Does the same reasoning apply to actual rapists?

Yes. I only care about individual rape victims if I know them personally.

biccat wrote:
I think the damage to a person who is falsely accused of rape is quite significant. More significant than a person who is actually raped and accused of making a false accusation.

But likely less significant than the damage to a person who actually was raped, but refuses to come forward for fear of being convicted of false accusation.

Ouze wrote:I suspect being accused of murder holds less social stigma.

biccat wrote:
As I've said before, I'd rather be falsely accused of murder than falsely accused of rape.

Possibly, but that's a social issue. If people cannot see the distinction between being accused of a thing, and being convicted of a thing, then the issue is with their stigma, and not the law.

Moreover, if the key people in your life are willing to believe that you raped someone, then either you likely had issues with them that extended beyond the rape accusation. I mean, unless the case is particularly high profile, or made it to trial, I have a hard time believing it would have any material impact on your life.

Just call them Prick Up Artists.

you could sculpt apiece of poo into any form and claim any deity guided your hands and at least 1000 idiots will believe you

Melissia wrote:

Joey wrote:

Melissia wrote:... use a weapon for self defense.

Apparently defending yourself from domestic abuse is domestic abuse.

Men don't need a weapon to defend themselves from domestic abuse. Most violent relationships are more two-way than a lot of women would like to believe.

Not according to the statistics I read. There are a lot of mutually abusive relationships, but they weren't the majority.

It would depend on the definition of mutually abusive. If you mean situations where both paties gave as good as they got, or simply where both parties at one point or another acted violently the results would vary wildly.

dogma wrote:Moreover, if the key people in your life are willing to believe that you raped someone, then either you likely had issues with them that extended beyond the rape accusation. I mean, unless the case is particularly high profile, or made it to trial, I have a hard time believing it would have any material impact on your life.

A mere accusation (usually with an accompanying arrest and potentially an indictment) will be sufficient to convince most people of your guilt. People place way too much emphasis on this and simply assume you got off "on a technicality."

The harm to an individual extends far beyond "key people in your life." It also impacts future relationships, job prospects, and how you are accepted in the community. Rape cases are, not surprisingly, widely reported.

biccat wrote:

dogma wrote:Moreover, if the key people in your life are willing to believe that you raped someone, then either you likely had issues with them that extended beyond the rape accusation. I mean, unless the case is particularly high profile, or made it to trial, I have a hard time believing it would have any material impact on your life.

A mere accusation (usually with an accompanying arrest and potentially an indictment) will be sufficient to convince most people of your guilt.

I live in Texas where we hate criminal scumbags and want to put them on thor's fething throne, but even here that's definitely not true. Quite a few people have healthy skepticism of accusations even here.

Mind you, maybe in backwards places like the deep south it'll be like you say.

biccat wrote:
A mere accusation (usually with an accompanying arrest and potentially an indictment) will be sufficient to convince most people of your guilt. People place way too much emphasis on this and simply assume you got off "on a technicality."

Yeah, sure, if you get arrested or indicted you're likely to suffer personal consequences...but the person that provided the testimony which led to your indictment or arrest has also probably given a sworn statement, or been asked a series of relevant direct question by law enforcement.

biccat wrote:
The harm to an individual extends far beyond "key people in your life." It also impacts future relationships, job prospects, and how you are accepted in the community. Rape cases are, not surprisingly, widely reported.

The recorded number of rapes in the US in 2008 was a little over 90k. I don't recall 90k stories about individual rapes on the evening news, in newspapers, or on the internet, in that year.

High profile rape cases, like all high profile cases, are widely reported.

If what you're really worried about is damage to someone's reputation, then simply ban the release of names prior to trial.

dogma wrote:If what you're really worried about is damage to someone's reputation, then simply ban the release of names prior to trial.

That would never happen.

Accused rapists (who, I suspect, have a disproportionately high conviction rate, given the type of crime, victim, and evidence) have a surprisingly poor lobbying arm. No politician is going to get elected by promising to vote for "rapist-shield laws."

Melissia wrote:*shrug* Either way, the article itself said that female victims of abuse most often use weapons to protect themselves from a violent partner.

Thats what bayous are for... "I don't know what happened officer. He just disappeared."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ahtman wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:I'd like to see this data.

Ok.

Ahtman wins the thread.

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:*shrug* Either way, the article itself said that female victims of abuse most often use weapons to protect themselves from a violent partner.

Thats what bayous are for... "I don't know what happened officer. He just disappeared."

Dixie Chicks wrote:Good byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye, Earl!

Though I must say I prefer the Me First and the Gimme Gimmes version better.

biccat wrote:
That would never happen.

Accused rapists (who, I suspect, have a disproportionately high conviction rate, given the type of crime, victim, and evidence) have a surprisingly poor lobbying arm. No politician is going to get elected by promising to vote for "rapist-shield laws."

Broaden it beyond rape.

Don't permit the release of the names of the accused, prior to trial, under any circumstance. Call it the "Reputation Protection Act".

That would be very easy to get support for.

As to the conviction rate: it is noticeably higher than murder, but the arrest rate is much lower.

Monster Rain wrote:Surely the women involved bear some responsibility for consensual sex?

I don't think anyone needs to bare any responsibility for consensual sex, that's between those two and no-one else.

The issue is with the PUA community having a culture that dehumanises women, and likely makes the use of date rape drugs and the like more common.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

biccat wrote:Now I won't dispute that some of these sites (more at the link, and many of them really are vile) aren't exactly "tame" or include well-reasoned arguments. But the idea that any opposition to feminism, or the idea that false allegations of rape should be punished**, means a group is engaged in hate speech, or is a "woman-hating site" is absurd.

I don't think any organisation opposed to feminism is being branded a hate group, for the simple fact that not every men's rights group is being branded such by SPLC.

I do think the organisation is stretching things a bit with calling even the worst of these groups hate groups, but at the same time there is a very, very ugly misogynist streak through most of those sites, coupled with an across the board assumption of 'oh poor men under siege, who will take pity on us, our higher incomes and assumed position of dominance in society' and very, very little actual evidence of men as a group being treated more poorly than women.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

biccat wrote:No, not perjury. Perjury requires an oath. Simply lying to police.

Do you think that should be punished?

Yeah, it should be. And in most places making a false statement is punishable. The issue is that it is really, really hard to know if a girl is lying or not, which is why it's so hard to get a conviction in a rape case. And when it is so hard to get women to report and take part in a prosecution, then sending a women to jail because she lied is only going to make that harder. So it's just a plain old horrible situation all around in the end, and one that really isn't helped by making a fairly contrived men's rights argument.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

biccat wrote:A mere accusation (usually with an accompanying arrest and potentially an indictment) will be sufficient to convince most people of your guilt. People place way too much emphasis on this and simply assume you got off "on a technicality."

That said, a man with no record accused of rape is almost certainly not going to trial unless there is an immense amount of evidence. It needs a pattern of accusations before most prosecutors will go to trial. It's said that every man gets one free rape.

This isn't because society is full of women hating monsters, but because rape is a really hard thing to enforce.

It's just that, with that reality in mind, focussing purely on the issue of false accusation seems to be pushing an agenda.

dogma wrote:Broaden it beyond rape.

Don't permit the release of the names of the accused, prior to trial, under any circumstance. Call it the "Reputation Protection Act".

That would be very easy to get support for.

There are definitely elements to that idea that I like. While it's true that you can't recall 90,000 rapes in a given year, I'm sure that when an HR hiring manager, or prospective girlfriend, or hell just random co-workers google your name, it's going to come up with some sort of public record of it, and possibly not the vindication. Especially if the vindication is spun crappily, such as "jury fails to convict alleged rapist". This would protect against that sort of thing.

On the other hand, it would immediately beg the question on why other criminal suspects have less legal protection than rapsists, now. Shoplifting and DUI are also sort of embarrassing socially, shouldn't they also be protected?

Perhaps a middle road would be the return of the "innocent" verdict, as used in the Duke false allegation incident. I understand that declaring a suspect innocent is really rare; perhaps it should not be?

dogma wrote:Broaden it beyond rape.

Don't permit the release of the names of the accused, prior to trial, under any circumstance. Call it the "Reputation Protection Act".

That would be very easy to get support for.

Such legislation exists for a variety of crimes and situations around the world.

Maybe as a fun protest we can all hold our breath until they put some of the more radical feminist groups on the list. I've read some exceedingly hate filled rants around the web in my time.

On a more serious note, let the SPLC do what they want. Who cares? I don't live in the south, I am above the poverty line, I hate the law and am staunchly for Living on the Edge.... so they couldn't matter to me less.

Bromsy wrote:Maybe as a fun protest we can all hold our breath until they put some of the more radical feminist groups on the list. I've read some exceedingly hate filled rants around the web in my time.

There's some pretty out there feminist stuff, but it'd be a serious stretch to assume any of it has any chance of leading to actual violence against men. It is nowhere near as much of a stretch to think that a sufficiently misogynist group having a reasonable chance of someone acting on that.

On a more serious note, let the SPLC do what they want. Who cares? I don't live in the south, I am above the poverty line, I hate the law and am staunchly for Living on the Edge.... so they couldn't matter to me less.

Staunchly for Living on the Edge? The Aerosmith song?

In other news, the SPLC's name reflects its origins, not its present day mission.

Bakerofish wrote:

sourclams wrote:
Objectively, I simply can't be made to care about what piece of gak people do at the margin, likely to other piece of gak people.

heres the scary part about PUA... the techniques arent designed for those people that are easy to pick up in the first place. Being a smart, well rounded girl does not make you immune from manipulation. Heck it would even make you a target.

One of the big rules I learned as a Salesperson, the people who think they "can't be sold" were the easiest to sell.

Easy E wrote:

Bakerofish wrote:

sourclams wrote:
Objectively, I simply can't be made to care about what piece of gak people do at the margin, likely to other piece of gak people.

heres the scary part about PUA... the techniques arent designed for those people that are easy to pick up in the first place. Being a smart, well rounded girl does not make you immune from manipulation. Heck it would even make you a target.

One of the big rules I learned as a Salesperson, the people who think they "can't be sold" were the easiest to sell.

Really? Strong-minded stubborn men are as easy to sell to as ditsy women? I find that hard to believe.

sebster wrote:

Bromsy wrote:Maybe as a fun protest we can all hold our breath until they put some of the more radical feminist groups on the list. I've read some exceedingly hate filled rants around the web in my time.

There's some pretty out there feminist stuff, but it'd be a serious stretch to assume any of it has any chance of leading to actual violence against men. It is nowhere near as much of a stretch to think that a sufficiently misogynist group having a reasonable chance of someone acting on that.

On a more serious note, let the SPLC do what they want. Who cares? I don't live in the south, I am above the poverty line, I hate the law and am staunchly for Living on the Edge.... so they couldn't matter to me less.

Staunchly for Living on the Edge? The Aerosmith song?

In other news, the SPLC's name reflects its origins, not its present day mission.

Well, I thought the requirement for being a 'hate group' is that one of the defining characteristics of your group is well... hating something, not your ability to act on that hate.

Easy E wrote:

Bakerofish wrote:

sourclams wrote:
Objectively, I simply can't be made to care about what piece of gak people do at the margin, likely to other piece of gak people.

heres the scary part about PUA... the techniques arent designed for those people that are easy to pick up in the first place. Being a smart, well rounded girl does not make you immune from manipulation. Heck it would even make you a target.

One of the big rules I learned as a Salesperson, the people who think they "can't be sold" were the easiest to sell.

I dunno, It depends on the individual. I mean, I'm willing to agree that there are many people that think of themselves as being hard sells actually being easy sells.. But if for example, your a proper tight bastard like me due to needing to budget strictly in order to maintain a $1000 a month booze habit, I bet you wouldn't be able to sell me something I had no real use for.

Well, except for booze obviously.

Easy E wrote:

Bakerofish wrote:

sourclams wrote:
Objectively, I simply can't be made to care about what piece of gak people do at the margin, likely to other piece of gak people.

heres the scary part about PUA... the techniques arent designed for those people that are easy to pick up in the first place. Being a smart, well rounded girl does not make you immune from manipulation. Heck it would even make you a target.

One of the big rules I learned as a Salesperson, the people who think they "can't be sold" were the easiest to sell.

Really? I would think the ones that "can't be sold" weren't there in the first place.

The trick to sales is that it is not about $$$ for many people it is about values and needs.

Find what the target values, and you will be able to sell them. The trick is getting them engaged to reveal their values to you.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:
Really? I would think the ones that "can't be sold" weren't there in the first place.

Except most slaespeople go to the "client" and don't wait for the client to come to them.

I think from a policy standpoint, it's easier for men to avoid false charges of rape than it is for women to avoid being raped.

Maybe I'm missing the stories of ruined lives, but the most notorious false accusation case I can remember, the Duke Lacrosse case, involved not just a false accuser, but a crooked prosecutor.

Early on in college I got some advice from an older fraternity brother: "Dont' sleep with a drunk girl you're not already sleeping with." Dont' do that, and most of the ways you can get realistically charged with rape go way down.

At some point, filing an intentionally false report of rape is just something a crazy person does. We can criminilize it all we want, but it's like making pooping on a salad bar illegal: it's not going to deter anybody that would even consider it.