Crime Statistics > Forcible rape (most recent) by state

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Showing latest available data.

Rank States  Amount 
# 1   California: 9,212
# 2   Texas: 8,372
# 3   Florida: 6,475
# 4   Michigan: 5,269
# 5   Ohio: 4,548
# 6   Illinois: 4,078
# 7   Pennsylvania: 3,401
# 8   New York: 3,169
# 9   Washington: 2,746
# 10   North Carolina: 2,495
# 11   Georgia: 2,173
# 12   Tennessee: 2,142
# 13   Colorado: 2,076
# 14   Arizona: 1,941
# 15   Indiana: 1,835
# 16   Virginia: 1,792
# 17   Missouri: 1,764
# 18   South Carolina: 1,762
# 19   Massachusetts: 1,742
# 20   Alabama: 1,649
# 21   Minnesota: 1,645
# 22   Louisiana: 1,562
# 23   Oklahoma: 1,488
# 24   Arkansas: 1,308
# 25   Kentucky: 1,297
# 26   Kansas: 1,238
# 27   New Jersey: 1,237
# 28   Oregon: 1,195
# 29   Maryland: 1,178
# 30   Wisconsin: 1,131
# 31   New Mexico: 1,094
# 32   Nevada: 1,079
# 33   Mississippi: 1,000
# 34   Utah: 869
# 35   Iowa: 828
# 36   Connecticut: 636
# 37   Idaho: 587
# 38   Nebraska: 548
# 39   Alaska: 509
# 40   Delaware: 400
# 41   West Virginia: 389
# 42   Hawaii: 355
# 43   New Hampshire: 344
# 44   Maine: 339
# 45   South Dakota: 336
# 46   Rhode Island: 285
# 47   Montana: 269
# 48   North Dakota: 193
# 49   District of Columbia: 185
# 50   Vermont: 150
# 51   Wyoming: 140
Total: 92,455
Weighted average: 1,812.8
 Law Enforcement, Courts, and Prisons
U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2012

Table 314. Forcible Rape—Number and Rate: 1990 to 2009

[For year ending December 31. Forcible rape, as defined in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, is the carnal
knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will. Attempts or assaults to commit rape by force or threat of force are also included; however, statutory rape (without force) and other sex offenses are excluded]
Item
1990 1
2000 1
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
NUMBER
Total.
102,560
90,186
79,365
81,953
80,371
82,835
82,725
83,480
82,000
81,009
81,280
By force. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
86,541
81,111
71,626
74,570
73,483
76,015
75,930
76,773
75,545
74,901
75,720
Attempt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
16,019
9,075
7,739
7,383
6,888
6,820
6,795
6,707
6,455
6,108
5,560
RATE
Per 100,000 population. . . . .
41.1
32.0
32.7
32.9
33.10
33.10
32.50
32.10
30.80
30.10
29.80
Per 100,000 females. . . . . . .
80.5
62.7
54.7
56.0
54.40
55.60
55.10
55.10
53.60
52.50
52.30
1 2001–2009 contain actual reported data; no estimates or annual averages. It is noted that the estimations are considerably higher than actual reported values because estimations are performed against total U.S. population and not just female population.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Return A Master Files.
Table 313. Homicide Victims by Race and Sex: 1980 to 2007
[Excludes deaths to nonresidents of United States. Effective with data for 1999, causes of death are classified by The Tenth Revision International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), replacing the Ninth Revision (ICD-9) used for 1979–98 data. In ICD-9, the category Homicide also includes death as a result of legal intervention. ICD-10 has two separate categories for these two causes of death. Some caution should be used in comparing data. See text, Section 2]
Year
Homicide victims
Homicide rate 2
Total 1
White
Black
Total 1
White
Black
Male
Female
Male
Female
Male
Female
Male
Female
1980. . . . . . . .
24,278
10,381
3,177
8,385
1,898
10.7
10.9
3.2
66.6
13.5
1985. . . . . . . .
19,893
8,122
3,041
6,616
1,666
8.3
8.2
2.9
48.4
11.0
1990. . . . . . . .
24,932
9,147
3,006
9,981
2,163
10.0
9.0
2.8
69.2
13.5
1995. . . . . . . .
22,895
8,336
3,028
8,847
1,936
8.7
7.8
2.7
56.3
11.1
1996. . . . . . . .
20,971
7,570
2,747
8,183
1,800
7.9
7.0
2.5
51.5
10.2
1997. . . . . . . .
19,846
7,343
2,570
7,601
1,652
7.4
6.7
2.3
47.1
9.3
1998. . . . . . . .
18,272
6,707
2,534
6,873
1,547
6.8
6.1
2.2
42.1
8.6
1999. . . . . . . .
16,889
6,162
2,466
6,214
1,434
6.2
5.6
2.2
37.5
7.8
2000. . . . . . . .
16,765
5,925
2,414
6,482
1,385
6.1
5.3
2.1
38.6
7.5
2001. . . . . . . .
20,308
8,254
3,074
6,780
1,446
7.1
7.2
2.6
38.3
7.4
2002. . . . . . . .
17,638
6,282
2,403
6,896
1,391
6.1
5.4
2.0
38.4
7.0
2003. . . . . . . .
17,732
6,337
2,372
7,083
1,309
6.1
5.4
2.0
38.9
6.6
2004. . . . . . . .
17,357
6,302
2,341
6,839
1,296
5.9
5.3
1.9
37.1
6.4
2005. . . . . . . .
18,124
6,457
2,313
7,412
1,257
6.1
5.4
1.9
39.7
6.2
2006. . . . . . . .
18,573
6,514
2,346
7,677
1,355
6.2
5.4
1.9
40.6
6.6
2007. . . . . . . .
18,361
6,541
2,373
7,584
1,286
6.1
5.4
1.9
39.7
6.2
1 Includes races not shown separately. 2 Rates per 100,000 resident population in specified group. Based on enumeratedpopulation figures as of April 1 for 1980, 1990, and 2000; estimated resident population as of July 1 for other years.
Source: U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, Deaths: Final Data for 2007, Vol. 58, No.19, May 2010, and earlier reports. See <http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/nvsr.htm&gt;.

Hello SiDevilIam |

What Women Really Think

This Rape Infographic Is Going Viral. Too Bad It’s Wrong.

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Posted Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013, at 10:13 AM ET

664

Yesterday, under the headline, “The saddest graph you’ll see today,” Dylan Matthews at the Washington Post published this infographic created by the Enliven Project to put the legal issues around rape, its prosecutions, and concerns about false accusations into perspective. The graphic quickly made the rounds on Twitter and Facebook, but unfortunately, while well-intentioned, it is also misleading in significant ways that can be used to undercut its basic message, which is sound: that false rape accusations are rare.

The persistent myth that false accusations are common makes it incredibly difficult for victims to get justice—the overwhelming threat of being accused of making it all up to cover up for one’s slutty ways (see recently: Steubenville, Notre Dame, Cleveland) is enough to make women simply not report. Those who do report run a very high chance of never seeing a conviction, some because police drop the case on the slut-and-liar grounds and some because juries buy the defense attorney’s claim that the victim bizarrely preferred being publicly accused of being a slut and liar to quietly forgetting about a night of forced sex.

Sadly, the graphic meant to set the record straight on false accusations only confuses matters. Three major problems jump out:

The graphic assumes one-rape-per-rapist. Looking at the above picture, one might start to get the impression that every other man you meet is a rapist. Nearly one in five women have been raped, according to the latest substantive government numbers, and infographics like this might make people conclude therefore that one in five men is a rapist. In reality, a much smaller (though still troubling) number—an estimated 6 percent of men—are rapists. Your average rapist stacks up six victims. That’s hard to capture in an infographic, but could be clearer by just labeling the little dudes “rapes” instead of “rapists.” After all, the fact that most rapists are repeat offenders drives home how troubling it is that victims can’t find justice. If more rapists saw a jail cell the first time they raped someone, the number of victims would decline dramatically.

The graphic overestimates the number of unreported rapes. It’s hard to measure how many rapes go unreported, because, duh, unreported. Making it even harder to get an accurate count, a lot of rape victims don’t identify as rape victims, because it’s so stigmatized. Still, improved public education has made it easier for rape victims to report. RAINN (the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network), using government numbers, estimates that 54 percent of rapes go unreported. Tweaking the infographic to reflect this more conservative number wouldn’t make the image less convincing, but it would make it more accurate.

The graphic overestimates the number of false accusations. This infographic is intended to drive home how rare false accusations are, and yet, because of a simple error, it overestimates how many actually occur. The problem is that the Enliven Project conflates “false reports,” which only require the claim that a crime has happened, with “false accusations,” which require fingering a supposed perpetrator. This might seem like a small thing, but this report from the National Center for the Prosecution of Violence Against Women, which focuses in part on teaching law enforcement to understand and root out false reports of rape, is very careful to warn against conflating the two. In its list of potential indicators of a false report, the Center specifically singles out the lack of a named perpetrator as something to look out for:

To summarize material developed by McDowell and Hibler (1987), realistic indicators of a false report could potentially include:

• A perpetrator who is either a stranger or a vaguely described acquaintance who is not identified by name. As previously discussed, most sexual assault perpetrators are actually known to their victims. Identifying the suspect is therefore not typically a problem. However, victims who fabricate a sexual assault report may not want anyone to actually be arrested for the fictional crime. Therefore, they may say that they were sexually assaulted by a stranger or an acquaintance who is only vaguely described and not identified by name.

Emphasis mine. According to the document, 2-8 percent of reported rapes are false, but the number that are false accusations is smaller. Women who make false reports want sympathy, and as victims of real rapes can tell you, accusing a real man usually gets you very little.

As I said above, the Enliven Project has the best intentions and they’re on the right path. It is true that most rapes go unreported, that the public believes false accusations are exponentially more common than they actually are, and that a man’s chances of being falsely accused of rape are incredibly small. All these things are important to convey, and an infographic is a great way to do it. Just fix the graphic, and the public will learn a lot.

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rory
This will probably bring out the haters on both sides of the false-accusations issue, but I see people below endorsing the idea that false rape allegations are virtually unknown:Years ago, when I was in my early 20s, at least 3 different women seem to have spread false reports about me that had no basis in fact. To repeat: Zero factual basis. They never made formal accusations, and friends were too embarrassed on my behalf to tell me exactly what garbage they were saying about me. But evidently all 3 were making allegations of extreme sexual impropriety…when in fact I’d done nothing more than ignore or reject their sexual advances. Two of them had had crushes on me for some time (one had asked me out several times) and made one last attempt to seduce me just before I was graduating and moving on. When I dodged their somewhat clumsy advances, they went ballistic and behind my back began smearing me to any mutual friends who’d listen. The third wanted to trade sex for ‘A’ grades at a school where I was an administrator (and she just enjoyed slandering pretty much everybody else at the school behind their backs).So, though no formal charges of rape, three instances of slanderous allegations that must have been something along the lines of attempted rape. All three women were whackos; all of them were doubted by some of the people who heard them, maybe most; and all of them were believed at least initially by at least some of the people who heard the allegations. One of those three (whom I’d been warned about before I’d even met her – I wasn’t the first guy she’d hit on and then slandered in exactly this way) did my reputation lasting harm because several faculty members seemed to be naive enough to believe her poison.And for what it’s worth, I don’t think there was ever anything in my behavior towards anybody else that would have accorded in any way with the idea that I’d try to coerce anybody about anything. And yet too damned many people I knew fell into the trap, at least temporarily, of believing there had to be something or other in these allegations simply because the women were making them. If they’d accused me of mugging people in dark alleys, or beating puppies, or kiting checks, I doubt anybody would have believed them for a moment. But make an emotive charge like attempted rape, and a lot of people who should know better will suspend their normal caution and assume that the accusation can’t be completely false.
31 Seconds Ago
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SiDevilIam
You said it.
“According to United States Department of Justice document Criminal Victimization in the United States, there were overall 191,670 victims of rape or sexual assault reported in 2005. The U.S. Department of Justice compiles statistics on crime by race, but only between and among people categorized as black or white….Rape prevalence among women in the U.S. (the percentage of women who experienced rape at least once in their lifetime so far) is in the range of 15%–20%, with different studies agreeing with each other. (National Violence against Women survey, 1995, found 17.6% prevalence rate; a 2007 national study for the Department of Justice on rape found 18% prevalence rate….According to a statistical average over the past 5 years, about 10% of all rapes or sexual assaults in the United States are never reported to the authorities. For college students, the figure is 5%, noted in the Fisher, Cullen and Turner study cited above.
Despite a decline of 60% since 1993, the US still has a relatively high rate of rape when compared to other developed countries.
As well as the large number of rapes that go unreported, only 25% of reported rapes result in arrest. Many rape kits are not tested.
Source:wikipedia.org
Any rape is a bad news but making up numbers is not wise.
…and I am Sid Harth@elcidharth.com
42 Seconds Ago
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Mrs Duke
The 400 “unreported” claims is what becomes “sticky.”This is what the report qualifies as “rape or attempted rape” (copied directly from the actual study [BOHICA likes this.
Nimmt Gestalt
Wow … BOHICA like this in 15 seconds.LOLIdiot
40 Seconds Ago
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Morty Causa
Funny, how hard it is to accept how sloppy the law and the legal process is when it comes to sex crimes, and how hard it is to believe someone would falsely accuse someone (note, not intentionally falsely accused, but just falsely accuse). Yet, not to believe that flies in the face of what we believe as to other crimes and accusers as to other crime–and as to the insufficiency of evidence (we accept that eye-witness testimony can be wrong in many other instances, but not here).Wasn’t there someone who wrote to Prudence recently saying her roommate had drunken sex (she thinks) and is inclined to file rape charges. Yeah, it’s really hard to believe a person doesn’t seek the validation of society through its legal institutions–never happens.
BOHICA likes this.
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PhysicsGirl
How many people are saying that false accusations of rape never happen? I’ve not seen a single post that states this.
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Nimmt Gestalt
Yet another moron with the strawman argument that some supposedly deny the existence of false accusations.Again… nobody is denying that false accusations happen. That’s just the little voices in your head.The point is that they’re relatively rare compared to the wider problem of not reporting it.
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BOHICA
Cupcake, you’re not helping your cause. Lol
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Stellla
I think Morty Causa has the wrong end of the stick here, but he/she is no moron.
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TP
According to research published in 2012 in the journal Violence Against Women by former sex crimes detective Joanne Archambault and Kim Lonsway, Ph.D. of End Violence Against Women International, “5% to 20% of all forcible rapes are reported to law enforcement; of these reports, 7% to 27% are prosecuted and 3% to 26% yield a conviction.” This means that 74-97 of 100 rapists go free. The RAINN stat of 54% unreporting is inaccurately low. In his 2011 Senate testimony, Dean Kilpatrick, national statistician on the problem of rape, estimated the non-reporting rape at 80%. That seems much closer to the reality.
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Morning glory
But…but…you can’t say things like “a lot of rapists get off free”, or “a huge percentage of rapes go unreported and a rape report is probably legitimate”, or else you’re accusing ALL men of being rapists! (At least that’s what some of these comments imply to me…)
aka whoa whoa likes this.
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Barro
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Eric789
checkmate. we can all go home now I think.
14 Minutes Ago
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aka whoa whoa
Aren’t these four things also likely the cause of most rapes? C’mon now.
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Barro
BOHICA likes this.
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aka whoa whoa
This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue, and how these events take place.
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Eric789
I dont get the point of linking to words we all understand. just use the word maybe?
EMCH likes this.
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BOHICA
You’d be a great wingman. Nicely done.
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Barro
Men are wise to avoid accommodating women they just met anywhere in the US. Guaranteed there will not be any false rape allegations. Nip it in the bud…
BOHICA likes this.
7 Minutes Ago
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BOHICA
Barro, I was an Professonal Athlete player agent until I became tired of how dumb most wealthy professional athletes have become and the fantastic money wasn’t worth the aggravation. You’ll find that most agents of professional athletes and entertainers provide their clients with disclaimers and agreements for their new conquests to sign to protect them from false allegations. It’s very common now, sadly, but necessary. I made sure all my clients had them. Women target guys with money, it’s a fact.
3 Minutes Ago
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Barro
Just like people burn themselves with hot coffee at McDonalds and not some random diner. Note that all those cups warn the user that the coffee can be very hot.
BOHICA likes this.
1 Minute Ago
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NinjaofSin
I thought all false rape accusations stemmed from the guy not calling the next day.Or was it he stunk in bed?
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Barro
Inclusive in the Fantastic Four
BOHICA likes this.
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PhysicsGirl
Word salad!
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Stellla
It’s all the AquaNet. I told him to stop sniffing, but did he listen?
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Aoxomoxoa
I think something missing here is that many rapes do not result in convictions because rape is generally very hard to prove. Rapes usually happen behind closed doors, and there are often no witnesses. Unless there is physical evidence of violence, it often boils down to one person’s word against another’s.For that reason, a jury who acquits an accused rapist isn’t necessarily stupid, or buying some ridiculous story from the defense attorney as Marcotte says. And a prosecutor who declines to pursue a rape charge is not necessarily sexist. They may simply think that there is not enough evidence to reach the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard that is required to convict. And that’s not a failure of the system or of anyone in particular, it just reflects the reality that some crimes are hard to prove.
Eric789, Nimmt Gestalt and S like this.
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ebstarr
I mean…. there’s usually one witness. You know, the victim?
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S
Sure, but in a he-said she-said situation, it can legitimately be hard to say *beyond reasonable doubt* which person is telling the truth.
Aoxomoxoa, Eric789 and 1 more like this.
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Eric789
Its unfair that rape is such a hard crime to prove, no doubt. but its also difficult to change that if people are innocent until proven guilty.
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RedPanda
But XX-factor people would argue back that all men are rapists and all women are better and less likely to lie because they’re all, well, women. Conclusion, all rape reports should be true until proven false.
BOHICA likes this.
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S
Uh-huh. That’s exactly what she said.
Eric789 likes this.
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aka whoa whoa
Just because my stir-stick is handy: not all women are XX.
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RedPanda
No, most women are not. The majority of women are reasonable people that can think for themselves and see the world is not all about white-male oppressive patriarchy. But XX is a fringe group akin to all the “men-rights” crazies.
BOHICA likes this.
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MAC8
RedPanda, please go back to a basic biology class. Oh, and shut up.
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RedPanda
Uhm… what? Biology? What the hell are you talking about? You do realize that when I say “XX” I am referring to the name of the blog, “XX-factor”.
BOHICA likes this.
10 Minutes Ago
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MAC8
I sure do. but I’m pretty sure aka whoa whoa was referring to chromosomes…of which this blog is named.
aka whoa whoa likes this.
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RedPanda
Then it’s his/her fault, not mine. Read the discussion carefully. I start by saying “But XX-factor people…” and ‘aka’ replies with “…not all women are XX”.The fact that you’re telling me to shut up just because someone else’s error clearly says a lot about you. Keep it up tiger Wink
2 Minutes Ago
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Nimmt Gestalt
I have no idea what you believe Marcotte has supposedly said, but I otherwise agree that it’s hard to prove rape….. which is pretty much why Marcotte said they go unreported
Eric789 likes this.
22 Minutes Ago
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SlateSteve
She should link to the original studies. I have a problem with two things listed. first that the 6% rapists stat includes ‘attempted’ rapists (44 of the 120 students who answered yes out of the 1800 voluntary sample) and second that the CDC study includes as rapists the category of people who you only had sexual contact with because they wore you down or they seduced you with lies.one: http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/cache/documents… page 5 and 6two: http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf page 106
BOHICA likes this.
25 Minutes Ago
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RedPanda
Even assuming the information in the infographic is right, it is obvious how biased and misleading it is.First, the report claims that 2-8% are false accusations, but the infographic actually shows 1.96% (i.e. 2 out of 102 ‘reported cases). In other words, they had a confidence interval and decided only to show the lower bound (and did it wrong). That is irresponsible to say the least.Second, they plotted the false accusations in the middle of the unreported rapes/rapists. This implies that false accusations are part of the universe of ‘rapes’, instead of the universe of ‘rape reports’, which is obviously wrong, ill-intentioned and misleading. In other words, the graphic suggests that 1 in every 500 rapes is ‘false’, while the report says that 1-4 in every 50 rape REPORTS is false.I don’t know what is worst, the politics or the total disregard for quantitative soundness of the graph. And then internet feminists go and complain why do they get labeled “men-haters”.
BOHICA likes this.
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aka whoa whoa
It appears feminists get labelled as “men-haters” because of two things:1. Most people misunderstand feminism quite terribly.
2. Apparently many men (see this entire thread) have trouble admitting that issues which directly affect women more than themselves are somehow not valid on the whole.
TawdryHepburn, MAC8 and 2 more like this.
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Maquis de Suede
including feminists
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Mr. Person
Slate articles about how a man is perpetuating the patriarchy by telling his wife she looks beautiful without makeup and need not bother with it don’t exactly help either…..
BOHICA and aka whoa whoa like this.
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Nimmt Gestalt
Back when they had that lively debate about the feminist skeptic… these supposed masters of logic and reason were declaring… I kid you not… that feminism is some sort of supernatural believe system which will be, or has been, disproven by science.
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Morning glory
Gotta love the odd implications in your post.1. Trying to protect women = hating men.2. Your assumption that attacking rapists is attacking men. What?
TawdryHepburn, Willa Whisp, Amy, Nimmt Gestalt, Vanessa and 3 more like this.
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RedPanda
Gotta love your total lack of reading comprehension.
BOHICA likes this.
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Not-not-becky
Why don’t you read Neuro’s post, who understood the math behind Marcotte’s articles? You are complaining about something she didn’t write or assert, and jumping to conclusions based on personal obsessions.
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RedPanda
No, I am complaining about the infograph itself, its obvious bias and contradictory representation of data.Oh, and yes, my conclusions are based on my personal obsessions: statistics and good graphs.
11 Minutes Ago
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Nimmt Gestalt
While the data is inaccurate, it is at best trivial to throw about the indictment of bias, for what is more appropriately sensationalism……unless you want to make that the prejudice against rapists is somehow unreasonable and irrational.
5 Minutes Ago
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Neuro
In fairness to RedPanda, I thought the ‘false accusation’ people should be up in the top 100, too. Most of what else RedPanda posted today, though, I have a lot of problems with.
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9 Minutes Ago
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Neuro
Wanted to post a summary of the numbers in the graph and the revisions Marcotte suggested.Here are the numbers in the graphic:
2 people falsely accused
10 jailed rapists
30 trials against rapists
100 reported rapists
1000 total rapistsMarcotte’s argument is that the numbers should be closer to:
<1 person falsely accused
2 false reports (this number may be up to 8)
10 rapes that result in convictions
30 rapes that go to trial (including those that result in convictions)
100 reports of rape (including those that go to trial)
500* total incidents of rape (including the 100 that got reported)The difference that seems to be causing the most confusion: Marcotte points out that false reports are 2% (to 8%) of reports of rape but those false reports rarely attach someone’s name to the false report. Therefore, false accusations are much lower than 2% – 8%. Therefore, if the stickfigures in the graphic represent falsely accused rapists there should be only 1 (or less than 1) of them.*-I don’t know if this last number should be 500, 200, 800, or what, only that Marcotte argues that 9 unreported rape for every 1 reported rape is likely too high a figure.

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31 Minutes Ago
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Mr. Person
That reasoning doesn’t make sense. The real trouble with false reports and false accusations is the lack of a foolproof way to determine falsity.An unknown amount of false accusations that are false, are NOT found to be false because:- Misidentification coupled with lack of DNA evidence- (More rare) deliberate false identification with lack of DNA evidence.False can mean an incorrect accusation made against a specific person, whether intentional or an honest mistake. Only where there is good DNA evidence available can it be proven false.

That we have identified false accusations with DNA exoneration creates the inescapable conclusion that there are cases without good DNA evidence to prove or disprove the accusation. (This point ignores the further issue of consent).

And on the other hand, acquittal of the rape charge does not mean that the accusation was “false” – it may or may not have been – rather what it means is that there wasn’t enough evidence to convince 12 men and women to put someone in jail for a long time.

So her logic about the false accusations is faulty. The best we can say is “we really don’t know….”

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24 Minutes Ago
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Not-not-becky
He makes complete sense. You just didn’t read properly, not his post, and not Marcotte’s article. No-one is saying the number of false accusations is a known quantity, just discussing methodology.
14 Minutes Ago
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Mr. Person
You didn’t read my post. It makes complete sense.She has zero basis from speculating from her statistics that the number of false accusations must be lower in the manner Neuro described BECAUSE there is no way to verify which accusations were false across or cases.The number of reports that are also accusations may be lower than the number of reports that are not accusations, but you still need to have an accurate determinant of falsehood to say “therefore, the number of false accusations is probably X smaller than the number of false reports”And you can’t do that unless you have:(1) solid DNA evidence in all cases (it is not as common as you might think);

(2) solid evidence of consent or not, in all cases.

And we have very far from that.

Finally, wouldn’t you think it more likely that a false report would be made more easily than a false accusation?

The number of false accusations is indeed smaller. We just can’t say by how much, but she attempts to. that’s all.

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10 Minutes Ago
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Neuro
Hi Mr. Person,You wrote, “She has zero basis from speculating from her statistics that the number of false accusations must be lower in the manner Neuro described BECAUSE there is no way to verify which accusations were false across or cases.”That is incorrect.First, these aren’t Marcotte’s statistics, they are someone else’s statistics that Marcotte is reporting.Second, she’s reporting statistics compiled by researchers. That gives her a basis for the numbers she reports. Yes, the numbers may be flawed, but there is a basis for the estimates given.

5 Minutes Ago
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Neuro
The numbers aren’t perfect, but they are the numbers, and the problems you point out don’t take away from the critique Marcotte provided (or the summary I wrote up) of the graphic shown in this post.
11 Minutes Ago
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Lazlo
OK, let’s say that this <1 person is .5 persons.If that’s the case, then there will be one such person for every 200 reports.If false accusations make it to trial as often as accurate ones, then this stat will be the same for trials. But let’s assume that half of them are weeded out.That means that 1 in 400 accused rapists brought to trial is falsely accused.How many rape trials are there in the United States every year?

Think about it.

14 Minutes Ago
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Neuro
Okay, and?
12 Minutes Ago
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RB
This infograph went viral and is purposeful: it conveys a message and a very important one. I will assume a mass majority are not familiar with rape statistics…. yes, I am assuming. Just like Amanda is assuming we all assume it’s one rape per man(?) wha????????Are you anti-movement Amanda?Trying to debunk for a reason? Hmmmmmmmmm…. sadly, I don’t think your antigraph will go viral. And I think the infograph was so positive- Good for you Enliven Project… OH and GOOD JOB! How about them apples Amanda- rape information, viral….. um, a GOOD THING! (duh)
32 Minutes Ago
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Neuro
It’s good that information like this went viral, but it’s always better when the information that goes viral is unassailably true and correct.
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30 Minutes Ago
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Bill A.
Inaccurate information should _always_ be rigorously debunked, because if the good guys don’t do it, the haters and deniers will use uncertainty and doubt to their advantage.
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25 Minutes Ago
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Not-not-becky
Ha! WELL…Freak Show!!!
22 Minutes Ago
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MPSantiago
I’m really skeptical of the high number of unreported rapes. How are we defining this? If a girl and guy are smashed or stoned, have sex, they wake up not having remembered much of what happened, she doesn’t report this to the police but considers it rape, is that counted in the figures? Or how about instances where the girl changed her mind but was too afraid to say anything for fear of making him angry. Is that rape? Does anyone think these are rare occurrences?The problem with charts like this is that it doesn’t acknowledge the murkiness of identifying rape. It isn’t like murder or robbery. In cases of forcible rape or when a women is incapacitated it’s clear. But in cases where a man is just as drunk or high, or doesn’t in some way communicate that she’s not consenting, we can’t simply allow how a woman feels to dictate whether it was rape. The man also had to have known that what he was doing was wrong.
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38 Minutes Ago
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Nimmt Gestalt
How do we define rape?::head desk::I’m sorry I have to be the one to explain this to you: non-consent.There’s nothing murky about non-consent, no matter how many supposedly gray areas you can imagine. You either have it, or you don’t.There’s no middle ground between having consent and not having consent.

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36 Minutes Ago
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Eric789
when you are trying to prove knowledge of non-consent beyond a reasonable doubt, I think its naive to assume everything is so black and white.For instance – many people would agree if you are too drunk you cant consent. but how drunk? one drink? enough not to drive a car? everyone can say someone who is passed out or who cant talk or walk cant consent, but where the line is between one drink that that state might not be clear, especially to someone drunk themselves.
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31 Minutes Ago
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Mr. Person
And WHOOOOSH, the bat whistles right past the ball against for Nimmt.The situations he describes aren’t merely “consent or not”. They’re about waking up the next morning and neither person remembering what happened.[Edit: And this does happen. Case in point a Prudie letter not long ago was written by someone about their roommate. This roommate and a co-worker got utterly smashed, had sex, and woke up the next morning. In fact, it wasn't even certain they did have sex.The letter writer wanted to know whether what happened was rape. Dangerous thinking].
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30 Minutes Ago
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BOHICA
Mr. Person, I like the cut of your jib.
26 Minutes Ago
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aka whoa whoa
This idea relies on the idea that a guy who rapes women has moral compass enough to know what he’s doing is wrong, and not just the woman not “in some way communicating she’s not consenting.” (which is highly dependent upon his observation skills and her fear, perhaps)It appears the Penises win this one, as usual.
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35 Minutes Ago
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PhysicsGirl
From my experience, the situation you describe rarely results in a rape accusation. Yes it happens. Yes, people often regret it when it happens. But given the gauntlet that is run when a woman wants to accuse someone of rape, it’s rarely reported.
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32 Minutes Ago
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Morty Causa
First: people are falsely accused and wrongly convicted all the time. We know this happens. We know that it has to happen, given the nature of the process and the nature of human nature. There is also much evidence of this, and we readily accede to this proposition when it applies to non-sexual crimes. See the Innocence Project, for instance.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_ProjectSomehow, though, some people (usually people who have a dog in this hunt, even if it is only a class bias) think false accusations and wrongful convictions can’t happen as to sex crimes–at least when a female is the accuser and a male the accused. Why? Because, they say so, that’s why. Females wouldn’t lie about this and they can’t be wrong. Somehow, when it comes to sex crimes, human nature doesn’t matter, and the touchstones of the system are perfect (except that they have to favor females more). That doesn’t begin to pass the giggle test, and we do not accept such a standard when it applies to accusers in other areas of crime.Moreover, if, as the culture at this point holds, a false accusation can be a wrongful conviction, than the proposition that there are few false accusations amounts to nothing more than a feedback loop. How do we know he committed rape? Well, he was accused, wasn’t he? Convict him because women don’t lie as to these accusations.The unaddressed obvious question that should be the elephant in the living room is why are definitions of what’s a sex crime so loose and encompassing, and why does the legal process so favor the female accuser?

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41 Minutes Ago
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Honey Badger
The Innocence Project does terrific work.
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40 Minutes Ago
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Nimmt Gestalt
Because you say so?LOLThe statistics are not in harmony with your paranoid delusions.
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40 Minutes Ago
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Mr. Person
Don’t be so smug in your idiocy.An unknown amount of false accusations are NOT found to be false because:- Misidentification coupled with lack of DNA evidence- (More rare) deliberate false identification with lack of DNA evidence.False can mean an incorrect accusation made against a specific person, whether intentional or an honest mistake. Only where there is good DNA evidence available can it be proven false.

Just because you don’t want to believe that there aren’t any men in jail who did not commit the rape they were accused of does not make it untrue. He’s talking about people like you who seem to bridle at the mere suggestion that maybe there are people who were deliberately falsely accused, and those who were accidentally falsely accused.

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33 Minutes Ago
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aka whoa whoa
These things are likely true, and are unfortunate. However, it still stands that given the nature of the system, SOME men end up in jail innocently, while LOTS of women end up raped innocently, and are too fearful to report. In general, the statistics are not wrong.Again, unfortunate, but beside the point.
31 Minutes Ago
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Mr. Person
Well both the unreported and the false accusation statistics are wrong. The trouble is we cannot tell by how much each is wrong.
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29 Minutes Ago
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BOHICA
Stop that, Mr. Person, you’re using facts and that will make her feeble head explode thinking of how she wants to carve the penis of any male offspring she has.
25 Minutes Ago
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Eric789
Sure they happen. and sure its hard to tell how often. But that doesnt mean we cant also say there are many more cases where victims are afraid to come forward than those where people falsely accuse.I would be more concerned with false convictions anyway.
40 Minutes Ago
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Granny D
In the late 1950s my schoolteacher mother was raped by a man who offered to help her change a flat tire. In the process, her arm was broken and her four front teeth were knocked out. She memorized his license number and filed suit. it made the newspapers, and although the man was convicted and served a six month prison term, she lost her job. Her name wasn’t mentioned, but there weren’t that many teachers in town with broken arms and a bruised mouth. I, as her teen-aged daughter at the time, would hesitate to report a rape if it had every happened to me. Fortunately, it never did.
45 Minutes Ago
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Bill A.
Such are the halcyon days the conservatives would return us to with their white-washed nostalgia for the simpler times. There are plenty more stories where those came from, in my family, too.
19 Minutes Ago
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Nimmt Gestalt
Great analysis Amanda!!Alas… I don’t think i’d worry too much about the inaccuracies “undercutting” the message.The bigoted stupids who embrace the false accusation myth have already exhibited a complete divorce from both facts and reason.
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46 Minutes Ago
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Honey Badger
The false accusation isn’t a myth in Amanda’s case.
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43 Minutes Ago
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Nimmt Gestalt
I haven’t seen Amanda accuse anyone of raping her.You’re not the quickest learner, are you?
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41 Minutes Ago
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BOHICA
You’re the definition of crazy: Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.Honey Badger (and I) have proven you wrong repeatedly. I feel sorry for any man who is subjected to your shrill, irrational, histrionics.
35 Minutes Ago
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brendan
Marcotte did not accuse the Duke lacrosse team of raping Marcotte.
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32 Minutes Ago
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Nimmt Gestalt
All I’ve seen is one red herring after another, but please….If you’ve supposedly proven me wrong about something… I think we’d all be very amused to hear you actually say what it is.
31 Minutes Ago
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Jascob
“Alas… I don’t think i’d worry to much about the inaccuracies “undercutting” the message.”Yes, why worry about inaccurate data? It’s not like facts matter, only the message.
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41 Minutes Ago
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Nimmt Gestalt
Thank you for the strawman argument.Do any of you Marcotte haters ever make a point? Or are you just perpetual cowards running away from it all with your infinite regress of red herring stupidity?
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38 Minutes Ago
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Jascob
How is what I said a strawman, and what you said in reply not?
35 Minutes Ago
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Nimmt Gestalt
A strawman argument is a type of red herring in which you change the topic by misrepresenting what your opponent is talking about. It typically comes in the form of asserting something self-evident as if your opponent were arguing otherwise.For example implying that I’ve somehow declared the facts don’t matter. Clearly they do, otherwise you blithering idiots wouldn’t be changing the topic and attacking anyone and everyone who dares speak the truth.In away… strawman is giving you too much credit.This is more in the play-ground trash talk juvenile realm of ” I know you are but what am I”.
29 Minutes Ago
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