Comment by philwelch
4 years ago
How are these numbers even measurable?
> Less than 1% of rapes lead to felony convictions
We can measure the numerator here: it’s the number of felony rape convictions. But how do we measure the denominator? In some rape trials, the central question of fact is whether a rape occurred at all, or if the sexual encounter was consensual. If a rape trial leads to acquittal based on reasonable doubt over that question, is that alleged rape included in the denominator or not?
> Same article notes that between 2-8% of rape complaints are false.
So here’s a different question. If 2-8% of rape “complaints” are false, then clearly we aren’t counting these false accusations in the denominator for the 1% figure, are we? But what do we do with the cases we can’t determine with certainty either way?
One way of interpreting these numbers might be:
* 92-98% of rape accusations are not provably false.
* 1% of the remaining accusations are provably true. 1% of 98% is still roughly 1%, so we’ll round to 1% of all rape accusations are provably true.
* 91-97% of rape accusations can’t be proven.
Does this make sense? A 90% acquittal rate for rape cases? That seems way out of line with other criminal justice statistics. So at some point we’re including accusations that never even result in charges being filed due to lack of evidence, and possibly accusations that are never brought to the criminal justice system in the first place. In either case, this vast majority of cases is legally indeterminate: neither conclusively proven to be rapes committed by a specific suspect, nor conclusively proven to be false accusations.
We should also take into account that this number of false accusations is probably the number where this was clearly determined by the court, probably with legal repercussions for the accuser. The real number probably is higher
jfengel's comment was all about how the very high bar the criminal justice system sets for arrests/prosecutions/convictions for sexual assault is not the appropriate bar for the community to use to keep itself safe. So the low conviction rate is not helping you here.
My point is that there is scant evidentiary basis for any denominator for that 1% figure. The entire argument is an exercise in circular reasoning: you develop some methodology that results in 100 times as many rapes happening as we have rape convictions, and instead of questioning that methodology, we just assume that 99% of rapes don’t result in convictions?
Surely, there is a much lower burden of proof for this statistical methodology deciding that a rape occurred than there is for a court of law to determine that a particular rapist is guilty of rape. By what standard do you jump to the conclusion that the criminal justice system should lower the necessary burden of proof to incarcerate someone, and not that this statistical methodology should perhaps raise the burden of proof it requires? To be blunt, do you seriously think the American criminal justice system doesn’t incarcerate enough people?
It's a very appropriate bar to keep men safe from false accusations!