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Comment by philwelch

4 years ago

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?