Anna at Dakota Women bites back in response to my earlier post. I quoted an article in Fox News about the more or less high percentage of false accusations behind rape convictions. I agree with a lot of what she says, and I admire the measured way that she approaches the evidence. But here are some responses. Anna says:
1. Linking to Fox News means you automatically lose this debate. Try an unbiased source please.
I hate to break this to you, Anna, but you and I are biased sources. Does that mean that nothing we write is worthy of consideration? I hope not, because in fact there are no unbiased sources. The American media in general is biased in favor of democracy, human rights, racial equality and the rights of women. I think this is a good thing. The New York Times is vehemently biased by hatred of George Bush. That doesn't mean that anything printed in the Times is "automatically" discredited. Perhaps you would like a media uniformly biased in favor of your own views, and that would be one without Fox News. I prefer a media biased in a lot of different directions, because that is what intellectual conversation is all about.
Anna says:
3. I think it's also important for Ken and others to think about the effect this kind of thing has on survivors of rape who are contemplating whether or not to report the crime to the police.
Yes. False accusations of rape make it harder to prosecute genuine cases. But surely the answer to this is not to be quiet about the former. Feminists have been very good at emphasizing what is so terrible about rape: the assault against the dignity of a human person, and the life long emotional damage it can cause. But exactly the same kind of injuries are inflicted on a man falsely accused of rape, along with the years of prison. It's important for both of us to think about both things.
Lastly, Anna says:
It is pretty clear that reports of rape are false at a higher rate than other crimes. But making a point of exaggerating those numbers, as McElroy does (and making a point of reporting those exaggerations, as Ken does), is a truly harmful disservice to women.
I think Anna is rather unfair to Ms. McElroy. The latter is doing exactly what Anna does, quite reasonably, in this remark:
2. This article (which is fairly old) seems to indicate that the number of false reports is higher than 2%, probably higher than the 8% statistic reported by the FBI, and less than the 20-40% statistic Ken is floating.
Both Anna and McElroy are trying to get a fix on where the truth lies, and it probably lies between the more extreme estimates. Contrary to the above, I "float" no statistics other than those advanced in the article. And here is Ms. McElroy's best estimate:
If the foregoing results can be extrapolated, then the rate of false reports is roughly between 20 (if DNA excludes an accused) to 40 percent (if inconclusive DNA is added). The relatively low estimate of 25 to 26 percent is probably accurate, especially since it is supported by other sources.
This estimate of false accusation, one in four, is higher than the vaguely greater than 8% that Anna proposes. But even if it is, say, 10%, that is a lot of innocent guys in the slammer.
We have here a classic conundrum of criminal justice: a system that convicts too many innocent people while providing insufficient protection to the victims. I hope we can do better, but we surely have to recognize both sides of the problem, even if one side presents itself at that terrible Fox News.
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