22 September, 2014

How Many Rape Reports Are False? - Bloomberg View

How Many Rape Reports Are False? - Bloomberg View

A lot of statistics are floating around the Internet: Two percent, say many feminists,
the same as other crimes. Twenty-five percent, say other groups who
quarrel with the feminists on many issues, or maybe 40 percent. Here’s
the real answer: We don’t know. Anyone who insists that we do know
should be corrected or ignored.



The number of false accusations is
what statisticians call a “dark number” -- that is, there is a true
number, but it is unknown, and perhaps unknowable. For a deep dive into
the reasons it’s so hard to know, I commend you to Cathy Young’s new piece at Slate, in which she details all the problems that confound investigations into false rape accusations.