Almost half of all rape accusations are false.

Thanks for accepting the challenge! I'll start off by explaining certain caveats. Because there is still very little formal research on this matter and hence an unavailability of information on both parts, admittedly there is a huge burden of proof on my part. This will complicate pinpointing an exact figure as to what percentage we're really talking about. We'll have to deal with the scant data there is and try to make some educated guesses, and I believe the preliminary data we do have points towards my case being true. Since most studies have been conducted in the United States, the US will be in focus for this debate. We can venture to guess though that if this is the situation in US then it wouldn't be surprising if it mirrored the exact same situation in other western European countries and I for one would not be taken aback if it turned out the whole western world is struggling with a similar rate of false indictments. To begin with, Police identifies mental illness and sociopathy as causes for why women are making false claims. In fact, mental illnesses such as borderline and bipolar disorder is much more common among women than we have previously thought. 85% of people suffering from borderline personality disorder, BPD, are women and BPD affects 5.9 percent of the US adult population at some point in their life. Doing the math using official figures from 2014, that would mean that about 12.3 million of US women suffer from BPD: (1)(2). BPD is characterized by an inability to properly regulate mood, thoughts and self-image which can result in reckless and impulsive behaviours. Hence, we have approximately about 80-90 thousand reported rape each year and a pool of 12.3 million women. That's a ratio 0,65% and that's just counting BPD. I would argue that many women nowadays are very emotionally unstable and therefore prone to making false allegations when they feel push comes to show. now we do have a lot of false allegations than have come out in the open which gives us a hint of the wildly various reasons for filing false charges and the way they to about filing them. Many go to extreme lengths to fabricate pieces of "evidence" to frame the accused, such as using self-inflicted wounds as proof an assault has taken place. A woman claimed she'd been abducted at knife point while fueling her car, then being forced to drive into a wood under duress by chocking her with a bicycle security chain. Upon arriving he allegedly bound her to a tree while vaginally assaulting her with a box-cutter and lacerating her breasts and nipples. The wounds and marks that would indicate such an event taking place was inflicted by herself(3). That was just one example. Here's a list of 13 cases ranging from bizarre to the most jaw-droppingly trivial reasons (10). Another baffling case happened to Kyler Kust in the US who was accused by 13(!) colluding women/girls who made a joint false allegation against him(4). Thus I would submit that what I would call a "false rape culture" is indeed alive and well and very much socially acceptable by many women seeing the numerous and shocking cases I've brought forth. Coupled with this is a culture in which guilt is often presumed on the part of the accused even when there is strong corroborating evidence proving that a rape did in fact not occur. Those falsely accused even when exculpated will often have their reputation and lives destroyed. Often there is little to no repercussions for making false rape accusations and women's right groups want there in fact to be no legal repercussions whatsoever because they fear it would deter victims from stepping forth. It is more than the abundantly clear that as a woman you'll get a pass for maliciously levelling a false claim but as a man you are guilty until proven innocent (5). I would say that there is a "cover up" because negative presentation of women is viewed as sexist and is therefore shun from scientific scrutiny. Many people who work in the sciences can attest to it being the case, The scope of the problem is also "covered up" in the sense that police are not authorized to give an opinion as to veracity of claims brought forth unless the accuser freely admits herself (or himself) that the claim is false. Since law enforcement agency (LEA) forbids police officers "to use their discretion in deciding whether to officially acknowledge a rape complaint, regardless of how suspect that complaint may be" (6). Police will then classify it as "unfounded". The number of "unfounded" cases are 8% (7). These may be cases were there is no evidence or contradicting evidence but no official pronouncing of falsity. However, as shown by FBI statistics, of all the 90,427 forcible rapes that were reported in 2007 in United States, 40% were cleared by police either by arrest or "exceptional means" (8) and in 1996 over half were (7). In To clear a rape case by exceptional means means that "the known suspect dies before an arrest is made, when the victim refuses to provide the information or assistance necessary to follow an investigation through to an arrest, or when the known suspect is being held in another jurisdiction for a different crime and extradition is denied"(8). The first and third reasons as to why an "exceptional means" would be invoked are extremely rare and can be discounted when looking at the bigger picture, one in which women choose not to cooperate with police in order to pursue a verdict constitute the bulk of these said cases. Hence at the outset, about 50% of all rape cases are either not proceeded because police, medical and forensic examiners find no evidence and/or because women don't choose to cooperate with police. Even cases that go to trial where intercourse has occurred, these cases are also fraught with lies which gives a hint as to why few cases result in a verdict. Now preliminary studies indicate a much bigger problem than previously thought. When the US Air Force's Office of Special Investigations headed by Dr. Charles McDowell investigated rape cases of Airforce personnel on Air force bases throughout the world and found that 27% were false by admission from the accuser, usually after they were asked to take a polygraph test. Subsequently he developed a 35 criteria listing traits common among those had confessed to making up false claims, used to distinguish false accusations from genuine cases. Three independent judges later reviewed the remaining cases using the criterion. Only when they unanimously agreed did they determine a false claim. At the end of the day, the false rape allegation rate was 65%, 556 cases (9) Another study looked at 109 cases of forcible rape that in one small Midwestern city of 70,000 denizens between 1978 and 1987. This particular city was selected because the police department wasn't overly burdened with police cases and thus had the means to effectively go thoroughly through these cases in-depth. They constructed a unique and objective protocol to review the cases brought forth. Among one of the procedural precautions was to not use police discretion to clear a complaint even in they were to conclude that the accusation was suspect or unfounded. Every accusation had to be studied in-depth and always included a lie detector test to the accuser as well as the accused. Cases were only declared false if and when the accuser spilled the beans and conceded that no rape had occurred. 41% of the accusers admitted to it being false. (6). During a follow-up study a similar analysis was used to conduct investigations of all the cases of forcible rapes over a three-year period at two large Midwestern universities. Polygraph tests were not of the procedure, yet 50% of the complaints were found to be false. 53% of those cases were cited as the accuser needing an alibi(6). According to a 1996 department of Justice report ""in about 25% of the sexual assault cases referred to the FBI, the primary suspect has been excluded by forensic DNA testing". The DNA exclusion rate remained constant over several years. Also, 20% were found to be questionable if DNA was added. National Institute of Justice's survey of private laboratories also demonstrated consistent with FBI numbers a DNA exclusion rate of 26% (9). As a caveat this can however mean that the accusation was simply misplaced and the perpetrator wrongly identified. However, as of now there is no evidence to suggest that women as it pertains to any other crime misidentify 1 in 4 perpetrators. It is then more consistent with my multiple lines of evidence that would suggest a high percentage of those rape claims have been maliciously levelled, now proven not to have transpired at all. DNA alone is not proof alone that a rape has occurred so the true extent may in fact be much more commonplace. In many jurisdictions jurors are told that a conviction can be passed based on a litigant's testimony alone. Hence the recent use of DNA evidence have been useful in acquitting falsely accused men and releasing men from prison in fact. There's plenty more to say but let's trowel through more of that in the next round. 1.http://datacenter.kidscount.org... 2.http://www.medicalnewstoday.com... 3. https://leb.fbi.gov... 4. 5. http://www.avoiceformen.com... 6. http://sf-criminaldefense.com... 7. https://www.fbi.gov... 8.http://www.cotwa.info... 9. http://www.ipt-forensics.com... 10. http://thoughtcatalog.com...