The Myth of the False Rape Accusation
By: Rachael Hope
Tags: Justice, Feminism, Sexual Assault, Rape, Women

The Myth of the False Rape Accusation

Ignoring the probability that one side of the story is nearly always more reliable is foolish and unethical.

Photo by Fibonacci Blue via Flickr (cc)

When a man is accused of sexual assault in America, people bring up unbiased juries and reasonable doubt and proof. Despite the fact that it’s statistically proven that our justice system and culture don’t support the reporting or criminal prosecution of rapists, the most common reaction to accusations is to ask for proof. We tell survivors that they must go to the police and relive their trauma — police report, or it didn’t happen! We insist on arrest records and guilty verdicts.

We are looking at women who have been traumatized and violated and telling them they deserve less benefit and belief than the people who assaulted them.

In our culture, the norm is believing rapists and sexual predators and not their victims. What we are doing when we ask for those things is oppressing and diminishing women. We are looking at women who have been traumatized and violated and telling them they deserve less benefit and belief than the people who assaulted them. It’s time for it to stop.

In the several years since our current president was elected, the social and political climate has experienced some frightening regressions. From rollbacks of environmental protections to racist and bigoted policies and practices, we are losing ground. Even the most wary of us cannot help absorbing some of what is going on around us.

What does our president believe about sexual assault? That women are out to get men.

“It’s a very scary situation where you’re guilty until proven innocent,” Trump said about sex assault claims against men, including against his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Trump says it’s ‘a very scary time for young men in America’ “You could be somebody that was perfect your entire life, and somebody could accuse you of something.”

We live in a culture where not only do we not believe survivors, we actively convince to admit they made false accusations. We put our faith in the rapists rather than the people they harm, a behavior that is just not supported by empirical evidence.

The Myth of False Accusations

I don’t know a single woman who doesn’t have story after story about the astounding night we didn’t get raped, we count ourselves lucky when we get away without it happening. I am 39 years old, and frankly I am astounded that I haven’t ever been assaulted. I also hear a whisper in the back of my head telling me there’s still plenty of time.

When a man is accused of rape, the first response is usually about what affect those accusations might have on his life. Women in America spend our lives watching the Brock Turners and Kobe Bryants get away with violent, life-altering assaults because they have money, good grades, or the ability to make the wealthy richer. We are inundated with rebuttals about lack of proof, about lack of evidence, and about how if the accusations are false, it will affect him forever.

False Accusations are Extremely Rare

There’s one huge problem with this response: false accusations are so rare they’re practically mythical. FBI research shows that around 5 percent of rape cases each year are declared as unfounded, or baseless. Social scientists who rigorously examine police records in detail cite similar rates.

On top of that, estimates are that somewhere between 30–80% of rapes go unreported. The US Bureau of Justice Statistics suggests only 35% are reported to police, and some suggest that only eight to ten percent of women report their rapes to the police, leaving as many as 90% unreported. Women fear that police won’t believe them. We fear that it will do our own psyches more harm than good, and for the most part we are right. The system is broken.

The true rate of false reports in comparison to the total number of sexual assaults is likely closer to .002 to .008%. Yet, people scream for proof and suggest that victims should bear that burden.

Even if we are generous and assume the median, that a full 50% of rapes are reported, that cuts the number of false accusations down to 2.5%. A millenial has about the same odds of becoming a millionaire. There’s a 2% chance you’re walking around right now with an unruptured brain aneurysm. If men are going to be afraid of anything, the reality is that they are around 230 times more likely to be raped than to be falsely accused of raping someone else.

Realistically, the number of unreported rapes is likely much higher. Worst case, if 90% of rapes go unreported and up to 8% are false accusations, the true amount of false reports in comparison to the total number of sexual assaults and rapes is likely closer to .002 to .008%. Yet, people, especially men, scream for proof and suggest that victims should bear that burden.

This is why the justice system is inherently flawed in cases of sexual assault. It fails to recognize that the way we handle rape cases, the way we treat evidence in relation to the odds, and the expectations we have are completely unrealistic. Given the odds, if women say he did it, he did it. It’s part of the ingrained rape culture we live in that we refuse to recognize it.

When and how are false accusations made?

Even in cases where false accusations do happen, there are patterns and research that bear examination. Every available academic study has found that one of the most common kinds of false accuser are teenage girls who tells their parents they were raped to avoid getting in trouble. Other accusations stem from mental illness or revenge. False accusers tend to tell particular kinds of stories in particular ways.

False accusers almost never tell stories that could, by any stretch of the imagination, be seen as an innocent misunderstanding. In a study of false rape claims made to the Los Angeles Police Department, 78% involved claims of aggravated rape — assaults involving a gun or knife, gang rapes, and/or attacks resulting in injuries. source

These aren’t stay-at-home-moms and hard-working twenty-something students casually suggesting mundane assaults. People aren’t fabricating stories about date rape, assault at a frat party, or a partner who decided no wasn’t the answer they wanted. Most often, false accusers are people who have a history of fabrication and drama, who mix up details, and are doing it to serve a goal.

According to a 2017 report by the US National Institutes of Health, fake accusers “were primarily motivated by emotional gain. Most false allegations were used to cover up other behaviour such as adultery or skipping school”. source

This is all to say that the evidence tells us two things. One, false accusations of rape and sexual assault are very, very rare. And two, the common, everyday accusations are not the type of allegations that are generally made up.

Our Broken Culture and Ineffective Justice System

We can’t talk about rape without talking about another set of odds. Men accused of rape are highly unlikely to ever face punishment or real consequences. Victims of sexual assault must live with the aftermath of the violation for the rest of their lives, all the while knowing that there is no recourse.

Graphic provided by RAINN

The numbers, the facts, the evidence: none of it supports this strange patriarchal vision of a world where evil women run rampant, ruining man after man with false rape accusations and unwarranted prison time. The evidence suggests that what’s really going on is a severe lack of improvement in the way our society treats rape victims, including the building of a system that supports or encourages reporting.

Verna Griffin-Tabor, CEO and executive director for the Center for Community Solutions in San Diego, says:

“What is playing out now nationally is what survivors locally have faced. They are being scrutinized and questioned when they are not the person doing the harm. With rape and domestic violence, we tend to blame the victim, which silences them and leads them to feel ashamed.” By perpetuating the idea that rape is the product of the vindictive, hysterical, unreliable female brain, the Victimized Male trope gives women yet another reason to keep their experiences under wraps.

All of this raises a very serious question: do rapists deserve to be viewed as innocent until proven guilty in a court of law? Should we be giving them the benefit of the doubt? Looking at the statistics, I’m not so sure. Society tells us that the feelings of men are far more important than honoring women’s experiences of violence and trauma.

Rape accusations are often dismissed as rumors, but that’s not an apt description. It’s not as if someone said, oh hey, I saw that guy act like a jerk at a bar or that you heard him swearing at an old lady. It’s not frivolous, it’s not common, and it’s not likely that these kinds of accusations are being made frivolously.

In her article on the Washington Post, Kristin VanderHey Shaw explains why she doesn’t worry about her son being falsely accused:

I am not afraid for my son. I am afraid he will have to deal with the repercussions of a girlfriend or a wife who is trying to get over a past assault. Scratch that. Statistics show it is highly likely he will fall in love with a survivor. I am afraid he will have a daughter or son who will experience rape. I am afraid people in our country will continue to mock, laugh at and degrade sexual assault survivors. But I am not going to be afraid he will be falsely accused. Odds are much higher I and any of my female friends and relatives will be assaulted again and again before our culture changes.

We need to stop acting like false accusations are just as likely as true ones. There is just no supporting evidence for that, and it’s our responsibility to recognize the facts. There may be two sides to every story, but ignoring the probability that one side is nearly always more reliable is foolish and unethical.

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