First, I should say that my account has been flagged for participating in a flamewar due to my responses in this thread. While crime in Sweden is a subject I am very much interested in, it seems my discussion of the topic is not appreciated on HackerNews. As I don't want to be banned, I will refrain from commenting any further in this thread - sorry.

There's something of an elusive aspect to this argument. When I say that Sweden is the regional leader for rape I mean that Sweden's reported rape count is higher than any other country in Europe. When you say that this is a "deliberate misreading" what you mean is that maybe, in some countries you can't name, they have different laws and reporting aggregations, and maybe those differences affect the reported numbers in ways you can't quantify, and maybe that means Sweden doesn't really have the most rapes in Europe. Yes, that's true, but not really meaningful. Maybe Sweden has more.

I'm sure you'll object to my characterization. Your Wikipedia source listed an expert saying that there were 16 countries in Europe who would aggregate multiple rapes into a single offense! But in reply, I would say that the paper[1] linked to doesn't name these countries and it is more than 20 years out of date (the paper cites a European Council that took place in 1999 for this claim). Sweden's laws regarding rape have changed in the last 20 years, have the laws of these other unnamed countries changed?

This is what I mean by being elusive. If you told me that in Sweden X would count as rape and in Belgium X would not be rape, then I'd google it and see if sources on Belgium law confirmed that X is not rape. Then I'd see if we could quantify how many rapes X contributed relative to Belgium, and so on. But instead, all I get from Swedish rape apologists is that there are some unknown countries and unknown ways that mean Sweden's apparently high rape statistics aren't really an issue.

Likewise, the incident you mentioned from 1993. Is that what you are saying explains the current rape rates? Does it explain part of it? Can you quantify it? Or is this just some other observation you can make to obfuscate the issue?

This is the same point with regards to trust in the police. Maybe trust in police contributes to a high rape rate, but you have absolutely no reason to think so. You just throw out "Maybe this" style speculation - and yes, maybe that's relevant, but you should probably try to figure out if it is relevant and how before just tossing it out as if it explained anything.

Again, I'm sure you'll object - you provided that statista link showing women trust the police. But did you even read it? "Also when it comes to the police's ability to solve crimes 19 percent of Swedish women and only 11 percent the men perceive that the police is doing a good job. But nevertheless, most of surveyed people stated that they are doing a bad job in terms of solving crimes."

19% of Swedish women think the police are doing a good job (from 2016) solving crime and most people think they are doing a bad job. So that is supposed to be evidence that Swedish women's faith in police drives them to report rapes more frequently than the rest of Europe? Huh? I'm not even sure how I should respond to arguments like this because first, it's less than half of what you need - you need to show that Swedish women trust police more than the rest of Europe, and second that trust in police drives rape reporting. This doesn't compare to the rest of Europe and it doesn't establish the connection to rape reporting. Second, the link itself says the opposite of what you use it to support - most Swedish women do not have faith that the police will do a good job.

Finally, you conclude by saying that you're not going to be my research while I just "Ask Questions". This is a fitting end because you again repeat left wing tropes without thinking about them. I am not "Just Asking Questions." I made a direct assertion, explained it, and supported it with evidence. Sweden is the regional leader for rape, the reported statistics of European countries confirm this. You, meanwhile, uncritically repeat the explanation from the Swedish government - which is, ironically, to "Just ask questions". Maybe one woman is getting raped a thousand times a year and that happens every year in Sweden. Maybe every other country in Europe multiplies their rape count by 0.01 before they report it. Maybe - yeah, I get it.

Well, since I'm "Just Asking Questions" anyway - do you think the fact that most Swedish rapists are foreign born[2] and that Sweden recently admitted hundreds of thousands of disproportionately male immigrants[3] from countries in the Middle East and North Africa, that typically have a lower regard for women's rights than Sweden, has more or less to do with Sweden's high rape rates than the counting and definitional things you can't describe?

1 - https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008713631586

2 - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45269764

3 - https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/europe-refug...