Are “false report” rape statistics being manipulated?

Our Lady of Perpetual Win, Stephanie Zvan, begins a painful but much-needed examination of rape myths, beginning with Rape Myth 1: “She’s Probably Lying.”

The standard figure passed around by victim advocates suggests a rate of false reports of 8% based on FBI crime statistics from 1997. This is comparable to rates for other crimes. However, citations can be found for rates as low as 1.5% and as high as 90%. In other words, huh? How do we deal with a range that big?

Luckily for those who want to sort out the truth of the matter, two papers came out in 2010 that shed considerable light by examining how false rape report rates are generated. David Lisak, Lori Gardinier, Sarah C. Nicksa, and Ashley M. Cote collected those prior studies that had the best (and most transparent) processes for sorting between false and merely unproven allegations. They also used a similar process for determining the rate of false reports of rape at a U.S. college.

Their results were interesting in two respects.

Find out how they’re interesting. You know you want to.

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Are “false report” rape statistics being manipulated?
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