Hey, Can A Woman "Ask To Get Raped"?

Criticism

Critics of Kanin's report include David Lisak, an associate professor of psychology and director of the Men's Sexual Trauma Research Project at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He states, "Kanin’s 1994 article on false allegations is a provocative opinion piece, but it is not a scientific study of the issue of false reporting of rape. It certainly should never be used to assert a scientific foundation for the frequency of false allegations."

According to Lisak, Kanin's study lacked any kind of systematic methodology and did not independently define a false report, instead recording as false any report which the police department classified as false. The department classified reports as false which the complainant later said were false, but Lisak points out that Kanin's study did not scrutinize the police's processes or employ independent checkers to protect results from bias.
Kanin, Lisak writes, took his data from a police department whose investigation procedures are condemned by the U.S. Justice Department and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. These procedures include the almost universal threat, in this department, of polygraph testing of complainants, which is viewed as a tactic of intimidation that leads victims to avoid the justice process and which, Lisak says, is "based on the misperception that a significant percentage of sexual assault reports are false." The police department's "biases...were then echoed in Kanin’s unchallenged reporting of their findings."

Bruce Gross writes in the Forensic Examiner that Kanin's study is an example of the limitations of existing studies on false rape accusations. "Small sample sizes and non-representative samples preclude generalizability." Philip N.S. Rumney questions the reliability of Kanin's study stating that it "must be approached with caution". He argues that the study's most significant problem is Kanin's assumption "that police officers abided by departmental policy in only labeling as false those cases where the complainant admitted to fabrication. He does not consider that actual police practice, as other studies have shown, might have departed from guidelines."

Other studies

DiCanio (1993) states that while researchers and prosecutors do not agree on the exact percentage of false allegations, they generally agree on a range of 2% to 8%. Edward Greer (2000) estimates a much higher percentage of false accusations. Writing in the Law Review of Loyola of Los Angeles, Greer writes:

"Despite the difficulties in measuring wrongful accusations, there is indirect data available that is highly suggestive that far more than two percent of rape accusations are false. In a significant fraction of instances, the accusers recant their charges; in others, where no formal recantation occurs but where rape may have occurred, there are good reasons to believe that the accusation must nevertheless be wrong about the identity of the assailant. One illustration of this phenomenon are the instances where DNA testing has determined that the man actually imprisoned for rape after trial was not the individual the victim claimed was the assailant."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape

http://www.falserape.net/falserapeafa.htm


"We gave the accuser benefit of the doubt"-- USAF Investigator

Dr. Charles McDowell, formerly of the US Air Force's Office of Special Investigations, discovered that 27% of Air Force women who claimed they had been raped later admitted making false accusations of rape. The admission usually came when they were asked to take a lie detector test. With these admitted false accusations he was able to develop 35 criteria distinguishing false accusations and those known to be genuine. Three independent judges then examined the remainder of the cases. Only if all three reviewers independently concluded the original rape allegations were false did they rank them as "false." The total of false allegations became 65%.

The study was buried and Dr. Charles McDowell was ostracized and reassigned.

In an interview in the June 1985 issue of Chicago Lawyer, McDowell told Rob Warden, the editor.
Q: How was the model developed?
A: It is based on a study of 1,218 cases that were initially investigated as rapes. Of those, 460 were proven rapes, 212 were disproved allegations, and 546 cases remain unresolved.

Q: What were your criteria for classifying a rape accusation as disproved?
A: There was just one criterion. In each case, the victim ultimately admitted that the allegation was a hoax.

Q: All 212 of those cases are now admitted to have been false allegations?
A: Yes. That's the reason that we have a leftover category of 546 cases. My personal opinion, based on the evidence, is that many of those also are false allegations. but they are not admitted hoaxes, and we have not classified them as disproved. We have been extremely conservative in classifying an allegation as false for purposes of the study.

Q: What were your criteria for classifying an allegation as proved? Are these all convictions?
A: They're not all convictions. Some are, but the remainder are cases in which the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence support the allegation so strongly that there really is no other logical conclusion.

Q: Then your standard for classifying an allegation is false?
A: Definitely. If there was a margin for error, if there was any area in which we gave the benefit of any doubt, it was in favor of a rape."


40 percent of complainants eventually admitted that no rape had occurred in a 9-year study conducted by former Purdue sociologist Eugene J. Kanin. (Source: Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1994)
50 percent of accusers recanted their rape charges in a study of two large Midwestern universities by Kanin.
More than 25 percent of rape accusers admitted -- either just before they took a lie detector test or after they had taken and failed it-- that they had lied about the charges in a 1985 Air Force study of 556 rape accusations. A further investigation by independent reviewers found that 60 percent of the original rape allegations were false.
One in four rape reports were unfounded in a 1990 and 1991 Washington Post investigation in seven Virginia and Maryland counties. When contacted by the Post, many of the alleged victims admitted that they had lied.
In a 1996 Department of Justice study of 10,000 sexual assault cases analyzed with DNA evidence over the previous seven years, 2,000 excluded the primary suspect, and another 2,000 were inconclusive.
According to Linda Fairstein of the New York County District Attorney's Sex Crimes Unit, "there are about 4,000 reports of rape each year in Manhattan. Of these, about half simply did not happen." Source: Fairstein,'s book, Sexual Violence: Our War Against Rape
NOT ADMITTING IT is also a problem....

A woman has to admit that she lied in order for a rape charge to be determined as false, in most studies and in most courts and communities. Most, if not all, police departments will not declare a rape charge as false just because the complainant fails to pursue the charge or does not cooperate on the case, regardless how much doubt the police may have regarding the validity of the charge
This material was excerpted from "Research Shows False Accusations of Rape Common," by Marc Angelucci and Glenn Sack

Training Men And Women On Campus To 'Speak Up' To Prevent Rape
by Nancy Cohen
April 30, 2014

A White House task force on Tuesday recommended ways to reduce rape and relationship violence on college campuses, pointing to, among other things, programs designed to teach students to intervene before an assault happens.

One of the programs, known as "bystander intervention," is based on the idea that both men and women can interrupt behaviors to prevent sexual violence.

The training is designed to change social norms and encourage people to find ways to intervene.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, efforts to prevent sexual assault focused mostly on women. Young women were advised to change their behavior: not to drink too much, and to leave parties with someone they knew. But that didn't change men's behaviors.

Now, bystander intervention training is taught in colleges around the country, including at MIT, Michigan State University, University of Montana and Northeastern University in Boston.

Recently, students at Northeastern organized a "prevention festival," handing out chocolate ice cream, candy bars and pamphlets with statistics on sexual assault. According to the Centers for Disease Control, almost half of the women and more than a third of the men who've experienced sexual violence were first sexually assaulted when they were of college age. One in five female students will be victims of sexual assault on college campuses, says the White House task force.

Among those pledging their support is a group of men from the fraternity Phi Delta Theta. Daniel Asulin, a junior, says it's possible to intervene calmly.

"If something actually doesn't seem right or a guy's being a little too aggressive or something, just lean in and say ... 'Hey, man, like, why don't you just ease up a bit? Like, she doesn't seem to be going with it,' " Asulin says.

Bystanders can also turn on lights or shut off music at a party to interrupt unwanted sexual attention. They can distract or embarrass someone.

Research at Prevention Innovations at the University of New Hampshire has found that after students are trained in the bystander approach and exposed to a social marketing campaign, the students say they're using these skills and that they see intervening as their responsibility. But more research is needed to see whether bystander intervention prevents sexual assault.

Sarah Banis, a 20-year-old from Northeastern, describes how she intervened at a New Year's party. A guy was following and touching a friend of hers who had told him to leave her alone.

"I just turned around and I said, 'She already said no once, so why don't you just stop? Like, she's clearly not into it!' " Banis says. "That is exactly when actually he did stop and left her alone. All we have to do is speak up."

Banis says there are many ways to intervene without putting oneself at risk, but more people need to be trained.
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/30/308058438/training-men-and-women-on-campus-to-speak-up-to-prevent-rape

Biden urges men to be part of fight against campus rape
By Gabe LaMonica, CNN
Wed April 30, 2014

(CNN) -- After she was raped at Harvard, Madeleine Smith said that in her pursuit of justice she encountered people with good intentions who could not help her.

One in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, according to the National Institute of Justice, and Smith is not the only victim who has been stonewalled by what she called "archaic and misinformed policies."

Vice President Joe Biden, joining her Tuesday at an event at the White House on sexual assault on college campuses, said "We are never going to solve this epidemic until we get men involved."

In a video montage, Hollywood actors Benicio del Toro, Daniel Craig, Steve Carell, Seth Myers and Dule Hill join President Barack Obama and Biden to encourage men to be part of the solution for a new public service announcement on sexual assault that will air in movie theaters this May.

Biden said that in the neighborhood where he came from, "if a man raised his hand to a woman you had the job to kick the crap out of him."

White House advises colleges on how to combat rape

According to the "1 is 2 Many" campaign, which is coordinating the PSA release with the White House, young women ages 16 to 24 experience the highest rates of sexual violence at the hands of someone they know, so publicly announcing to Americans that rape is wrong, and a crime, is necessary.

"If she doesn't consent -- or can't consent -- it's rape; it's assault," says del Toro in the PSA.

"It's a crime. It's wrong," says Steve Carell.

But it's more complicated than that. In Smith's case, there were "definite good guys," the people at Harvard's Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response, and "definite bad guys," her attacker and the Harvard "faculty that gamed the system in order to support him." The real issue, harder to pin down, said Smith, is everyone else "who fell somewhere in between."

The White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault first alerted schools about their responsibilities to survivors of sexual violence in 2011. Under Title IX, schools had to address sexual violence in order to provide equal access to education. Schools failing to do so, like Tufts University, have been publicly cited.

Student activism takes many forms in fight to end campus rape

Now, the administration is highlighting the importance of having confidential advocates on college campuses. The hope is to clarify that not everyone on college campuses has a duty to report. Otherwise, says the task force, "a survivor quickly loses control over what happens next," a critical issue for advocates like Smith who emphasize the importance of returning control to survivors.

The task force Tuesday called for further training, saying "insensitive or judgmental comments -- or questions that focus on a victim's behavior (e.g., what she was wearing, her prior sexual history) rather than on the alleged perpetrators -- can compound a victim's distress."

In encouraging women to report sexual assault, and men to speak up, Biden invoked the film "Deliverance."

"I know what scene you remembered, right?" he asked. "How many of you would walk out of the woods and report 'I've been raped?'"

Transparency and accountability are major issues the White House task force is set to deal with. No college wants to admit it has a problem, but, paradoxically, those schools with the highest numbers may actually be taking the problem seriously because they have systems in place that allow students to file complaints.

Smith Tuesday highlighted how hard it is to report a sexual assault.

"I want to share what it is like when your dad answers the phone, and you have to find a way to tell him that the one thing he never wanted to happen to his little girl has happened," she said.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/30/politics/biden-rape-psa/

Montana court rules 31-day rape sentence inadequate
By Jason Hanna, CNN
Wed April 30, 2014

(CNN) -- A Montana teacher who served 31 days in jail for raping a 14-year-old girl who later killed herself must be re-sentenced, the Montana Supreme Court ordered Wednesday.

The court ruled that Stacey Dean Rambold's original sentence was inadequate and outside legislative guidelines, which it said should have ensured Rambold spend at least two years behind bars.

The justices also barred Judge G. Todd Baugh, who drew a firestorm of criticism for levying the original sentence last year, from imposing the new sentence, saying a new judge was needed "to preserve the appearance of fairness and justice."

Authorities said Rambold raped Cherise Morales, one of his students at a Billings, Montana, high school, in 2007. Morales committed suicide in February 2010, before the case went to trial.

Rambold pleaded guilty to sexual intercourse without consent, and last year Baugh sentenced him to 15 years in prison, with all but 31 days suspended. That meant serving 31 days in jail and more than 14 years on probation.

Baugh's comments at the sentencing in August sparked controversy. He said the girl looked older than her years and was "probably as much in control of the situation as was the defendant," according to the Montana attorney general's office, which appealed the sentence.

In Wednesday's decision, the state Supreme Court ruled that Baugh used an inapplicable statute to impose the 31-day sentence. When read properly, Montana law mandates a minimum four-year prison sentence -- with a suspension of no more than two years -- for the rape of children under 16 by someone at least three years older, the court ruled.

Explaining its decision to give the new sentence to a different judge, the court blasted Baugh's previous comments about the case.

At the August sentencing, Baugh said the victim looked older than her years and was "probably as much in control of the situation as was the defendant," according to the Montana attorney general's office.

Baugh's comments reflected an improper bias and "cast serious doubt on the appearance of justice," state Supreme Court Justice Michael E. Wheat wrote in Wednesday's ruling.

Baugh apologized for the comments in November. Writing to a judicial review board, he said: "I am sorry I made those remarks. They focused on the victim when that aspect of the case should have been focused on the defendant."

But he defended the overall decision in December, calling it "the right kind of sentence."

The review board filed a complaint against Baugh in February, saying his actions in the Rambold case "eroded public confidence" in the judicial system. In Wednesday's ruling, Wheat wrote that the state Supreme Court would address the complaint in a separate hearing.

Baugh told CNN affiliate KTVQ in January that he would retire at the end of the year, and that his decision wasn't related to the Rambold controversy.

Authorities said Rambold had sexual relations with Morales in fall 2007, when she was 14 and a student in one of his classes at Billings Senior High. She confided in a church group leader, and Rambold was charged in October 2008.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/30/justice/montana-rape-sentence/

Fame does not grant impunity. This was not quite what judge Anthony Leonard QC said as he sent Max Clifford to prison for eight years at Southwark crown court yesterday, but it is the unmistakable implication after a jury convicted the celebrity publicist on eight charges of indecent assault at the start of the week. There is no going back from here. This, the first conviction in the long-running Operation Yewtree, launched after the Jimmy Savile scandal broke in 2012, is a big moment. It matters most of all for victims of historic abuse, but it is also a much-needed result for the police who have to gather evidence in the most difficult of circumstances, and for the Crown Prosecution Service.

Its critics say Operation Yewtree, which is gathering evidence of all historic sex abuse in the Savile era, is a flawed project that depends on soliciting victims to make allegations. That criticism goes to the heart of how sex abuse is understood. These sceptics dismiss the idea that it is a very particular kind of crime in which humiliation is an integral part. They reject the idea that one of the things it does is to cause victims to lose any sense of their own credibility, which makes it all but impossible for them to imagine being heard. They portray the report on the Savile inquiry, written by the Metropolitan police and the NSPCC and called Giving Victims a Voice, which recognised that the silent victims of abuse needed to be encouraged to come forward, as an exercise in evangelism and an assault on the integrity of the justice system. The evidence that has now convicted Max Clifford gives the lie to that attack.

The common factor in abuse cases is exploitation of power. It is what the broadcaster Stuart Hall did. He is now serving 30 months after being convicted of 14 charges of abuse of victims he sometimes picked at school prize-givings. It is what Max Clifford did, persuading and bullying young women to submit to him by holding out the fantasy of a glamorous future. His shameless sense of untouchability meant that over an agonising six weeks in court, victims heard their claims first denied and then trivialised by their abuser. From their evidence, though, a familiar pattern emerged. Having enticed them into his orbit with promises of film parts or modelling careers and then demanded sexual favours, he left them humiliated – and certain that if they complained, they would be dismissed. No one would believe their word against his. That is why no one dared to report him at the time of the abuse.

Operation Yewtree provided the opportunity for the victims to come forward. It is still needed. It should not take 30 years for justice to be done.

Plenty of proof in Clifford's case, you don't like the idea of powerful men paying for their crimes.

Sorry the problem here is that the method being used is all too likely to generated false victims and charges.

You fail to produce any evidence, or research, to justify your assertion that the "method being used is all too likely to generated false victims and charges".

Deputy Delaware AG charged with rape of boy, 16
Terri Sanginiti, The News Journal
May 3, 2014

A prosecutor with the Delaware Attorney General's Office was charged Friday with rape, allegedly for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy, New Castle County police said.

Daniel Simmons, 34, a deputy attorney general assigned to the New Castle County Misdemeanor Trial Unit, was charged with four counts of fourth-degree rape, said Officer Tracey Duffy.

The investigation began in March after police learned of the incidents involving the boy, who Simmons made contact with through a social media app, Duffy said.

Simmons was identified as the perpetrator early in the investigation.

The state Attorney General's Office was notified of the investigation's conclusion on Friday and quickly approved warrants for Simmons' arrest.

The investigation determined that Simmons met the boy through a social media app known as "Grindr," and not through his dealings with the public as a prosecutor, Duffy said.

A statement released Friday night by the state Attorney General's Office said Simmons has been placed on administration leave by the department.

"These charges are serious and will be addressed

Bail information was not immediately available Friday night. Investigators believe there may be other victims. Police urge parents to monitor the social media and internet activities of their children.

Anyone with information about Simmons or other such victims is asked to call Detective E. Sherkey at 395-8110 or visit: www.nccpd.com Tipsters can also call Delaware Crime Stoppers at (800)TIP-3333 or www.tipsubmit.com

As state Attorney General, Beau Biden in 2007 established the state Child Predator Unit within the Attorney General's Office with investigators who concentrated on proactively identifying child predators over the internet, while aggressively investigating and prosecuting traditional crimes against children.

Biden is quoted in a March 15, 2007 Delaware Voice column as saying the reason he ran for state Attorney General was to attack the problem of child sex abuse by creating the Child Predator Unit.

He issued no comments Friday about a prosecutor in his office being charged with such predatory behavior.
http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/crime/2014/05/02/deputy-ag-charged-rape-boy/8646937/