25
   

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

 
 
nononono
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 02:16 am
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Tennessee prosecutors have dropped charges against a Snellville man who was accused of kidnapping and raping an Atlanta stripper.

On Thursday the Sevier County, Tenn., district attorneys' office dismissed the charges against 46-year-old David Joseph Jansen.

On May 26, Violet Esteppe, 24, told deputies she was kidnapped by Jansen while jogging in her Morningside neighborhood. She claimed Jansen tied her up and drove her to a cabin in the Smoky Mountains, where he drugged and raped her, according to a Sevier County Sheriff's Office report.

Jansen, who was arrested and spent two nights in jail, said the trip was part of a bondage fantasy.

Chief Assistant District Attorney Steve Hawkins said prosecutors do not know what really happened, but do not plan to charge the woman.

"Who knows what's in someone's mind. We have no way to tell what happened based on everything," said Hawkins, a lawyer for 35 years.
Esteppe, a licensed adult entertainer in Atlanta, had previously been convicted of filing false reports in Cherokee and Fannin counties. The woman's mother, Karin Tye-Carter, also said Esteppe, who also goes by Cherrisha Johnson, is a "pathological liar."

"The credibility of the alleged victim is in doubt and based upon all the evidence, we could not obtain a conviction against Mr. Jansen nor would we try," the district attorney's office said in a statement. "As district attorneys, our job is to seek justice, not convictions. Justice requires us to dismiss these charges due to the victim's credibility and other evidence."
Donald A. Bosch, Jansen's attorney, said his client is still debating whether to take civil action against Esteppe.

"From the onset, these were not true allegations," Bosch said Thursday. "This was a consensual relationship and encounter. The assertions of Violet Esteppe that she was kidnapped and raped are malicious and untrue."

Jansen's first met Esteppe at Atlanta strip club Tattletale's, where she worked as a dancer. The two later developed a relationship and planned the trip to Tennessee together, Bosch said.

That relationship has since ended — the two have not spoken since his arrest, Bosch said.

Bosch said his client did not want to speak with reporters nor release details about what happened the night of the alleged attack.
Esteppe did not return phone calls. Her lawyer, Alan Begner, said his client currently has no plans to take civil action.

"As to my client, she has not recanted her story. But we do not to intend to pressure the state of Tennessee to proceed," Begner said. "We're going to try and get her back to a normal life."
Begner declined to talk about what happened that night.

Hawkins said he discussed the district attorney's decision with the woman on Thursday. "She insists that her allegations are true," he added.
Deputies arrested Jansen after being contacted by pizza deliveryman Chris Turner. Turner said Esteppe showed him her bound hands and silently pleaded for him to call 911.

The sheriff's office agrees with the decision to dismiss the case, Hawkins said.
A polygraph administered by a retired FBI agent also showed Jansen was truthful when he told investigators the two engaged in consensual sex, according to court documents.

Tye-Carter said her daughter has a history of trouble with the law, including serving time in juvenile detention facilities for setting fire to an Early County church and her uncle's Henry County home. Doctors also diagnosed her with psychological problems, Tye-Carter said.

Jansen's lawyer said Esteppe's lies have resulted in Jansen's wife filing for divorce, him being placed on leave from his job as a software engineer and his two children shunning their father.

"It's been devastating to him personally and his reputation," Bosch said. "He is trying to regain some normality in his life and hopes to be able to move on from this."

Stony Brook Chalets owner Pam Hill, who rented the cabin to Jansen, said Thursday that she was not surprised the charges were dropped. Jansen had reserved the cabin ahead of time and used his own credit card to pay for it while Esteppe waited in the car.

"It was a love affair vacation where she changed her mind. He thought it would be a magnificent four days and it turned out to be the biggest nightmare of his life," Hill said. "People still joke with me to be careful who I rent to, but really they just talk about what a hoax it all was."

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/tenn-da-drops-charges-in-rape-case/nQHdS/
0 Replies
 
nononono
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 02:17 am
WOODSTOCK — A woman who claimed she had been sexually assaulted, beaten and kidnapped Monday was arrested Tuesday after investigators concluded that her story was a hoax. Cherrisha Nicole Johnson Cherrisha Nicole Johnson Cherrisha Nicole Johnson

Cherrisha Nicole Johnson, 21, of Woodstock, was being held at the Cherokee jail, where she has been charged with false report of a crime, authorities said.
Investigators said the woman's statements did not match the evidence found at the scene.

Investigators were called to the Kohl's department store on Ga. 92, near Interstate 575, at 9:30 a.m. Monday after receiving reports of a woman's body dumped behind the building.

The woman was taken to a metro Atlanta hospital, where she was treated and released.

Johnson was found next to a red pickup truck, which was believed to be her vehicle.

The woman told investigators that she was assaulted by two Hispanic men. She said one of the assailants wore a blue T-shirt and the second one wore a green T-shirt, blue jeans and was armed with a small black pistol.
It was not immediately clear why the woman allegedly fabricated the story.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/womans-sexual-assault-kidnapping-claims-ruled-hoax/nFBF2/
firefly
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 12:00 pm
@nononono,
Is there any point to your posting two old news stories--one from 2005 and one from 2009--about the same, apparently disturbed woman, who has filed false police reports?

As is often the case, individuals who do this sort of thing are emotionally disturbed, and as is also the case, they do not always allege that specific individuals assaulted them--which was true in one of the false reports this woman filed. And, where they do falsely accuse a specific individual, that person has recourse in civil court for a damages suit, as one of those articles point out.

Deliberately and intentionally filing a false sexual assault allegation needlessly ties up police time and resources, it casts aspersions on the credibility of actual rape victims, and it can harm the reputation and lives of those who are falsely accused, which is why these acts must be exposed and discouraged--as was done in the case of that woman.

The fact that a sexual assault has been deemed "unfounded" or unproven" does not mean that the complaint was intentionally false--it may only mean there was insufficient evidence to proceed with a prosecution. Similarly, because a complaint may be withdrawn, that in no way indicates that the original report was deliberately false.

Fortunately, the percentage of false allegations appears to be fairly low, between 2%--8%, according to the most recent research findings.

Lisak found it to be about 6% in the U.S.--
Lisak, David; Gardinier, Lori; Nicksa, Sarah C.; Cote, Ashley M. (2010). "False Allegations of Sexual Assualt: An Analysis of Ten Years of Reported Cases". Violence Against Women 16

A 2005 study in the U.K. found the rate of false reports to be about 8%--
Kelly. L., Lovett, J., Regan, L. (2005). "A gap or a chasm? Attrition in reported rape cases". Home Office Research Study 293.

A 2006 study in Victoria, Australia, found it to be about 2%
Heenan, Melanie; Murray, Suellen (2006). "Study of Reported Rapes in Victoria 2000-2003, Summary Research Report". Abstracts Database – National Criminal Justice Reference Service.

While the issue of false allegations is important, and certainly a problem for police and prosecutors, and real victims, both real sexual assault victims and those who are victimized by false allegations, it in no way overshadows the very real problem of actual sexual assaults/rapes which do occur. And it should be kept in mind that anywhere between 92%--98 % of sexual assault allegations are not likely to be false.

No matter how one looks at this issue, there appears to be no point to your posting two old news stories--one from 2005 and one from 2009--about the same, apparently disturbed woman, who has filed false police reports. You continually seem to be grasping at any straw, no matter how insubstantial, to try to distract the attention of this thread away from the issue of the very real sexual assaults/rapes which occur, and how these very real, and serious, crimes can be deterred and diminished.

firefly
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 12:28 pm
Valenti makes an excellent point in this article. The problem of sexual assault/rape must be addressed at the high school level, and that also needs to be the starting point for reducing these crimes at the college level.
Quote:
The Guardian
By Jessica Valenti
Curbing College Rape is Great—What About the More than 50% of Victims Under 18?
June 5, 2014

This week, three star athletes were arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a young woman at a post-prom party. It wasn't in Steubenville, or Torrington, or Maryville, or Louisville, or Grand Rapids, or a thousand other towns where the victims haven't and maybe won't come forward. But the new case from Calhoun High School in Georgia does bring together high schoolers, alcohol, bystander apathy and athletes once again.

It also arrives a little over a month after the Obama administration published its comprehensive report on curbing college rapes and during the same week that US Senator Claire McCaskill held the second in a series of roundtable discussions on how to stop sexual assault on campus.

The administration, politicians and campus activists have worked hard to put together recommendations for universities and students on how to prevent and appropriately handle sexual assault and rape cases – and they should be applauded for it. But in the wake of case after case of high school sexual violence, it's clear that we're taking action way too late – or, more accurately, when people are way too old.

Forty-four percent of US sexual assault victims are under the age of 18. And while we now have a White House task force to combat college rapes, and a willingness to at least propose legislation on the issue, we still have no national education, prevention and enforcement standards on dealing with sexual assaults that happen before students get there.

But rapists don't restrict themselves to targeting those with high school diplomas.

Though it might be easier for some to think of sexual assaults that happen in high school as misunderstandings between drunks kids – the lawyer of one the accused in Georgia already bemoaned how the alleged perpetrators' lives "are changed forever" – the truth is that such assaults are always brutal for victims regardless of the ages of the rapists.

The men at Calhoun High, for example, are charged with aggravated sexual battery under Georgia law: the three seniors allegedly decided to penetrate the unconscious teen girl with a foreign object as a fourth man held the door. Gilmer County Sheriff Stacy Nicholson said in a press conference, "I've been here 23 years, and her injuries were substantial." As in many other high school rape cases, Nicholson also noted that other party-goers knew what was happening and didn't intervene to stop the assault.

How many times do we have hear another version of the same awful story before we do something to address the problem?

Yes, college campuses have specific needs around rape and sexual assault – particularly as it pertains to campus adjudication processes. But the Title IX protections that are now being used to protect college assault victims also apply to high school students. And the bystander intervention models that are so often taught as the gold standard at universities are badly needed in high schools across the country – because this is not the first time high school students stood by and watched a young woman be violated.

For instance, one of the witnesses in the Steubenville rape case walked in on the rape and didn't stop it because "it wasn't violent – I thought [rape] was forcing yourself on someone". And in 2009, as many as 20 onlookers watched and did nothing as a 15 year old was gang-raped outside of a homecoming dance in Richmond, California.

But not everyone is just standing by. When Ali Safran was sexually assaulted as a high school senior, she felt that going through the criminal justice system didn't offer her any justice. So on the third anniversary of the attack, she went to the spot where she was assaulted and hung a sign telling her story to urge readers that "we can stop this violence from happening".

Today, Safran is the Director of Surviving in Numbers, and helped implement an anti-rape curricula in two high schools in Massachusetts (where she just graduated from college).

"There is no focus on high school rape at all" Safran told me. "Part of it has to with people not wanting to talk to high schoolers about sex at all, let alone sexual assault – they prefer to ignore it all together." Safran's program focuses on bystander intervention, open discussions about consent and how to support your peers without victim-blaming.

Safran hopes that she can grow her program and that others do the same. "We can't pretend these things don't happen in high school," she said.

Sadly, cases like the one at Calhoun High remind us that rapes do happen in high school. Often. And if we can teach anti-bullying or sex education, there's no reason that we can't teach high schoolers about rape and sexual assault. After all, they already know it happens – sometimes, they're watching it right in front of their eyes.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/curbing-college-rape-great-what-about-more-50-victims-under-18?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark
0 Replies
 
firefly
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 01:28 pm
This is the high school sexual assault case currently in the news that Valenti referred to in the article in my last post.
Quote:

Georgia county police charge three student athletes over alleged post-prom sexual assault
By Staff Writer
Jun 04, 2014

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that three senior and student athletes of Calhoun High School has been indicted for the alleged sexual assault of a girl at a Gilmer County cabin. According to local police, two of the three students who were charged were under the influence of alcohol when the sexual assault happened.

On Wednesday morning, Fields Chapman, Avery Johnson, and Andrew Haynes had turned themselves in to the Gilmer County jail. The alleged sexual assault reportedly happened 18 days prior to the surrender of the three, Gilmer Sheriff Stacey Nicholson said.

Nicholson detailed about the sheriff's detectives' process into building a case against the three, telling reporters at a press conference in Ellijay, "As late as yesterday, we interviewed an individual and obtained very valuable information," he said Wednesday afternoon. "In a case, especially involving teenagers or young people, once you make an arrest, the information flow tends to shut down. We wanted to get all we could get before we put people in jail. This has been a very emotional case, certainly for the city of Calhoun and Calhoun High School. We have worked as fast as we could work to bring an end to this case. But we did not work on Calhoun's time or on the media's time line."

According to an incident report by the county police, the girl said that she was raped by multiple guys in the early hours on May 11 at a cabin in Coosawattee River Resort. The girl, who is aged 18, had been observed to receive substantial injuries from the assault....

County police and officials received a beating for their initially apparent lack of action from locals who have heard about the sexual assault case. When police mentioned the influence of alcohol in the case, local columnist David Cook defended the victim, and said, "It's not about how much beer the teenagers drank after the prom. It's not about how much liquor or wine they had with them at their resort cabin party in the North Georgia woods. This is about sexual assault. And aggravated sexual battery. It's about three men - 18 years old, graduating seniors - who police say committed sexual battery against an 18-year-old woman. A classmate. A graduating senior, just like them."
http://www.lawyerherald.com/articles/5723/20140604/georgia-county-police-charge-three-student-athletes-over-alleged-post-prom-sexual-assault.htm#zKzkzt4spVD8BK7j.99


It is a truly horrific crime, and equally horrific is the bystander apathy on the part of those at the party who knew what was taking place.

But, one positive difference in this case, from others of this type, has been the outpouring of support for the victim, and fairly fast action toward the alleged perpetrators, suggesting some change in attitudes.
Quote:

3 Star Athletes Allegedly Orchestrated Horrifying Post-Prom Gang Rape
by Erin Gloria Ryan
6/03/14

Star athletes from a powerhouse high school athletic program. A sexual assault that occurred in the middle of a party full of witnesses who knew exactly what was going on but did nothing. Underage drinking. Online rumors. While the sexual assault of an 18-year-old Georgia high school senior by three of her classmates had many of the elements of a Steubenville-esque embarrassment, this time around, things are different. Local authorities have filed serious charges against the three men who participated in the assault, and have promised that more serious charges are forthcoming.

The alleged assault occurred more than two weeks ago, on Calhoun High School's prom night, when a small post-prom gathering at a cabin in the woods became a raucous event involving 27 students and hours of drinking, according to local authorities. After alcohol had been consumed for several hours, four male party attendees "ended up" in a room with an 18-year-old classmate ("ended up" is the phrasing used by a local news account that flirts with CNN's now-infamous "THESE BOYS' LIVES ARE RUINED NOW!" hand wringing). The victim told authorities that she didn't remember who raped her, just that it was "multiple guys" who inserted a "foreign object" into her vagina, causing tearing and severe trauma that the local sheriff called "substantial" during a press conference last week. Other attendees of the party knew what was happening but did nothing. According to some accounts, the fourth boy in the room was there to barricade the door closed.

Almost immediately after the May 11th incident, rumors began swirling online, specifically on Facebook. Why weren't authorities doing anything to prosecute the attackers? Was the school district protecting them, since they were all top athletes mere weeks from graduation? As rumors picked up steam, some Calhoun students and community members began posting under a #standforHER hashtag in support of the victim.

But authorities were investigating. During the ensuing days after the party, they interviewed more than 50 witnesses, and based on the information they gathered, last week, they announced they'd gathered enough evidence to arrest football quarterback Fields Chapman, wide receiver Andrew Haynes, and star baseball player Avery Johnson, who had committed to playing college ball at Georgia Highlands College next year, on sexual battery charges. All three 18-year-old seniors turned themselves in the next day and were barred from participating in their high school's graduation exercises that Friday. The Gilmer County Sheriff promises that all of the students who were drinking at the party will be charged, and that rape charges may be forthcoming against Chapman, Haynes, and Johnson. Only months before, both Haynes and Chapman had faced underage drinking charges. No word on what the fourth student in the room — the one who watched the brutal assault occur without doing anything — will be charged with anything.

At least one other student who attended the party has lawyered up, and after his classmates and fellow partygoers turned themselves in, his attorney posted a confusingly triumphant statement to Facebook.
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--TOfHh8WK--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/tezug8papz4wrui7mgwe.png

Being present at a party where a brutal gang rape occurred and probably knowing it was happening but doing nothing is nothing to brag about, dude. The **** is wrong with you? This is the legal equivalent of yelling I DIDN'T FART! before anyone even smells anything.

Another frustrating detail in this case is the fact that the three defendants were immediately allowed to bond out after turning themselves in, which means that they didn't spend a single night in jail. And there's no guarantee that one won't sell the others out in exchange for a reduced sentence; depending on the totality of charges when the dust settles, each of the accused could be facing decades behind bars. And the fate of the girl — who, again suffered severe internal injuries from the assault — is still forever altered.

But there are heartening aspects to this awful case. For starters, unlike other recent high-profile cases of male athletes allegedly raping women who lack the football status of their abusers — Steubenville, Ohio and Florida State University, for example — authorities appeared to take the charges seriously from the day after the crime and actually seem to have made an effort to conduct a thorough investigation. Authorities shouldn't be applauded for doing their jobs, but given this country's embarrassing history of prioritizing sports achievement over the right of women to not be raped, when police actually give a damn, I reflexively feel like I should applaud. That's how low the bar is.

Secondly, community response — at least that which is glean-able from the murk of internet comments and social media proclamations — has been overwhelmingly supportive of the female victim and condemning of the entitled, monstrous fuckery of the three accused, athlete status be damned. Yesterday, in response to a flurry of "kids shouldn't drink so much!" commentary from media outlets, local columnist David Cook opined in the Times Free Press:
"Know what causes rape?

Rape mentality causes rape.

And while alcohol can be a preferred weapon used by rapists, the foremost question we need to be asking ourselves as a society: What causes rape mentality, especially at a time when one in five college women is sexually assaulted?

"Most often, it's by someone she knows," reads a recent White House study.

This is not about alcohol; it's about something wedged into the male mind, something premeditated that says it's OK to sexually assault women. It is the pornographication of relationships: In 2013, a U.N. international study showed that 70 percent of men who admitted to raping women did so because they felt entitled.

As if they owned her body."


Can you imagine reading that from a male columnist in a small city newspaper pre-Steubenville? I'm from a small town, and I sure as hell can't.

http://jezebel.com/3-star-athletes-allegedly-orchestrated-horrifying-post-1585334287


I don't share Erin Gloria Ryan's annoyance with the fact that the three young athletes are out on bond, or her frustrations that plea deals may eventually result in reduced charges for one or more of them--those are perfectly acceptable ways in which the criminal justice system operates in cases like this.

I am more impressed with the response of law enforcement, and by others who have supported the victim. The investigation by law enforcement appears to have been thorough, in terms of the number of witnesses interviewed and the collection of evidence, the three young men were not allowed to attend their high school graduation, and one of them, a baseball star player, has had his college scholarship withdrawn, by the school who offered it to him, due to his arrest. Law enforcement also intends to charge all of the party-goers who engaged in underage drinking with that violation, in an attempt to address that problem as well. So there appears to be no attempt to minimize the seriousness of these sexual assault/sexual battery charges or the circumstances under which they occurred.

Fields Chapman, Avery Johnson and Andrew Haynes are the three suspects arrested and charged with one count of aggravated sexual battery each, as well as one count of possession of alcohol by a minor. The sexual battery charges are quite serious and can carry lengthy prison sentences--the victim sustained serious injuries for which she was hospitalized due to being penetrated by an object.

There is a grand jury hearing in this case scheduled, I believe, for tomorrow, at which time additional charges may be sought. So far, it has not been made clear whether the victim was raped, in addition to being penetrated by something other than a penis, but that may become clearer as more evidence is made public.

I'll continue to follow this case...
0 Replies
 
nononono
 
  0  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 06:28 pm
@firefly,
Quote:
the percentage of false allegations appears to be fairly low, between 2%--8%,


Oh, shut up. Even if those figures are true, 6% of the U.S. male population is NO small number of people, neither is 8% of UK males or 2% of Aussies. Again even IF those numbers are accurate, that's a WHOLE lot of innocent people whose lives and reputations have been destroyed. I'm not great at math but 6% of 138 million US males would still be something like 8 MILLION innocent people accused! THAT IS NOT A SMALL NUMBER!!!


How about getting a mere 6 months jail time for crying rape! Is that fair???




Girl, 16, who cried rape after cheating on boyfriend is jailed for six months

A teenage girl was locked up for six months today for crying rape - after she lied to stop her boyfriend finding out she'd cheated on him.

The 16-year-old girl made up the rape allegation after going home for sex with innocent Alex Lewis, 20, on a night out.

She lied to police that she was abducted, attacked and forced to perform a sex act during a violent assault by three men.

Alex Lewis
The 16 year old girl who cannot be identified for legal reasons
Innocent: Alex Lewis, left, was falsely accused of rape by a 16-year-old girl (whose face is obscured for legal reasons). He spent 36 hours in custody
It led to Mr Lewis being arrested and held in custody for 36 hours. He spent two months on bail until the girl confessed it was all lies.

The girl, whose name cannot be revealed for legal reasons, admitted she was worried her boyfriend would be furious at finding she had sex with another man.

Her lies unravelled when she was caught on CCTV drunkenly kissing and fondling Mr Lewis on the night out.

A judge yesterday ordered the girl should not be named - even though three innocent men she accused of rape were identified in court.
The trio, all aged 20, were arrested, quizzed and forced to give ‘intimate’ samples during their ‘terrifying’ ordeal after the girl's false claims.

Prosecutor David Pugh said: ‘She said she was pushed up a metal ladder to an attic bedroom by two men, one of whom held her down.
‘She said both kissed her all over her body and was raped by one of the men.’
But the girl's lies were uncovered when detectives viewed footage of her picking up the group in Merthyr Tydfil town centre in South Wales and kissing one of the men, Alex, before they jumped in a taxi together.

Mr Pugh added: ‘Images showed they became very close, with the girl kissing Mr Lewis and placing her head on his shoulder and getting in a taxi.’
They returned to Alex's parents' house and had consensual sex before the girl left and flagged down a police car, claiming she had been raped.
The girl was arrested and admitted making up the claims in June this year.
Merthyr Tydfil town centre: Where The girl had met Mr Lewis on a night out

Merthyr Tydfil town centre: Where The girl had met Mr Lewis on a night out
Mr Lewis spent two months on bail before police finally cleared him days before his 21st birthday.
Mr Pugh said: ‘The reason she said she gave the false account was she was scared her boyfriend would find out she cheated on him and it would lead to violence.’

The girl pleaded guilty to trying to pervert the course of justice.
Alex Greenwood, defending, said: ‘This is as serious an example of attempting to pervert the course of justice as one can imagine.

‘The three men were subjected to a terrifying experience in the knowledge they were entirely innocent.
‘She is truly sorry.’

He said that once she made the rape allegation, ‘a juggernaut was set in train’ - and the girl was too scared to admit she was lying.
Judge Mr Recorder Jeremy Jenkins QC yesterday sent the teenager to a young offender institution for six months.

The girl sat with her head bowed during the 20-minute hearing at Merthyr Crown Court and showed no emotion as the judge sentenced her.
He told the teen: ‘When a woman makes an allegation of rape, it has to be treated with the utmost seriousness.’

‘Rape is an absolutely vile crime and it's the duty of the police to investigate it thoroughly and carefully.

‘False allegations of rape can have dreadful consequences to the men concerned.

‘For innocent men to be confronted with an allegation like that, held in custody for 36 hours and subjected to intrusive medical examinations is a terrible experience.


‘The police spent many hours and there was a substantial financial cost in investigating your wholly false allegations.’

He added: ‘Every time somebody makes a false allegation of rape, the public has less confidence in the truth of other complaints of sexual abuse made by genuine victims.’

Barrister Mr Pugh said the girl should be named and shamed - despite her age.
He said: ‘Members of the public need to know for their own future conduct and safety.’

But the judge ordered the girl should not be identified publicly - even though her three victims were named in court.
He said her age and ‘the long-term need for rehabilitation’ meant she should be given anonymity.

But Mr Greenwood claimed: ‘She should not be labelled for the rest of her life within the close community.’
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336448/Girl-16-cried-rape-cheating-boyfriend-jailed-6-months.html#ixzz36MNNMy00
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336448/Girl-16-cried-rape-cheating-boyfriend-jailed-6-months.html
nononono
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 06:53 pm
This is from June 19th 2014. A man was imprisoned on false sexual assault claims for an entire year!



Man wrongly accused of sexual assault sues police

A man imprisoned for almost a year on false claims of sexual assault is suing the police amid a "terrible and wicked climate" for sex crimes prosecutions.

Stephen Black, 46, claims the police were "high-handed, calculated, humiliating and oppressive" when pursuing vexatious claims by a teenage girl which saw him languish in a prison alongside rapists and murderers for 10½ months.

The same girl made a false claim that she was gang-raped by a car-load of men after leaving a house party in Baulkham Hills last year, which was investigated by 10 detectives and dismissed 10 days before Mr Black was due to go on trial.

Veteran lawyer Greg Walsh said it was "the worst climate I've ever seen" for sexual assault cases.

Several high-profile cases, such as the trial of Hey Dad! star Robert Hughes, and the royal commission into child sexual abuse, have encouraged more victims to report historical abuse and contributed to a rise in sexual assault statistics, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) recently found.

However, there have also been a string of false reports and Mr Walsh said public sentiment was "guilty until proven innocent". He expects more lawsuits from falsely accused men who are doggedly pursued by authorities, without evidence.

"It's a terrible climate," he said. "The way in which sexual assault cases are being prosecuted, there is a real risk of miscarriage of justice. In this case, but for the false complaints that were made about other people, Mr Black might be languishing in prison for crimes he didn't commit.

BOCSAR director Don Weatherburn said sexual and indecent assault had received "enormous publicity" over the past three years.

"People are acting as if we're in the middle of a child sexual assault crime wave when, in fact, there were large numbers of cases before the courts 20 years ago," he said.

He was not aware of evidence showing increased sexual assault conviction rates and said the public attitude of "guilty until proven innocent" was a problem that applied to all offence types.

"The general presumption that people charged by police are guilty is a presumption most people seem to be walking around with when the fact of the matter is about half of all people who proceed to trial end up getting acquitted," he said.

In a statement of claim filed in the District Court, Mr Black alleges police knew the sexual assault reports were probably untrue but persisted in strip-searching Mr Black and arresting him in a "high-handed, calculated, humiliating and oppressive manner".

The 17-year-old girl said in her statement that Mr Black had a circumcised penis and that she knew the difference between a circumcised and uncircumcised penis. Mr Black's penis was not circumcised.

Despite the inconsistency, he was refused bail three times and kept in prison alongside murderers.

Mr Black's case was thrown out when the Baulkham Hills gang-rape was dismissed. Police then pursued AVOs against him, which were also dismissed by a magistrate.

Mr Black claims the police never apologised and he is suing due to "severe mental anguish, stress and distress".

He lost his job as a commercial landscaper and has not returned to work since charges were finally dropped in September.

A NSW police spokesman said the teenage girl had not been charged with making a false report.

Hetty Johnston, director of Bravehearts, said there was nothing wrong with "silence, secrecy and shame finally being challenged".

"If that is making some people uncomfortable then tough luck," she said.
Anti-abuse campaigner Anthony Foster questioned whether lawyers were simply worried they were "losing control" because it was becoming harder to discredit victims in sexual assault cases.

"We now have a climate where victims are believed," he said. "In the past the pendulum had swung so far against victims and lawyers were able to question them so viciously that, in many cases, charges wouldn't stick. Now there is a tendency to start accepting... patterns of behaviour [by offenders]. Maybe lawyers are worried about that."

Former director of public prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery said he was confident there were enough checks and balances in the judicial system to prevent juries from being swayed by public sentiment.


http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/man-wrongly-accused-of-sexual-assault-sues-police-20140627-zsefw.html
0 Replies
 
nononono
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 07:06 pm
I'm fully in support of women's safety and rights, and fully in support of gay's safety and rights personally. But supporting gays or women doesn't take ANY courage these days. If it was the early 1980's still and you supported gay rights, you could legitimately be scared for your safety. If it was the early 1900's and you supported women's right to vote, you could legitimately fear for your safety.

Do you need feminism? Ask yourself these questions:

Can women in your country vote?
Can women in your country own property?
Can women in your country file for divorce?
Can women in your country work for themselves?
Do women in your country have the right to bodily integrity (i.e. to not have their genitals circumcised as babies before they can even speak up?)

If you've answered yes to these questions, then feminism has ALREADY reached it's goals and is UNNECESSARY in your country.

Supporting gay rights or women's rights in this day and age in the western world is the equivalent of saying that Michael Jordan is your favorite basketball player, or The Beatles are your favorite band. Duh, gay people and women are awesome! Nearly EVERYBODY else is ALREADY on board! It's a popular sentiment! There is support nearly EVERYWHERE in society for those groups! Instead, more focus should be placed on groups of people who are TRULY hated and disparaged by society.

When men face hardships in society, society turns a blind eye and simply tells them that their concerns aren't important because they're just "crying man's tears".
0 Replies
 
firefly
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 07:46 pm
@nononono,
Quote:
Oh, shut up. Even if those figures are true, 6% of the U.S. male population is NO small number of people, neither is 8% of UK males or 2% of Aussies.

You're not the brightest bulb in the pack are you? Laughing

Those percentages don't refer to the percentage of men in the population--and that you jumped to that idiotic conclusion, just shows how out of your depth you are when it comes to understanding the topic.

The percentages refer to rape allegations deemed to be false, out of the total number of rape complaints made within certain populations.

And the recent research, which you clearly do not understand, indicates that only a very small percentage, only 2%--8% of all reported rape allegations, appear to be false--meaning 92%--98% of the reported rape allegations are not false.

That your response to that information was to post another 4 year old news story, this one about a 16 year old minor who made a false rape allegation, is pathetic, because it is so revealing of your ignorance . No one denies that false allegations occur, although with considerably less frequency than is often assumed, or denies that the filing of such intentionally false reports is despicable, but the crime of filing a false police report is unrelated to the crime of sexual assault/rape--they are quite different types of crimes.

This thread is to discuss actual crimes of sexual assault/rape, the crimes that are not based on fabricated allegations. If you want to discuss the quite different crime of filing a false police report, and what the penalties for that crime should be, start your own thread to discuss that issue--but be sure you know what you're talking about first. Laughing

And this topic has nothing to do with feminism, or women's rights, or gay rights. Everyone has a basic human and civil right not to be sexually assaulted, and not to be subjected to any unwanted sexual contact, which is why such acts are deemed crimes.

nononono
 
  0  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 07:59 pm
@firefly,
Quote:
that you jumped to that idiotic conclusion, just shows how out of your depth you are when it comes to understanding the topic.


No. It shows that most of the time I only read the first line or two of your posts now, because I can't stomach all your bullshit anymore.

And regardless of the percentages, those accused are still HUMAN BEINGS whose lives have been destroyed. Even one is too much! (And whatever the FACTUAL numbers are, I doubt that they're that low.)

Quote:
That your response to that information was to post another 4 year old news story


I also posted a story from a mere 2 weeks ago about man jailed for an ENTIRE YEAR because of false allegation. Convenient to ignore that.

...But I also suppose you've never posted OLD stories in this thread before have you??? Should we go back and look???

Quote:
This thread is to discuss actual crimes of sexual assault/rape


Correction, it's to discuss ONLY how horrible sexual assault/rape is for WOMEN. That's why it's called "Hey, Can A Woman "Ask To Get Raped"? and not "Hey, can SOMEONE ask to be raped?"

Because you're a misandrist twat. You don't give a **** about men. Your only concern is whining about an ALREADY privileged group of people because they don't have cart blanche do ANYTHING they want to with no repercussions!
nononono
 
  0  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 08:07 pm
The Rape 'Epidemic' Doesn't Actually Exist
Statistics don't support the contention that 'rape culture' is pervasive.

By Caroline Kitchens Oct. 24, 2013 | 12:10 p.m. EDT

ADVANCE FOR USE SUNDAY, APRIL 22, 2012 AND THEREAFTER - This Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012 photo shows Caleb Warner in his apartment in Fargo, N.D. The former University of North Dakota student's college career was cut short after being falsely accused of sexual assault about two years ago. The 25-year-old man now lives in Fargo, N.D., and works as a delivery driver. Despite being cleared of all charges and having his accuser charged with making a false report, Warner says he has moved on and doesn't plan to resume his studies at UND or any university. "It's not where I thought I'd be," he says.

A group of 100 protesters – including many topless women – recently marched the streets of Athens, Ohio chanting, "Blame the system, not the victim" and "Two, four, six, eight, stop the violence, stop the rape." Organized by an Ohio University student organization called "f*ckrapeculture," the protest was designed to bring attention to what the founders believe is a toxic culture of sexism and sexual violence infecting their campus.

F*ckrapeculture cofounder Claire Chadwick explained to the campus newspaper, "The name of our organization and the statements that we've made are loud. But it's because we need to be heard." But saying something loudly does not make it true or just.

Chadwick and the members of f*ckrapeculture aren't the only student sexual violence activists that are demanding attention. Since last spring, an expansive network of student activists has emerged to fight "rape culture" and change the way universities respond to cases of sexual misconduct. However, as universities reexamine their sexual assault policies, administrators should be wary of the demands of these "rape culture" activists. Not only is their movement built on a foundation of dubious statistics and a distorted view of masculinity, but it has already led to policies that have proved devastating to those who have been falsely accused.

Activists claim that reform is urgent because one in five women will be raped during her time at college. I have yet to see an article lamenting the campus rape culture that does not contain some iteration of this alarming statistic.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the economy.]

But is it accurate? Statistics surrounding sexual assault are notoriously unreliable and inconsistent, primarily because of vague and expansive definitions of what qualifies as sexual assault. Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute explains that the study often cited as the origin of the "one in five" factoid is an online survey conducted under a grant from the Justice Department. Surveyors employed such a broad definition that "'forced kissing" and even "attempted forced kissing" qualified as sexual assault.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics' "Violent Victimization of College Students" report tells a different and more plausible story about campus culture. During the years surveyed, 1995-2002, the DOJ found that there were six rapes or sexual assaults per thousand per year. Across the nation's four million female college students, that comes to about one victim in forty students. Other DOJ statistics show that the overall rape rate is in sharp decline: since 1995, the estimated rate of female rape or sexual assault victimizations has decreased by about 60 percent.

Of course, there are still far too many college women who are victims of sexual assault. But there's little evidence to support the claim that campus rape is an "epidemic," as Yale student activist Alexandra Brodsky recently wrote in the Guardian.

Bolstered by inflated statistics and alarmist depictions of campus culture, advocates have been successful in initiating policy changes designed to better protect victims of sexual violence. Duke, Swarthmore, Amherst, Emerson and the University of North Carolina are among the many institutions that have recently reviewed and revised their policies. It is not clear that these policies have made campuses safer places for women, but they have certainly made them treacherous places for falsely accused men.

[Read the U.S. News Debate: Should Women Be Allowed to Fight in Combat?]

In January 2010, University of North Dakota student Caleb Warner was accused of sexually assaulting a fellow student. A UND tribunal determined that Warner was guilty of misconduct, and he was swiftly suspended from school and banned from setting foot on campus for three years. Yet the police – presented with the same evidence – were so unconvinced of Warner's guilt that they refused to bring criminal charges against him. Instead, they charged his accuser with filing a false report and issued a warrant for her arrest. Warner's accuser fled town and failed to appear to answer the charges.

Despite these developments, the university repeatedly rejected Warner's requests for a rehearing. Finally, a year and a half later, UND reexamined Warner's case and determined that their finding of guilt was "not substantiated" – but only after the civil liberties group FIRE intervened and launched a national campaign on Warner's behalf.

Unfortunately, Warner is not alone in his grievances. Across the country, students accused of sexual assault are regularly tried before inadequate and unjust campus judiciaries. At most schools, cases of sexual misconduct are decided by a committee of as few as three students, faculty members or administrators. At Swarthmore College, volunteers are now being solicited via email to serve on the Sexual Assault and Harassment Hearing Panel. Such a panel is far more likely to yield gender violence activists than impartial fact finders. In a court of law, we rely on procedural safeguards to ensure unbiased jury selection and due process. But on the college campus, these safeguards have vanished.

[Read the U.S. News Debate: Is There a Republican 'War on Women'?]

What's more, campus judiciaries operate under a dangerously low standard of proof for sexual assault cases, thanks to federal mandates. Since April 2011, the Department of Education has required institutions to consider cases of sexual misconduct under a "preponderance of evidence" standard (rather than a higher "clear and convincing" standard, which was commonly used prior to the new guidelines). This means that if a majority of committee members believe it is just slightly more likely than not that a sexual assault occurred, they must side with the accuser.

Sexual assault is a horrific offense, and institutions must do all they can to protect victims. It is admirable that activists like Chadwick are trying to fight it. However, a false accusation of rape can also have devastating, life-altering consequences. Universities have an obligation to protect the rights of all students – both victims of sexual assault and the accused. They must stop responding to questionable statistics and abstract claims about a rape culture and instead focus on ensuring basic fairness for all students.

Meanwhile, advocates for due process, rules of evidence, basic justice and true gender equality need to speak louder than the "f*ckrapeculture" alarmists.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2013/10/24/statistics-dont-back-up-claims-about-rape-culture
nononono
 
  0  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 08:21 pm
@nononono,
Quote:
Quote:
This thread is to discuss actual crimes of sexual assault/rape

Correction, it's to discuss ONLY how horrible sexual assault/rape is for WOMEN. That's why it's called "Hey, Can A Woman "Ask To Get Raped"? and not "Hey, can SOMEONE ask to be raped?"

Because you're a misandrist twat. You don't give a **** about men. Your only concern is whining about an ALREADY privileged group of people because they don't have cart blanche do ANYTHING they want to with no repercussions!


I can certainly be an asshole. But I'd rather be an asshole than a bigot. And that's what you are firefly; you're prejudice against men. And your goal is to spread PROVEN FALSE rape hysteria as far as you can.
firefly
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 09:15 pm
@nononono,
Quote:
Correction, it's to discuss ONLY how horrible sexual assault/rape is for WOMEN. That's why it's called "Hey, Can A Woman "Ask To Get Raped"? and not "Hey, can SOMEONE ask to be raped?"

Because you're a misandrist twat. You don't give a **** about men. Your only concern is whining about an ALREADY privileged group of people because they don't have cart blanche do ANYTHING they want to with no repercussions!

The thread was started in response to a particular ad campaign, which did focus on female targets of rape, but, throughout this thread, we have discussed male victims of sexual assault as well. And, unlike Hawkeye and BillRM, who opposed the change in the federal definition of rape, so it could better include male victims, I fully supported the change. Men don't ask to be raped anymore than women do, and male victims of sexual assaults need the same law enforcement and community supports and services that female victims receive.

Your envy of females, who you consider to be some sort of "privileged group", despite the fact that the power and wealth in our society is still largely dominated and controlled by men, and the responsibilities for child care still rest largely with women, and despite the fact that women still do not earn equal pay for equal work, and an Equal Rights Amendment has yet to be passed, simply seems to reflect your immature and ego-centric view that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. If you're that personally unhappy with your lot in life as a male, as you seem to be, work to improve and change it, just as women have done. Throwing a pity party for men, and constantly whining the way you do, will get you nowhere, and you hardly speak for all men, or even most men.
Quote:
And that's what you are firefly; you're prejudice against men.

I don't think you can cite any remarks I've made in this thread to justify that statement. And I challenge you to find any.

There has been no animosity toward men in general voiced by me in this thread, none, and only those individuals, both male and female, who commit acts of sexual assault and rape have been regarded as despicable . On the other hand, you voice considerable animosity toward females in general, and when your jealousy includes envying females as sexual assault victims, and your hostility includes dismissing actual crimes of sexual assault/rape as "rape hysteria", that's downright sick.
Quote:
I can certainly be an asshole.

You're certainly right about that. Laughing
Quote:
But I'd rather be an asshole than a bigot

Unfortunately, you're both an asshole and a bigot. You hold bigoted, overly generalized, negative, stereotypical views of women.

http://thepunkeffect.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/he-man-woman-haters-club-bw.jpg
Grow up.

firefly
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 09:30 pm
@nononono,
Quote:

Sexual Assault Statistics

How often does rape happen to women?

• One in four college women report surviving rape (15 percent) or attempted rape (12 percent) since their fourteenth birthday. (1)
• In a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease control of 5,000 college students at over 100 colleges, 20% of women answered "yes" to the question "In your lifetime have you been forced to submit to sexual intercourse against your will?" Thus, one in five college women has been raped at some point in her lifetime. (2)
• In a typical academic year, 3% of college women report surviving rape or attempted rape. This does not include the summer, when many more rapes occur. (3)
• In the year 2000, 246,000 women survived rape and sexual assault. This computes to 28 women every hour. (4)
• A survey of high school students found that one in five had experienced forced sex (rape). Half of these girls told no one about the incident. (5)
• Rape is common worldwide, with relatively similar rates of incidence across countries, with 19%-28% of college women reporting rape or attempted rape in several countries. In many countries, survivors are treated far worse than in the U.S. (6)

Are men raped?

• 3% of college men report surviving rape or attempted rape as a child or adult. (3)
• In a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control of 5,000 college students at over 100 colleges, 4% of men answered "yes" to the question "In your lifetime have you been forced to submit to sexual intercourse against your will?" (2)

Who are the perpetrators?

• 99% of people who rape are men, 60% are Caucasian. (7)
• Between 62% (4) and 84% (1) of survivors knew their attacker.
• 8% of men admit committing acts that meet the legal definition of rape or attempted rape. Of these men who committed rape, 84% said that what they did was definitely not rape. (1)
• More than one in five men report "becoming so sexually aroused that they could not stop themselves from having sex, even though the woman did not consent." (8)
• 35% of men report at least some degree of likelihood of raping if they could be assured they wouldn't be caught or punished. (9)
• One out of every 500 college students is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. (10)
• First-year students in college tend to believe more rape myths than seniors. (11)
• Sexual assault offenders were substantially more likely than any other category of violent criminal to report experiencing physical or sexual abuse as children. (7)
• In one study, 98% of men who raped boys reported that they were heterosexual. (12)

Who are the survivors?

• 41% of college women who are raped were virgins at the time. (1)
• 42% of rape survivors told no one about the rape. (1)
• False reports of rape are rare, according to the FBI, occurring only 8% of the time. (13)

Circumstances of rape

• 57% of rapes happen on dates. (1)
• 75% of the men and 55% of the women involved in acquaintance rapes were drinking or taking drugs just before the attack. (1)
• About 70% of sexual assault survivors reported that they took some form of self-protective action during the crime. The most common technique was to resist by struggling or chase and try to hold the attacker. Of those survivors who took protective action, over half believed it helped the situation, about 1/5 believed that it made the situation worse or simultaneously worse and better. (7)
• 84% of rape survivors tried unsuccessfully to reason with the man who raped her. (1)
• 55% of gang rapes on college campuses are committed by fraternities, 40% by sports teams, and 5% by others. (15)
• Approximately 40% of sexual assaults take place in the survivor's home. About 20% occur in the home of a friend, neighbor, or relative. 10% occur outside, away from home. About 8% take place in parking garages. (7)
• More than half of all rape and sexual assault incidents occurred within one mile of the survivor's home or in her home. (7)

What happens after the rape?

• In a study done in the 1980s, 5% of rape survivors went to the police. (1)
• Throughout the last 10 years, the National Crime Victimization Survey has reported that approximately 30% of rape survivors report the incident to the police. (4)
• Of those rapes reported to the police (which is 1/3 or less to begin with), only 16% result in prison sentences. Therefore, approximately 5% of the time, a man who rapes ends up in prison, 95% of the time he does not. (4)
• 42% of rape survivors had sex again with the rapist. (1)
• 30% of rape survivors contemplate suicide after the rape. (1)
• 82% of rape survivors say the rape permanently changed them. (1)
• The adult pregnancy rate associated with rape is estimated to be 4.7%. (17)

Sources

1. Warsaw, R. I Never Called it Rape. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.
2. Douglas, K. A. et al. "Results From the 1995 National College Health Risk Behavior Survey." Journal of American College Health 46 (1997): 55-66.
3. Tjaden, P., and N. Thoennes. "Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey," 2-5, Research in Brief, Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, 1998.
4. Rennison, C. M. "National Crime Victimization Survey, Criminal Victimization 2001: Changes from 2000-2001 with Trends 1993-2001," Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 187007, 2002.
5. Davis, T. C, G. Q. Peck, and J. M. Storment. "Acquantaince Rape and the High School Student." Journal of Adolescent Health 14 (1993): 220-24.
6. Koss, M. P., L. Hiese, and N. F. Russo. "The Global Health Burden of Rape." Psychology of Women Quarterly 18 (1994): 509-37.
7. Greenfeld, L. A. Sex Offenses and Offenders: An Analysis of Data on Rape and Sexual Assault, Washington, D. C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1997.
8. Peterson, S. A., and B. Franzese. "Correlates of College Men's Sexual Abuse of Women." Journal of College Student Personnel 28 (1987): 223-28.
9. Malamuth, N. M. "Rape Proclivity Among Males." Journal of Social Issues 37 (1981): 138-57.
10. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Rape Fact Sheet. Atlanta: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
11. Gray, N. B., G. J. Palileo, G. D. Johnson. "Explaining Rape Victim Blame: A Test of Attribution Theory." Sociological Spectrum 13 (1993): 337-92.
12. "Sexual Abuse of Boys," Journal of the American Medical Association, December 2, 1998.
13. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Justice, 1995.
14. Koss, M. "Rape on Campus: Facts and Measures." Planning for Higher Education 20 (1992): 21-28.
15. O'Sullivan, C. "Acquaintance Gang Rape on Campus." In A. Parrot and L. Bechhofer (eds.) Acquantaince Rape: The Hidden Crime. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1991.
16. Kilpatrick, D. G., C. N. Edmunds, and A. K. Seymour. Rape in America: A Report to the Nation. National Victim Center, 1992.
17. Homes, M. M., H. S. Resnick, D. G. Kilpartrick, and C. L. Best. "Rape-related Pregnancy: Estimates and Descriptive Chracteristics From a National Sample of Women." American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 175 (1996): 320-24.

http://www.oneinfourusa.org/statistics.php
0 Replies
 
firefly
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 09:40 pm
Quote:
More than a Million Rapes in U.S. not Counted in Statistics Due to Police Mislabeling of Sexual Assaults
Wednesday, July 02, 2014

As many as one million rapes were wrongly recorded by police departments across the country over the course of more than a decade, according to a new academic study (pdf) on the underreporting of sexual assaults in the United States.
http://blogs.law.uiowa.edu/ilr/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/A5_Yung.pdf

The mislabeling of rapes often begins at the point of first contact with law enforcement, when 911 dispatchers receive calls from victims, Corey Rayburn Yung, associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Law, found.

Writing in the Iowa Law Review, Yung discovered that nearly 70% of all police departments in 2012 relied on dispatchers—many of whom lack proper training—“to do the initial coding of sexual assault crimes.” He also determined that police officers sometimes fail to write reports after interviewing rape victims.

Also, it’s been found that police departments occasionally destroy their records and mishandle evidence, which sometimes results in the dismissal of rape cases. Additionally there is a massive backlog of rape kits, which hold evidence of possible rapes, waiting to be tested. There are 400,000 untested kits in the U.S., some sitting and expiring in storerooms. Furthermore, many cities and states don’t keep records of these kits or the rape exams themselves.

All of these factors have contributed to the undercounting of rapes.

Yung estimates that from 1995 to 2012, between 796,213 and 1,145,309 sexual assaults were wrongly categorized by local police, which forward their numbers to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for nationwide crime estimates.

He also found that among large cities he studied (those with populations of 100,000 or more), 22% of the 210 police departments studied had “substantial statistical irregularities in their rape data.”

Consequently, many calls of reported rape have gone down as something else, which has skewed national statistics on this crime.

Also, it’s been found that police departments occasionally destroy their records and mishandle evidence, which sometimes results in the dismissal of rape cases. Additionally there is a massive backlog of rape kits, which hold evidence of possible rapes, waiting to be tested. There are 400,000 untested kits in the U.S., some sitting and expiring in storerooms. Furthermore, many cities and states don’t keep records of these kits or the rape exams themselves.

All of these factors have contributed to the undercounting of rapes.

Yung estimates that from 1995 to 2012, between 796,213 and 1,145,309 sexual assaults were wrongly categorized by local police, which forward their numbers to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for nationwide crime estimates.

He also found that among large cities he studied (those with populations of 100,000 or more), 22% of the 210 police departments studied had “substantial statistical irregularities in their rape data.”

http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/more-than-a-million-rapes-in-us-not-counted-in-statistics-due-to-police-mislabeling-of-sexual-assaults-140702?news=853572


0 Replies
 
BillRM
 
  2  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 09:44 pm
@nononono,
Firefly does not care about the welfare of young women, she for whatever reason is full of hate and fear toward young men an is always on the lookout for means to destroy them.

Real no question about it rape is extremely rare and at a many decades low and questionable sexual contact can be end stop by women not doing binge drinkings.

It is a war on young men in colleges at the same time that women who are attending US universities who is not in to such behaviors as binge drinking are as safe as they been in history from even questionable sexual encounters.

One in five or one in four college women being a "victim" of sexual assaults is a fantasy that have reached the point that most of the young women that the surveys authors had classify as victims strongly disagree with that label.

Kangaroo campuses courts design to throw young men out of college and ruin their good names for life is not going to aid one college woman.Real rapes belong in real courtrooms and no one belong in these Kangaroo courts

Sitting down both the males and the females students and warning them of some of the very bad possible outcomes of binge drinkings and pounding into their heads that both males and females are totally responsible for their own behaviors under the voluntary influence of drugs and or alcohol would be a good start in bringing sanity back onto the nation campuses.
firefly
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 09:54 pm
Quote:
How Did the FBI Miss Over 1 Million Rapes?
Systematic undercounting of sexual assaults in the US disguises a hidden rape crisis.
Soraya Chemaly
June 27, 2014

Earlier this month, a 911 dispatcher in Ohio was recorded telling a 20-year-old woman who had just been raped to “quit crying.” After she provided a description of her assailant, the caller went on to say, “They’re not going to be able to find him with the information that you’ve given.” This incident had its viral moment, sparking outrage at the dispatcher’s lack of empathy. But it also speaks to the larger issue of how we are counting rapes in the United States. Sixty-nine percent of police departments surveyed in 2012 said that dispatchers like this one, often with little training, are authorized to do the initial coding of sexual assault crimes.

That’s important, because miscoding of such crimes is masking the high incidence of rape in the United States. We don’t have an overestimation of rape; we have a gross underestimation. A thorough analysis of federal data published earlier this year by Corey Rayburn Yung, associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Law, concludes that between 1995 and 2012, police departments across the country systematically undercounted and underreported sexual assaults.

Yung used murder rates—the statistic with the most reliable measure of accuracy and one that is historically highly correlated with the incidence of rape—as a baseline for his analysis.

After nearly two years of work, he estimates conservatively that between 796,213 and 1,145,309 sexual assault cases never made it into national FBI counts during the studied period.

That’s more than 1 million rapes.

The estimates are conservative for two reasons. First, in order to consistently analyze the data over time, Yung looked only at cases defined by the FBI’s pre-2012 definition of rape (one established in 1927): “carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.” This definition did not include anal or oral rape, cases involving drugging or alcohol, or the rape of boys and men. The Federal Criminal Code was recently broadened to include these categories. Second, the FBI and crime experts estimate that anywhere from 60 percent to 80 percent of rapes are never reported to the police.

Yung’s analysis, which focused on cities with populations of more than 100,000, found that 22 percent of the 210 studied police departments demonstrated “substantial statistical irregularities in their rape data.”

“It’s probably true that in all cities there is undercounting,” explains Yung. “However, forty-six outlier cities appear to be undercounting on a consistent, high level, which makes sense because you have to show [improved crime statistics] results year over year, and you get into a trap where you have to improve upon already low numbers.” Even worse, the number of jurisdictions that appear to be undercounting has increased by 61 percent during the period studied.

How are police departments undercounting sexual assault?

One of the primary ways is that officers discount victim testimony, categorizing complaints as “unfounded” or reclassifying allegations of rape as “noncriminal” minor offenses. In 2013, a 196-page report by Human Rights Watch documented widespread, systemic failures in the Washington, DC, police department’s handling and downgrading of sexual assault cases. Last month, an externally run audit of the New Orleans police department found that 46 percent of forcible rapes were misclassified. The New Orleans study indicted the department for having submitted rape statistics that were 43 percent lower than those from twenty-four comparable cities. And in Baltimore, reported rapes showed a suspicious 80 percent decline between 1995 and 2010, compared with a 7 percent national reduction. Yung also reveals that officers sometimes simply fail to write up reports after rape victims are interviewed.

Second, police departments have been found to destroy records and ignore or mishandle evidence, which leads not only to undercounting but dismissal of cases. Many of the jurisdictions showing consistent undercounting are also, unsurprisingly, those with rape kit backlogs (there are more than 400,000 untested kits in the United States). Many cities and states don’t even keep accurate track of the number of rape exams or of kits languishing, expired or in storerooms—but when they do, the numbers improve. The arrest rate for sex assault in New York City went from 40 percent to 70 percent after the city successfully processed an estimated 17,000 kits in the early 2000s. However, it is only in the past year, after embarrassing and critical news coverage, that most departments have begun to process backlogs. After being publicly shamed for having abandoned more than 11,000 rape kits, the Michigan State Police began testing them, identifying 100 serial rapists as a result.

Third, police departments continue to ignore rapes of women thought of as “fringe,” including prostitutes, runaways, trans women, drug addicts and people considered transient. Women of color in particular face difficulties. For example, for years, women repeatedly went to the police in Cleveland to report that Anthony Sowell had raped, beaten or otherwise violently assaulted them at his house. Little was done until 2009, when police finally found eleven decomposing bodies of women there.

Fourth, people making complaints are often harassed out of pursing them. In 2012, the police department of Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, was held liable in a case in which police accused a reporting victim of lying during her interview, at one point telling her, “Your tears won’t save you now,” and failing to pursue the investigation. In St. Louis, victims were strongly urged by police to sign Sexual Assault Victim Waivers absolving police from responsibility to investigate or report the crime as a rape to the FBI. Yung points out in his report that until relatively recently, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department defied the law by using so-called “corroboration requirements” and reporting only those assaults deemed, in the words of LA police and prosecutors, “winnable” in court (“corroboration requirements,” referring to evidence supporting victims’ claims such as bloody clothes or bruises, have deep roots in jurisprudence but are no longer legal in most of the country, including California).

Victims of sexual assault still encounter hostility, doubt and aggressive questioning. When they do not conform to officers’ preconceived ideas about how rape victims “should” act, officers’ implicit biases come into play and, as a result, victims often feel they are the ones being investigated. These issues are often compounded by racism. Native American women, who suffer the highest rates of sexual assault in the country, describe being questioned about mental illness, drug use, alcohol abuse and more when reporting assaults. While some jurisdictions have substantially improved their policies, with many women reporting compassionate treatment by police, many others continue to report the opposite.

These preconceptions, rooted in myths about rape and a still-powerful cultural predisposition to blame victims, are serious and consequential. Police officers display the same implicit biases as the general public, a tendency also evident at colleges and universities, where campus police are often more focused on investigating the credibility of victims than in whether or not their vulnerability was exploited in a predatory way. Studies show a strong correlation among police officers between rape-myth acceptance, sexist attitudes and an unwillingness to process or investigate reported assaults.

Interestingly, the longer an officer has worked in a sexual assault unit, the less likely he or she is to believe in false claims. A majority of detectives with between one and seven years of experience believe that 40 percent of claims are false—in some cases that number is as high as 80 percent. But among officers with more than eight years’ experience, the rate drops precipitously, to 10 percent. On campus or off, these beliefs persist, despite the fact that rates of false allegations of rape are well understood by criminologists and other social scientists to be between 2 percent and 8 percent, in line with false allegations of other crimes.

The other aspect of bias is that it informs not only attitudes toward victims but also those regarding perpetrators. Racism and sexism conspire both in police assessments of the credibility of victims and in the targeting of potential perpetrators. Estelle Freedman describes the sex- and race-based historical roots and contemporary legacies of both of these biases in
her sprawling examination of rape in America, Redefining Rape.

While police departments are not immune from these legacies, change is possible. In 1999, the Philadelphia Police Department improperly handled 2,300 out of 2,500 rape cases. As late as 2003, the unit investigating sex crimes was jokingly referred to as “the lying bitch unit.” In the wake of widespread criticism and protest, the department began a partnership with the Women’s Law Project to improve response to sex crimes, in an approach that subsequently became known as “the Philadelphia Model.” Both Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey and WLP executive director Carol Tracy testified at a 2010 Senate hearing that reviewed police handling of sex crimes, and in 2011, Ramsey convened a Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) summit. The resulting 2012 report, Improving the Police Response to Sexual Assault, which included research and commentary from multiple jurisdictions and advocacy groups, concluded that while progress is being made, many of the problems that existed in Philadelphia persist in other police jurisdictions.

Two weeks ago, Tallahassee police chief Michael DeLeo agreed to allow PERF to review and analyze his department’s policies, largely because of critical coverage of his department’s egregious mishandling of the 2012–13 sexual assault case involving Florida State University football player Jameis Winston. Almost all of the common procedural failures responsible for undercounting were illustrated in that case, so it is unlikely the complaints against Winston were included in the FBI’s annual count.

If we are to improve the handling and reporting of sexual assault crimes, external audits are critical, as is training of police departments by advocacy groups like the WLP. The fundamental approach of most police departments hasn’t change much in thirty years: training is not uniform or reliable, and often comes only at the behest of community advocates. Last year, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, whose membership comprises 21,000 departments, received a $450,000 grant from the federal Office on Violence Against Women to conduct training. While heartening, that comes out to roughly $22.50 per department.

In the meantime, as Yung puts it, “the sheer magnitude of the missing data…is staggering.” Of course, we need far more than improved police work, and undercounting is only part of the problem. Even when cases are properly recorded and investigated, the patterns evidenced in Yung’s analysis and the PERF report are reproduced in courtrooms, where rapists in most states still have the right to sue for custody of the children born of their assaults. And only 3 percent of rapists are ever imprisoned—that’s a crime we aren’t talking about.

Yung believes that these statistical distortions have significantly altered the nation’s historical record and understanding of rape in America. Accurate counts are vitally important—not only for the historical record, but because the data are used by academics, analysts, legislators, law enforcement officials, social justice advocates and media to determine trends, analyze crime, set policy and allocate resources. Law enforcement officials who are dedicated to addressing these problems understand that higher reporting numbers are a sign of trust in police departments.

Yung’s report, by the way, is titled “How to Lie with Rape Statistics: America’s Hidden Rape Crisis.”

http://www.thenation.com/article/180441/how-did-fbi-miss-over-1-million-rapes#



Here is the link to Yung's report:
http://blogs.law.uiowa.edu/ilr/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/A5_Yung.pdf
0 Replies
 
nononono
 
  0  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 10:05 pm
@firefly,
Quote:
The thread was started in response to a particular ad campaign


So any ad campaign that speaks up for people falsely accused of rape is "misogyny" right?

http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Don+t+be+THAT+girl.+Please+don+t_478a61_4757927.jpg

Quote:
despite the fact that the power and wealth in our society is still largely dominated and controlled by men and the responsibilities for child care still rest largely with women, and despite the fact that women still do not earn equal pay for equal work.... blah, blah, blah


These statements are either false or purposely misleading. The women don't earn as much as men do fallacy has been disproven over and over again. And there are plenty of reasons why that statement about childcare is misleading. And even if it was true (which it isn't), well then women shouldn't have trouble taking care of children with all that alimony and child support pay that they exort during divorces! ...but blah, blah, blah if I go on pointing out why these statements are all false I'll get accused of both not staying on the topic of this thread AND also "envying females" or some such horsehit.

Quote:
Quote:
And that's what you are firefly; you're prejudice against men.

I don't think you can cite any remarks I've made in this thread to justify that statement.


And I challenge you firefly to find any remarks that I've made that prove that I
Quote:
hold bigoted, overly generalized, negative, stereotypical views of women.

...BECAUSE I DON'T!

And YES, rape hysteria is all too real, as shown by the article I posted above.

All you do firefly is use shaming techniques on ANYONE and EVERYONE who stands up for men. And that's why YOU ARE A BIGOT.

Like I said, it takes NO GUTS to stand up for women. They're already protected by and empathized for society. There are no so such things as assault centers/shelters specifically for men. The sentencing gap is a real thing!!! There are no social welfare programs geared specifically towards men!

Standing up for men makes you a social outcast and gets you branded a "misogynist", or a "bigot", or a million other disparaging terms. Just as you've branded me...

Because of course men's issues aren't important. Of course men feel no pain; they only cry "Man's tears."

http://37.media.tumblr.com/e871bbd0498733f74930d708a40c9ad0/tumblr_mrauylg3kA1sf2x9do1_500.png
0 Replies
 
nononono
 
  0  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 10:10 pm
I don't want firefly to get away with overlooking this:

This is from June 19th 2014. A man was imprisoned on false sexual assault claims for an entire year!



Man wrongly accused of sexual assault sues police

A man imprisoned for almost a year on false claims of sexual assault is suing the police amid a "terrible and wicked climate" for sex crimes prosecutions.

Stephen Black, 46, claims the police were "high-handed, calculated, humiliating and oppressive" when pursuing vexatious claims by a teenage girl which saw him languish in a prison alongside rapists and murderers for 10½ months.

The same girl made a false claim that she was gang-raped by a car-load of men after leaving a house party in Baulkham Hills last year, which was investigated by 10 detectives and dismissed 10 days before Mr Black was due to go on trial.

Veteran lawyer Greg Walsh said it was "the worst climate I've ever seen" for sexual assault cases.

Several high-profile cases, such as the trial of Hey Dad! star Robert Hughes, and the royal commission into child sexual abuse, have encouraged more victims to report historical abuse and contributed to a rise in sexual assault statistics, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) recently found.

However, there have also been a string of false reports and Mr Walsh said public sentiment was "guilty until proven innocent". He expects more lawsuits from falsely accused men who are doggedly pursued by authorities, without evidence.

"It's a terrible climate," he said. "The way in which sexual assault cases are being prosecuted, there is a real risk of miscarriage of justice. In this case, but for the false complaints that were made about other people, Mr Black might be languishing in prison for crimes he didn't commit.

BOCSAR director Don Weatherburn said sexual and indecent assault had received "enormous publicity" over the past three years.

"People are acting as if we're in the middle of a child sexual assault crime wave when, in fact, there were large numbers of cases before the courts 20 years ago," he said.

He was not aware of evidence showing increased sexual assault conviction rates and said the public attitude of "guilty until proven innocent" was a problem that applied to all offence types.

"The general presumption that people charged by police are guilty is a presumption most people seem to be walking around with when the fact of the matter is about half of all people who proceed to trial end up getting acquitted," he said.

In a statement of claim filed in the District Court, Mr Black alleges police knew the sexual assault reports were probably untrue but persisted in strip-searching Mr Black and arresting him in a "high-handed, calculated, humiliating and oppressive manner".

The 17-year-old girl said in her statement that Mr Black had a circumcised penis and that she knew the difference between a circumcised and uncircumcised penis. Mr Black's penis was not circumcised.

Despite the inconsistency, he was refused bail three times and kept in prison alongside murderers.

Mr Black's case was thrown out when the Baulkham Hills gang-rape was dismissed. Police then pursued AVOs against him, which were also dismissed by a magistrate.

Mr Black claims the police never apologised and he is suing due to "severe mental anguish, stress and distress".

He lost his job as a commercial landscaper and has not returned to work since charges were finally dropped in September.

A NSW police spokesman said the teenage girl had not been charged with making a false report.

Hetty Johnston, director of Bravehearts, said there was nothing wrong with "silence, secrecy and shame finally being challenged".

"If that is making some people uncomfortable then tough luck," she said.
Anti-abuse campaigner Anthony Foster questioned whether lawyers were simply worried they were "losing control" because it was becoming harder to discredit victims in sexual assault cases.

"We now have a climate where victims are believed," he said. "In the past the pendulum had swung so far against victims and lawyers were able to question them so viciously that, in many cases, charges wouldn't stick. Now there is a tendency to start accepting... patterns of behaviour [by offenders]. Maybe lawyers are worried about that."

Former director of public prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery said he was confident there were enough checks and balances in the judicial system to prevent juries from being swayed by public sentiment.


http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/man-wrongly-accused-of-sexual-assault-sues-police-20140627-zsefw.html
0 Replies
 
firefly
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Jul, 2014 10:25 pm
@BillRM,
Quote:
Firefly does not care about the welfare of young women, she for whatever reason is full of hate and fear toward young men an is always on the lookout for means to destroy them.

http://www.a-1video.com/Jerry%20laughs.gif

Your blatant lies about me get funnier and more absurd all the time.

No wonder you're so preoccupied with the issue of false accusations, since you know, simply based on knowledge of yourself, how often people lie just for the sake of maliciousness--you do it all the time.
http://www.a-1video.com/Jerry%20laughs.gif

0 Replies
 
 

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