Is not teaching about rape pedagogical malpractice?

by Doctor Science

Khiara Bridges teaches Criminal Law at Boston University. She says:

This week, I began teaching the unit on sexual assault to my Criminal Law class. I – untenured, female, and in my second year of teaching – walked into my classroom and wrote “carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly and against her will” on the chalkboard, thus beginning a two week exploration of the law of rape. Am I brave? Am I foolish? Or am I simply doing what I am supposed to do as a Criminal Law professor?

A couple of senior professors from other law schools had advised me not to cover sexual assault as part of my Criminal Law class at all. It was too risky, I was told. ... Will my question about the mens rea of nonconsent yield a response that indicates that one of my students has been accused of rape? Will another response indicate that another student has been raped? Will a screaming match break out? Will someone break down in tears? Will that person be me?

...

I have my strategies, though: first, I avoid any attempts at humor during the unit, which is a departure from my approach to the rest of the class. Criminal Law frequently involves people doing horrible things to other people. The fact patterns of the cases are awful much of the time. So, as a professor, one could go into the classroom and lament man’s inhumanity to fellow man for an hour and a half; or, one could treat it like a dark comedy. I typically choose the latter. I prefer the Fargo approach to the There Will Be Blood approach … except during the unit on sexual assault. During those weeks, I am Daniel Day-Lewis as a turn-of-the-century oil prospector.

...

My second strategy: instead of calling on students at random, I only call on volunteers. But, I am not entirely comfortable with this strategy. Undeniably: rape is terrible, and talking about it can make some people profoundly uncomfortable. But, you know what else is terrible? Murder. Voluntary manslaughter – which involves case after case of men experiencing sometimes adequate/sometimes inadequate provocation and killing their wives – is terrible, too. Yet, I do not hesitate to call on students randomly during the homicide unit. Some Constitutional Law professors tell me that, during their units on abortion (and definitely on the day that they teach Gonzales v. Carhart, if they teach it at all), they only call on volunteers.

So, why should we, as professors, be especially sensitive about abortion and sexual assault? Does our sensitivity construct women as especially sensitive? Or does it reflect the belief that crimes against women and gendered issues such as reproductive rights are Other?

Justice and Divine Vengeance pursuing Crime, by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon. Oil study for painting now in the Louvre. I find the study more interesting and dramatic than the polished work.

TRIGGER WARNING: discussion of rape, which may be triggery (especially in comments).

I commented:

The reason rape, in particular, is different:

It is a statistical certainty that at least one person, probably a woman, in your classroom has been raped. It is very unlikely that she reported the crime, and even less likely that it made it all the way through to a conviction. Use Daly & Bouhours [pdf] as your starting point.

Further, the chances are that around one out of 20 males has raped someone, and has not been caught -- so there's a nontrivial chance that there's a rapist in your classroom, though he may not think of himself in those terms. It is pretty much a certainty, though, that everyone in the classroom knows a rapist.

Everyone knows someone who's been raped, though they may not be aware of it (yet: they're young).

Now, I'm not 100% sure that you *have* to call on volunteers, theoretically. It's *conceivable* that if you start with Daly & Bouhours and discuss the meta issue, "how do we talk about this major crime, one so common yet unprosecuted that this room doubtless includes victims and may possibly include perps", you could come up with a framework for discussion that doesn't rely on self-selection.

And if you did, it would be a pedagogical breakthrough worth writing up for the literature. It's certainly better than ignoring the issue, which is damn close to educational malpractice.

Daly & Bouhours looked at attrition of rape cases in the legal system in Anglophone countries. The most shocking factor: only about 14% of sexual assaults are reported to the police. Here's their flow chart of sexual assault case attrition:

and here's an infographic I put together, based on it:

I didn't include all the relevant steps and subdivisions between "Prosecuted" and "Sentenced" because they would be too hard to read -- the image is dominated by the fact that the vast majority of sexual assaults aren't even reported.

Glancing at Criminal Law syllabi served up by google (well, duckduckgo.com, my search engine of choice this week), I see that maybe half of the courses do not have a section on rape & sexual assault -- or it's lumped in with "every personal crime not involving death", pretty much guaranteeing that it won't be treated in depth. I know a lot of lawyers frequent this place: does this accord with your observations and experience? Have you found that sexual assault law is taught especially poorly? What do you think of ways to teach it?

Lawyers & non-lawyers alike: in your various experiences, how are sexual assault issues taught about in sex ed or health classes in secondary school? The whole issue was rigorously ignored when I was a young 'un, but that was a loooooooong time ago -- it was an achievement that the bio teacher got through any explanation at all, and there was no sex ed that I recall in health class.

Lucretia, by Rembrandt. Lucretia is the perfect rape victim: virtuous, reluctant, goes to the authorities as soon as possible, makes a formal accusation, and dies. Matron and martyr, basically. Rembrandt's version is notable for not making Lucretia as sexy and partially-clad as possible: she is a figure of pain, not eroticism.

Comments

[Patrick]

In my law school, rape law was taught. In my opinion, it was taught badly. This was partially due to the subject matter, and partially due to the professor being a bit crap.

Part of the problem is figuring WHY rape law is being taught. If you answer that question, then WHETHER and HOW it should be taught is a lot easier to answer.

[sapient]

I went to law school a long time ago, so I don't know what's changed since then, but in those days, criminal law classes were mostly about "common law crimes." Although some states still recognize common law crimes, most have adopted statutory provisions that incorporate the elements of the crimes and tweak them a bit. There's usually a discussion of the common law crime, and a brief update on how the law has changed as codified in statutes.

Rape was a common law crime, defined as Khiara Bridges did on her blackboard. Evidence of rape required signs of physical struggle by the woman - she basically had to be injured in order to show that she fought off her attacker - that she didn't "consent." Of course, things have changed substantially: the victim doesn't have to be a woman, there doesn't have to be evidence of struggle (although it helps a prosecution), spousal rape is recognized (to a certain extent), etc.

I don't see why anyone would be afraid to teach rape. Law school has a lot of trauma in it - there is extensive discussion, for example, about car accidents and other traumatic situations that people commonly experience or have witnessed. Many people lose their loved ones, or have lost their own health, in violent crimes and accidents - it's all bad.

A lot of people don't report rape because they don't want to report a violent act by an acquaintance, or especially a family member or lover. A lot of reported rape isn't prosecuted because it's difficult to prove, and when it's one person's word against another, there's almost always reasonable doubt.

It's important for our society to better understand the crime of rape, and the real problems with prosecuting it, and to understand how and why sexual violence exists within social and family relationships. The criminal justice system is possibly not the best way to deal with all of the various kinds of sexual and domestic violence. But for a basic criminal law class - no, that's probably not the place for the much more extensive study that should be done. Sticking with learning what rape was at the common law, and how its elements have been changed by statute, those things are probably sufficient, and wouldn't take that long to cover. (Abortion is usually not covered in criminal law classes anymore other than to mention that it used to be a crime - instead, it's usually covered in Constitutional law class.)

[jrudkis]

My law school classes seemed to be no holds barred, with the exception of the 2nd amendment, which was not covered in the text book in Con law at all. Rape and other violent crime was pretty vivid in its portrayal, as was misidentification of criminals. I don't feel that there was a desire to avoid rape as a subject.

Criminal law classes were in 1998-99.

[Sebastian]

Interestingly, right before I clicked on the extended entry I thought: it isn't like teaching murder because 3-5 women in the class have been raped.

I was on the jury in a rape trial recently (yes they crazily didn't get rid of the lawyers), and during voir dire it was eye-opening to see the number of women who had to be dismissed because they clearly had been raped or were very close to someone who had. The judge didn't ask, and was very understanding when women would say they didn't believe they could be fair in the case, but you could tell by the way they said it why they thought they couldn't be fair.

[McKinneyTexas]

Lawyers & non-lawyers alike: in your various experiences, how are sexual assault issues taught about in sex ed or health classes in secondary school?

To me, it is more than strange that a criminal law class doesn't teach the Model Penal Code as well as its common law antecedents. We studied the entire range of felony and misdemeanor conduct, including rape, in detail. It's even more strange that a professor would hesitate to teach the subject. From a legal perspective, rape is one of many crimes on which the state has the burden to prove each and every element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt.

Certainly, any victim is going to relive her/his experience in such a class. This is true for any victim of a violent crime. Child molestation is also taught and I cannot imagine that section of the course being anything other than a nightmare for a similarly situated victim.

Driving under the influence and vehicular manslaughter are also taught, or should be. There are plenty of those victims too.

I suppose med students who lost a family member to medical malpractice relive that loss throughout their studies. And tort law students who lost a family member or friend or themselves where severely injured would relive the moment.

It isn't that I don't empathize with victims of any kind. In my practice, I deal with victims and their families everyday. If you elect to go to law school, part of what you sign up for is to learn the law. Including the law of rape.

My experience mirrors Seb's. Throw in child molestation and watch the numbers go up even higher. I don't do comparative victimology well. A ventilator-dependent quadriplegic vs a victim of serial molestation vs a woman who escapes the vehicle only to watch her husband and children burn to death vs a virtually infinite list of human tragedies. Life can be pretty awful.

[sapient]

What McKinney said.

[Patrick]

McKinney- The issue isn't "teaching rape law" in the sense of noting that it is a crime, noting that the elements are such and such, and moving on. I'd be shocked if every law school in the country doesn't at least do that.

The issue is whether or not you spend time going over the history and evolution of rape law, social concerns regarding rape law, critical legal scholarship addressing rape law, and proposed alterations to rape law.

My law school took the latter approach. As far as I can tell, this is the approach favored by people who believe that because rape is an important social issue, rape law ought to be "taught."

Personally, I think that it was a mistake, and would side with those who do not "teach" rape law in first year criminal law surveys. I do not think you can have a meaningful conversation about all of the above issues with a bunch of 1Ls. They are too busy learning the basics around which those issues revolve. Go ahead and teach the elements like you do any other crime, then move on. The students need to walk before they run.

[sapient]

Patrick, I agree with you about the "teaching" of rape law. A general criminal law class is chock-full of crimes, and there's only so much time you can spend on each one. In fact, there's only so much that one can learn in a classroom - law school teaches lawyers how to read case law in order to make it meaningful to use in arguments before a judge. Sure, you learn the elements of crimes, etc., but any lawyer actually working on a case will have law school knowledge to draw on in order to do research about the current state of the law. And the current state of the law changes constantly because cases are decided every day that refine legal interpretation of statutes, and statutes themselves are changed frequently (not to mention rules of court, rules of evidence, etc.).

I do think that McKinney is correct in saying that there are a lot of traumatic subjects that come up in law school (or the practice of law), and that people have to be prepared to study them. Law students don't need to be "protected" from traumatic subjects.

[Don K]

Well, IANAL, and as someone who attended junior high and high school in New Jersey from '66-72, my comment is "Sex Ed? What's that?" Health class was all about various skin diseases, don't smoke, and don't drink (too much). Oh yeah, there are these things called venereal diseases, but we can't talk about sex so just don't have any.

Sex Ed was what you got from a talk with Dad plus your buddies.

Now I do recall there being some controversy when I was in high school about Sex Ed being taught in places like California, Massachusetts, and parts of New York, but none of that filtered out to NJ. Rape? Be serious.

[Brett Bellmore]

Am I alone in thinking, in this age of Tawana Brawley, that the flow chart ought to start out with TWO boxes? One labeled "Sexual assault takes place", the other "Sexual assault doesn't take place", and both with arrows leading to the rest of the chart?

IOW, however you teach rape, you shouldn't teach, even by implication, that all rape allegations are true.

[Rarely Posts]

We were taught both rape law and its evolution, and in my opinion, it should definitely be part of a criminal law class. It is an incredibly difficult and sensitive topic, and some of your students may well have been victims (or even perpetrators). But, those facts make it even more important that you tackle the issue. There are also a number of other reasons to teach it.

First, it is a very common crime: every lawyer should know enough about it to advise clients or victims (or be a prosecutor).

Second, it's evolved a lot, so lawyers need to be instructed on it. For example, a lawyer who looked to the Model Penal Code to define rape would be using a definition that is completely outdated.

Third, pedagogically, it's really important and possibly the most important part of criminal law because it's changed a lot. People need to see how incredibly sexist and unjust earlier rape law was, and they also need to see how it evolved to reflect out current social mores, understanding of sex equality, and understanding of justice. It also presents one of the most difficult issues in criminal law--protecting a victim's rights while still pursuing the public's interest in enforcement of the law. The evidentiary issues are crucially important.

All that said, you're almost doomed to upset some of your students and be perceived as biased. Some students will think that you showed insufficient sensitivity to potential victims. Others will think that you reflected a liberal and/or feminist bias. My criminal law professor was generally good, and I thought his discussion of rape was generally good (but by no means perfect). I heard far more criticism of him for his coverage of rape than any other issue, and I'm not surprised. He probably did mess up in some ways, but it's a very difficult task.

So, it's going to be very difficult, but in my opinion, you have a professional responsibility to teach it.

[hairshirthedonist]

Am I alone in thinking, in this age of Tawana Brawley, that the flow chart ought to start out with TWO boxes? One labeled "Sexual assault takes place", the other "Sexual assault doesn't take place", and both with arrows leading to the rest of the chart?

I thought something like that, very generally speaking. But I don't know how statistically significant false allegations are. (Obviously, if you are one of the few who are falsely accused, it's very significant to you.)

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, I've seen references from law enforcement claiming something on the order of 8% of rape accusations are false.

But my point was simply, you're teaching law, and you can't start from the presumption that, if a accusation is made, it must have been true, and that the system somehow has failed if conviction numbers fall far short of accusation numbers. But that's exactly what the flow chart does: Start with a rape occuring, so that every single failure to proceed to conviction IS a failure.

Rather than, as is sometimes the case, a success.

[Phil]

What that you have said here is not both true and blindingly obvious concerning nearly every category of violent crime, Brett? Assaults, robberies, etc? What's the incidence of false assault reports vis a vis actual assault reports?

You don't actually have to play Captain Save-A-Rapist every time the topic comes up. It's OK to just not say anything at all sometimes, even!

[Laura Koerbeer]

This is hardly the age of Tawana Brawley. That was how many years ago? And an outlier event.

That said, it is true that a flow chart should include a starting point where the initial charge is false. It could be that the rape happened but the wrong person got charged, for example.

However I think anyone invonled in the prosecution of rape and sexual assualts of various kinds will say that the problem is not one of the system being abused by people making false accusations. The problem involved in getting a convection ae far more likely to be related to lack of evidence and/or the prosecutor's bias toward taking cases where conviction is likely and leaving cases where a conviction is less likely.

[Brett Bellmore]

True, and blindingly obvious about every catatory of crime. Except that it's widely denied in the case of rape. "Women never lie about rape!" is something you hear all the time when this subject comes up.

"However I think anyone invonled in the prosecution of rape and sexual assualts of various kinds will say that the problem is not one of the system being abused by people making false accusations."

Why does there have to be just one problem?

[Phil]

"Women never lie about rape!" is something you hear all the time when this subject comes up.

If you can find me anything close to that sentence in the last thread on ObWi in which this was a topic, I will donate $50 to the NRA this afternoon, and post the donation acknowledgement to this very comment thread.

[Phil]

In all seriousness, whence your obsession with false rape reports?

[Slartibartfast]

This is hardly the age of Tawana Brawley.

I don't have any dog in this fight other than to note that many things seem to come back around at least one more time, on the merry-go-round of life.

[Phil]

Now let's post a link to the right wing girl who carved a "B" into her own face and claimed she was attacked by liberals, and pretend that it's somehow significant in a general discussion of assault laws and prosecutions!

[hairshirthedonist]

"Women never lie about rape!" is something you hear all the time when this subject comes up.

I know Phil already addressed this, but I can't help but to point out, my own self, that this is a completely ridiculous statement. I've never heard anyone say that, let alone hearing it all the time.

[Sebastian H]

I tend to think that when initially learning about rape in law school, it wouldn't be necessary to start with noting that some people lie about (or are confused about the identity of the perpatrator) rape.

I think that comes up later in the course when you talk about the difficulty of proving intent, *especially* when the entire case turns on intent. This is problematic in date rape cases (the most common types of rape, though I don't think they are the most common types of *prosecuted* rapes) because the case will largely turn on subjective interpretations of who is more believable.

So contra Brett, I don't think the teaching of it, at least initially, needs a reminder of 'complainants lie' any more than any other crime.

However, contra Phil, I understand why those particular objections get raised more in rape cases than in other cases. First, the stakes are a lot higher. If someone lies about an assault, you usually won't get put away from decades. With rape it is quite possible. If someone lies about a robbery, there will often be physical evidence to contradict them, that is often not available in a date rape situation. Furthermore, I think it is a case of simple empathy, men who have had sex at some point in their lives can think "I've had sex [with consent] and can see how I'd be nearly helpless if someone decided to say that it didn't have consent". They don't really feel [rightly or wrongly] that they've ever been in a situation where it would be easy for someone to accuse them of armed robbery or murder. They don't put themselves in the position for example of the maid who unfairly gets accused of stealing (to pick a lie/confusion that I suspect is medium-common).

Also, sex is a highly charged topic in many people's lives. Lots of men feel [and I'm not getting one way or another into the overall truth of the feeling] that [some] women use sex to manipulate them, and *fear* that rape charges could be another step in that kind of game. So I understand why the question of lying/false-for-whatever-reason accusations come up in the context of rape.

I think the proveability issue is actually an unfruitful sidetrack in lots of discussions about rape, but it is probably appropriate in *this* one, where the topic is what she be taught about rape in law schools.

[Phil]

Those are fine points, Sebastian, and I don't disagree with them. It's just remarkable that every time the topic of rape comes up -- literally, every time -- Brett starts in with "WHAT ABOUT THE FALSE ACCUSATIONS?!?!?!"

[Phil]

(And not for nothing, stuff like that miiiiiiiight have a tiny impact on the ratio of female to male commenters here.)

[Brett Bellmore]

Why do I keep bringing it up? Might as well ask why you keep objecting.

I keep bringing it up because there's this notion floating out there that rape is different from other crimes, that the burden of proof ought to be different, that you can't acknowlege that sometimes rape accusations are false because it would be insensitive or some such.

And, you know, it isn't different. Shouldn't be different. The accused always have to be presumed innocent. The accusing always have the burden of proof.

This should be a trivial, obvious point. That it's not is demonstrated by the blow back anybody who points it out gets.

[wkwillis]

May I point out that police are often falsely accused of assault? Not as often as they are guilty of assault, but it does happen.
Put a 1% in there for the second flow path for false accusations going in, and a .02% for the false accusations resulting in conviction, and I will be happy.
Because with DNA and the Innocence Project, we do know that it has happened.

[sapient]

I agree with those who worry about the accused in any kind of criminal case, including rape. However, rape is unusual since the victim's consent is an issue. The prosecution must, basically, prove a negative: that the victim did not consent. Unless there's evidence of a struggle (which means that the victim may have had to put her life or physical well-being in further jeopardy) there's not much to go on except for the testimony of the victim. That's why, in my first comment on this thread, I said: "It's important for our society to better understand the crime of rape, and the real problems with prosecuting it, and to understand how and why sexual violence exists within social and family relationships. The criminal justice system is possibly not the best way to deal with all of the various kinds of sexual and domestic violence."

I don't know what the answer is, but it seems to me that there are other tools besides criminal conviction and jail. I think that a more liberal use of protective orders to shield alleged victims from alleged rapists (if used in a manner that doesn't stigmatized the alleged rapist) might be one thing to consider. I'm sure that creative people can think of others.

I'm not suggesting that cases which can be prosecuted easily shouldn't be, but where the victim's consent might be an issue, there should be alternative strategies.

[hairshirthedonist]

Because with DNA and the Innocence Project, we do know that it has happened.

But this would apply to the wrong person being accused, which isn't what we're talking about, at least not in full. What I think is (at least part of what is) at issue is rape allegations made when there was no rape at all, as opposed to mistaken identity.

What might make some of this less contentious is clarification of what the N=714 comprises. How are these assults confirmed?

[Phil]

I keep bringing it up because there's this notion floating out there that rape is different from other crimes, that the burden of proof ought to be different, that you can't acknowlege that sometimes rape accusations are false because it would be insensitive or some such

It's just "floating out there," is it? Is it floating here? Does anyone here hold that opinion? Or anything at all close to it? (This one will get you a $10 donation to the NRA.)

(And I'll just point out here that the man saying this has spent hundreds of words at The Reality-Based Community defending birtherism on the basis that, hey, he wasn't actually present at Barack Obama's birth, so he cannot be 100% "epistemologically certain" that Obama wasn't born in Kenya.)

This should be a trivial, obvious point. That it's not is demonstrated by the blow back anybody who points it out gets.

Well, no, see, the "anybody" in this sentence is always you. Every time the topic arises, your first and quite obviously only concern is TEH FALSE ACCUSERS.

One wonders why.

[Phil]

If any ObWi regs think that accused rapists should always be presumed guilty, and that the burden of proof lies with the defense, now's the time to speak up, btw. Otherwise, Brett is arguing with villains in his head again. And to quote somebody, "You do realize, don't you, that the voices in your head tell us about what's going on in YOUR head, not mine?"

[russell]

But that's exactly what the flow chart does: Start with a rape occuring, so that every single failure to proceed to conviction IS a failure.

I'm looking for that statement, in the flowchart, in Doc Science's graphic based on it, and in any of her statements in her post.

And amazingly enough, I'm not finding it.

[russell]

there's this notion floating out there that rape is different from other crimes, that the burden of proof ought to be different, that you can't acknowlege that sometimes rape accusations are false because it would be insensitive or some such.

Lots of crimes are different from other crimes. And, the burden of proof is not different, but the difficulty of proof quite often is. And, the nature of the burden placed on the person bringing the accusation quite often is.

I'm not really in a position to challenge the numbers Daly and Bouhours have put out there. But, if they are remotely accurate, the vast majority of accused rapists are receiving the benefit of the doubt. I.e., not only being presumed innnocent, but actually found innocent.

So, you should find that encouraging.

If your goal here is to make sure that we not forget that some people are accused of rape falsely, your mission has been accomplished.

[Brett Bellmore]

"I'm looking for that statement, in the flowchart, in Doc Science's graphic based on it, and in any of her statements in her post.

And amazingly enough, I'm not finding it."

I'm looking at the flow chart this instant, and the very top of it says, "Sexual assault takes place, N=714"

The entire chart below proceeds from the starting point of a rape taking place. No cases are dismissed because of a false accusation. No acquittals are due to a false accusation. In every last case, a failure to convict involves a rapist going free, because in every last case the chart acknowledges, a rape did take place.

Are you perhaps looking at a different flow chart?

[Phil]

I don't know, are you reading the one where the very next step is "Case dropped by police: No suspect identified, no evidence of crime, victim withdrawal, "no-crime" (UK), unfounded (US)?"

I'll give you 100 guesses what those last two mean, and the first 99 don't count.

You're talking to an audience comprised of like one-fourth lawyers. How much education do you suppose they need from some crank libertarian engineer on how the court system works?

[russell]

Also, case withdrawn, accuser withdraws, acquittal. And you are assuming that none of dismissals or acquittals are due to false accusation, the reason for dismissal or acquittal are not given in the chart, or in any of Doc Science's statements.

Out of the 100 cases reported to police at all, 12.5 result in a sentence due to a guilty plea or a finding of guilt.

I'm not seeing a presumption of guilt here.

Also, </i> is your friend.

[bobbyp]

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2012/03/is-not-teaching-about-rape-pedagogical-malpractice.html#comments>Is it the rape culture?

[Chris J]

Any of you lawyers got an estimate of the ratio of raped women to men falsely accused of rape? You know, just to judge the relative scale of things here. I'm guessing maybe 100,000 to 1. I'm not really a Utilitarian, but although I'm sure the rights of that 1 guy are important to protect (apparently especially to Brett) I'm mostly interested in the 100,000.

And what gives with the italics tags? I'm not using any, but the software appears to insist my words are just that important.

[Slartibartfast]

Also, </i> is your friend.

Seconded, by one of the people who have to clean up the various HTML-fus.

[Rarely Posts]

Wow, this thread is really highlighting the difficulty of teaching rape. Because this entire discussion of false accusations doesn't have much relevance to the pedagogical role of the class criminal law. Criminal law is primarily about teaching people the law of what does and does not constitute a crime. It's in later courses--criminal procedure, evidence, seminars, clinics--when the focus becomes proving your case (or defending a client).

Obviously, in discussing rape in criminal law, one would want to discuss the statistics (difficulty of bringing cases, estimated percentage of people effected by rape, estimated percentage of false accusations). One would also want to emphasize that when advising a client or deciding to bring a prosecution, the lawyer would need to critically consider the weight of the evidence and how a jury will react to it. But very little time would need to be spent on these issues. That's not what the introductory class criminal law is really about; as when learning about different classifications of murder (first degree, second degree, manslaughter), the focus is the elements and standards, not so much building or rebutting the factual case.

Now, you're going to have students who react to any discussion of rape with a need to discuss the horror of false accusations. But, I don't think that avoiding the subject is appropriate simply because some students have trouble treating this crime like other crimes (murder, theft, etc.) or bringing the same amount of rational thought to it as other crimes. In fact, it highlights the importance. Your students should not get the message from you that rape is completely different than other crimes and that it's something a lawyer can afford to be irrational about.

[McKinneyTexas]

Any of you lawyers got an estimate of the ratio of raped women to men falsely accused of rape?

Of the maybe 50-60 rape/molestation cases I've dealt with, I've seen one false charge of rape (carried to extraordinary lengths) and one false allegation of molestation. I have no idea whether these stats prove anything.

[AnonMan]

Now, you're going to have students who react to any discussion of rape with a need to discuss the horror of false accusations.

This isn't just "any" discussion of rape. It's a discussion which strongly implies not nearly enough people get convicted of rape, and that strongly suggests rape accusations are always or almost always valid.

A poster above speculated that in such a class, on average 3-5 women will have been raped. Well, how many men do you think have been subject to false accusations?

I understand it's not easy to talk about rape or rape attempts against you. But believe me, it's not easy to talk about false accusations either. I don't know how common it is, but I've been subject to it twice - once from a severely disturbed kid near my own age who luckily only spread rumors, once from a vindictive ex-wife, seeking custody. She backed away from it when the CPS firmly stated they had absolutely no reason to suspect abuse. Now she (and the court) acts as if the accusation never happened.

Which I am, in a way, grateful for. I can't talk about it to anyone. I already know all too well the gaze not-too-attractive men get around kids. You can't talk about a false accusation, because a considerable number of people will believe it's true. Even those who don't directly think so are going to start looking at me, and "take no chances", nursing their suspicions.

A false accusation of sexual perversity is damaging in a way a false accusation of, well, just about any other crime wouldn't be. I'd much rather people suspect that I was violent, a habitual liar, or devoid of conscience. I could readily enough combat that with my actions. But who knows what goes on inside a man's head? If I was a pervert, you wouldn't know, would you? So virtually nothing I can do can suggest my innocence.

I have no idea how common or rare false accusations of sexual misconduct are. I have only my own experiences to go by. But I know if you only look at people speaking up about it in public, you are going to underestimate it at least as much as you would with rape.

I considered putting my real mail address on this post, so you could verify that I am a real person, and maybe even verify my story. But truth is, I don't trust Dr. Science. If the CPS people had shared her typical feminist attitudes, I'm afraid the total lack of corraborating evidence wouldn't have deterred them. Well-intentioned as they surely are, they are a deadly threat to people in my situation.

Happy 8th of March, women. I wish you all well, I really do. And I wish no one was raped, ever. But please don't sacrifice men like me in the attempt to get there.

[Julian]

Brett's right, the flowchart does presume that the sexual assaults counted are genuine sexual assaults. It lists N=614 for unreported sexual assaults. An unreported sexual assault isn't a sexual assault at all if there's no sexual assault to be unreported, right?

My response is "so what?" Should the person making the flowchart have incorporated a % rate at which accusers lie? Where would they get that rate? Where, for that matter, do you get that rate, Brett?

"I have no idea whether these stats prove anything."

Those aren't statistics.

[McKinneyTexas]

Those aren't statistics.

Sure they are. They are my personal statistics. Whether they prove anything is completely different.

[bobbyp]

....had shared her typical feminist attitudes.

An unfortunate turn of phrase that casts serious doubt on your entire post.

[Julian]

Sorry, it doesn't "unreported sexual assaults."

But Brett is right (about the presumption of guilt in that flowchart).

According to the chart, out of a total of 714 sexual assaults, 3.5 are acquitted. But they still count acquittals as sexual assaults in the chart. Of course, some or many factually guilty rapists are acquitted, just pointing out, the chart is a little off.

I still agree that fear of false accusation is usually wildly overblown, and Brett hasn't even given us a source for his claim:

"Well, I've seen references from law enforcement claiming something on the order of 8% of rape accusations are false."

Would love to see this.

[bobbyp]

Question for McTx: Which rate is higher?

(a.)False rape accusations
(b.) lying about your golf score

What does your answer say about golfers? ;)

[hairshirthedonist]

So far, no one has suggested that there are no such thing as false rape accusations, nor has anyone said that there are, but that they just don't matter.

With that, I have to agree with Julian. Even if you follow the chart, the later no-suspect, no-evidence, unfounded, etc. categories do not necessarily acknowledge false allegations as such. They can be determinations of such by police, which may be incorrect for reasons including bias against or dismissiveness toward victims, or they may be procedurally correct because of, as listed, no suspect or evidence, even if the police believe the victim.

The question is, what constitutes the N=714? The category is presented as actual assaults having occurred, not alleged assaults.

(I don't really care enough to delve into the link to try to answer that question, and I'm not suggesting that anyone else should if not sufficiently motivated to do so. But it's a relevant question.)

[AnonMan]

An unfortunate turn of phrase that casts serious doubt on your entire post.

It really doesn't take much for you to dismiss experiences that don't suit your world view, does it?

But no matter. I know, I can't speak up under my full name, and I know that makes what I say less credible. For my own sake I could maybe risk going public, and take the consequences for the sake of men in a similar situation - but I fear jeopardizing my contact with my son. Call me in 12 years or so, then I can go full MRA and damn the consequences.

Regardless if you think my negative attitude to feminists makes me less credible, you might be able to consider the logic of my situation.

[russell]

OK, so what does that '714 sexual assaults' really mean? Do the authors assume a priori that all assaults reported in the underlying survey actually happened, or are they recognized to be alleged assaults?

What does the actual paper say?

For simplicity of expression, we use victim and offender throughout the essay, without the “alleged” preface

So, "alleged" is omitted not out of prejudice toward the putative offender, but as a matter of editorial style.

The confusion is understandable, but is also quite easily resolved if you take a minute to click through and read a couple of paragraphs.

[hairshirthedonist]

Okay, I caved after russell did the homework, but produced something not entirely on point. How they use the words "victim" and "offender" in the paper doesn't apply to the chart, which reads "Sexual assult takes place."

This is from the paper, just after the chart is presented in Figure 4:

For every 100 sexual offenses reported, there are over 600 instances of sexual victimizations not reported.

How "alleged" applies to events not reported is unclear, and there is no use of the words "victim" or "offender" in that sentence. Maybe we're to infer that the events not reported are only alleged events, or maybe not. (But my motivation to look even further is lacking.)

(Also, my personal opinion is that false allegations are, as I wrote way upthread, statistically insignificant, if very significant personally for the falsely accused. I think Brett may have only a very minor point.)

[Julian]

Sorry McKT, I was being glib, I just meant I don't think your personal experience is that helpful here because of low sample, non-biased (not that you're biased, but that you see a nonrandom sample) sample, etc.

[Patrick]

For what its worth, the false accusation issue almost never registered in my law school discussion on rape. We spent most of our time on the issue of what constitutes consent or lack thereof, and whether or not the accused is required to have knowledge of the alleged victim's consent or lack thereof. Most of the case law we spent the majority of time on was chosen to involve cases as close to the line of a reasonable misunderstanding as possible. And if you don't think that a reasonable misunderstanding about rape is possible, well, you've never been to law school.

The closest we came to discussing false accusations was our lengthy discussion of what constitutes proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Part of the feminist critique of rape law and the subject of rape law is the assertion that juries are overly suspicious of rape victims, and that juries demand heightened levels of proof in rape cases. Unfortunately, this discussion never went anywhere productive. The professor wanted to have this discussion because he was one of the many people who believe that because rape is a Very Serious Issue, it is therefore his obligation to make sure that his students have Proper Opinions about the subject. So we ended up having a discussion about the standard of proof juries demand in rape cases, and how it compares to other cases, before any of us had any meaningful knowledge about what the standard of proof a jury demands in a non rape case even was. We were all completely unarmed for the conversation, and unable to even process his argument. Mostly we just sat there while he talked at us, terrified that we'd misunderstand something and someone would imply that we were soft on rape.

I wish I could really emphasize to you all just how horrible that course was, and the way that its horribleness tied not only to the professor, and the context, but also to the subject matter. The feminist critique of rape law is multifaceted, and some of those facets are occupied by kooks who, inexplicably, command respect. But explaining some of the ridiculousness we went through would involve explaining some fairly technical legal issues as background knowledge, and its just not worth the effort.

[russell]

How "alleged" applies to events not reported is unclear

How "alleged" applies to events not reported is as follows:

In a survey, a number of people alleged that they were sexually assaulted. Some of the folks who made that allegation reported the alleged assault, far more did not.

The authors of the paper omitted the word "alleged" in their discussion of how all this was handled, as well as in the chart, as a matter of editorial style. For "simplicity of expression", as they put it.

How do I know this? They said so.

The fact that they *do not assume that all claims of sexual assault made in the survey actually took place* is unclear the chart itself, as cited in Doc Science's post, but is extraordinarily easy to discover if you read the first few graphs of the paper.

So, as far as I can tell, nobody is claiming that everyone who claims to have been assaulted is telling the truth, or that everyone accused of assault is guilty, or that far more people really need to be found guilty of rape and thrown in jail.

Maybe I need to read more closely, but I'm just not seeing that.

What Dr. Science actually *does* appear to be talking about is the difficulty of teaching the legal aspects of sexual assault to an audience of folks who likely include some number of victims, and possibly also some perpetrators.

And, possibly also some folks who were wrongly accused of being perpetrators.

It's an interesting question, I'm sorry so few folks seemed interested in discussing it.

The related topics - the difficulty of proving that an assault took place, the possibility for different people involved to have completely different understandings of each other's intent and / or of what actually took place, the vulnerability of women to assault and intimidation, the vulnerability of men to unjustified claims of assault - also all interesting issues, and worth discussing.

Assumptions of bad faith, or ill intent, or prejudice toward one gender or another, with no evidence, not so interesting. My two cents.

We all have our hobbyhorses. FSM only knows I have mine. But it's helpful to have some self-awareness about them.

[Phil]

Way to get trolled once again, guys. And BB, having achieved his purpose, disappears in a puff of smoke until he hears the word "guns," "rape" or "Mexican" on the wind.

[Rob in CT]

While I'm basically in agreement with what you said in response to Brett, Phil, the person who was most successfully trolled* was, um, you.

* - assuming for the sake of discussion that Brett was trolling.

[Countme-In]

Happy International Women's Day:

http://annfriedman.com/blog/slutty-women-gifable-0

[avedis]

"What Dr. Science actually *does* appear to be talking about is the difficulty of teaching the legal aspects of sexual assault to an audience of folks who likely include some number of victims, and possibly also some perpetrators.

And, possibly also some folks who were wrongly accused of being perpetrators.

It's an interesting question, I'm sorry so few folks seemed interested in discussing it."

I think the conversation got detoured for a couple reasons. First, early on, lawyers seemed to disagree with Dr S' premise. They stated, mostly, and to the contrary of Dr S' assertion, that rape is taught in law school and that there really are not issues in doing so. Second, Dr S herself posted the provocative graph that attracted the attention of BB and others. So Dr S was asking for a diversion from her point; which it turns out wasn't a point.

Personally, I find her graph and stat.s to be highly questionable. If an alleged rape was not reported to police and did not go through the judicial process, then how do we know it was a rape. We don't. Therefore, the stat.s that follow are meaningless due to being based on spurious assumptions.

[Patrick]

avedis- there's nothing wrong with doing statistical analysis and surveys in order to determine the true rate of an unreported crime. While the objectivity of the work might be questioned, there's nothing wrong with it in principle. You just explain your methodology, stick a margin of error on your work, and voila.

[avedis]

Sure Patrick, but garbage in, garbage out still holds.

[hairshirthedonist]

Therefore, the stat.s that follow are meaningless due to being based on spurious assumptions.

Here's what I see as a major problem with that analysis, even as one who has questioned how someone arrived at the N=714:

For the stats to be "meaningless" they would have to be sufficiently inaccurate not to reflect the reality of the situation in a statistically reasonable way. Unless you seriously think a sufficient enough percentage of people who claimed to have been raped are lying about it to significanly skew the results, you can't logically come to that conclusion.

Now, maybe you think lots of people are lying about it on surveys for whatever reason. If so, tell us, and we can agree to disagree on the premises under which we're operating.

[hairshirthedonist]

Sure Patrick, but garbage in, garbage out still holds.

But the you're assuming some amount of onus to demonstrate the "garbage in" part of that when making that statement. What, specifically, were the flaws in the survey methodology that makes you think the results were wrong to a statistically significant degree, or do you just think surveys are inherently bogus?

[Slartibartfast]

Way to get trolled once again, guys.

Ummm...which of us responds most to Brett, again? Which of us almost invariably winds up in a pissing match with Brett?

[avedis]

Well, I too question the 714 figure and it is the foundation of what is attempted to be conveyed.

Surveys are fine if the researcher is looking for data on attitudes.

Surveys are not very good at collecting data pertaining to complex factual matters; especially those pertaining to realms usually left to professional and experts. Examples that I am familiar with include medical conditions. I have been involved with survey development where we target insurance plan members who we know, from claim data, either have or don't have certain conditions. members are remarkably innacurate in the understanding of their own diagnoses, procedures that have been performed and healthcare needs. Sometimes they just plain lie. An example would be a member denying that they fell and broke their hip when their claims data shows they were treated in a hospital for just that reason.

I have also seen laymen make all sorts of legal asessments that are just plain wrong. They misuse legal terminology. They just don't understand law. I'm sure lawyers here can relate.

To the extent that "rape' and "assualt" are legal terms that are only alleged until proven such in court, I find it questionable that laymen (laywomen?) are capable of accurately reporting that what may have occurred to them meets the legal definition. I also am sure that some significant % of the 714 are situations where the woman may be deliberately using the term inappropriately for various reasons.

[russell]

Troll me once, shame on you.
Troll me twice... uh, won't get trolled again.

Look, if you haven't at least read the report that Doctor S cites, you aren't in a position to comment on the quality of the numbers.

If you have done so, and have some credible reason to criticize the statistics, that might be of interest.

Otherwise, with respect, you are pulling this out of your behind.

People jump on Dr S for working the feminist tip. There are two sides to that street.

[sapient]

AnonMan: I have no idea how common or rare false accusations of sexual misconduct are.

I think (this is totally unsupported by fact) that false accusations of rape to a public prosecutor are probably rare. On the other hand, I think that false accusations of sexual abuse in divorce cases are somewhat common.

Again, maybe it's just that sexual assault is more prevalent than I can believe, but when I was practicing domestic relations law, it was never surprising in a hotly contested custody case for one party to accuse the other of sexual abuse, and I didn't always buy it. If the party was my client, I insisted that some immediate step be taken to obtain medical and/or psychological evidence. That advice rarely panned out into anything useful. (These are not "feminists" I'm talking about. These are just angry people.)

It's not necessarily true that evidence can be gathered in every case of sexual assault, and I'm sure that many, many real assaults go unreported, unprosecuted, etc. On the other hand, there are vindictive people out there, or at least people who, in certain situations, are willing to believe the worst about other people.

[avedis]

"Look, if you haven't at least read the report that Doctor S cites, you aren't in a position to comment on the quality of the numbers."

More of that amazing OBWI regular mind reading ability. Unfortunately, as usual, it is a hallucination as opposed to true psi. I did read the article. Did you?

As best I can tell the 714 figure was extrapolated using the researchers' favorite study (the one with the highest figure, of course). It is noted in the paper that other studies have produced considerably lower figures. It is also noted that the figure one arrives at is dependent on how rape and assualt are defined as well as on some other easily manipluated variables. Furthermore, it is noted that "victims" have widely varying concepts of what constitutes rape and some only reported having been raped after being coached by researchers. That smells funky to me.

What I find interesting is that there is actually a fairly high conviction rate once these things are reported. The rate in the posted graphic is just from the study; which suffers from small sample size. Real stats from the justice system, quoted by the authors, shows 61% (versus the 40% in the graphic) guilty plea. There is also a much higher rate of conviction for aggrevated rape. That made me happy to read. I wish Dr S had posted these facts as well. Maybe they work counter to her purpose here.

Speaking of definitions, is it safe to say that a "troll" is someone you disagree with often?

[russell]

I did read the article. Did you?

Yes, I did.

is it safe to say that a "troll" is someone you disagree with often?

No, a troll is someone who comments to stir up sh*t rather than contribute to a discussion.

Look, this was in your opening statement:

If an alleged rape was not reported to police and did not go through the judicial process, then how do we know it was a rape. We don't. Therefore, the stat.s that follow are meaningless due to being based on spurious assumptions.

Since nobody that I can see was claiming that all of the alleged sexual assaults (not rapes) were actual instances of sexual assault, then I'm not sure you have a point.

Your analysis is OK, I'm just not sure who you think you are arguing with.

The strongest claims Doctor Science makes based on the paper are:

1. A lot of women are sexually assaulted
2. Most of them don't report it
3. Even if they do, not a lot of convictions result from that

Does anyone find these points to be controversial? Is it necessary that every alleged sexual assault be an actual instance of an assault for them to be so?

And the moral of Doc S's story was that it might be difficult to teach law about sexual assault because some of the students are likely victims or, perhaps, perpetrators.

And, several of the lawyers here have offered very interesting commentary on that question. So, mission accomplished.

[avedis]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2009/10/how_often_do_women_falsely_cry_rape.html

The best studies show that 8% to 10% of rape claims are false allegations. Some studies, though methodologically less sound, put the figure much higher. So why is Brett a troll for pointing out something that is true and somewhat salient?

"Since nobody that I can see was claiming that all of the alleged sexual assaults (not rapes) were actual instances of sexual assault, then I'm not sure you have a point."

Wrong. Dr S says that what amazes her is how many assualts/rapes never enter the justice system based off the 714 number that I question.

She also bases her entire premise that teaching rape law is difficult because odds are that several people in the class room will be victims on the source of the 714 figure.

This is pretty easy logic to follow. I know you could follow it if you wanted to. You seem to have very selective intellectual faculties.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Since nobody that I can see was claiming that all of the alleged sexual assaults (not rapes) were actual instances of sexual assault, then I'm not sure you have a point."

I was critiquing the flow chart as a teaching material. I had a specific complaint about it: It starts with a box which says, "Sexual assault takes place".

Now, you may, (Baselessly) impugn my engineering skills all you like. I don't care, you're not my employer or one of his customers. But I do number generating and reading flow charts among my job skills, and this chart unambiguously comes out and says that everything in the chart starts with a sexual assault taking place.

That's not implied, it's not ambiguous, that's what the chart says.

Says Sebastian,

"I tend to think that when initially learning about rape in law school, it wouldn't be necessary to start with noting that some people lie about (or are confused about the identity of the perpatrator) rape.

I think that comes up later in the course when you talk about the difficulty of proving intent, *especially* when the entire case turns on intent. This is problematic in date rape cases (the most common types of rape, though I don't think they are the most common types of *prosecuted* rapes) because the case will largely turn on subjective interpretations of who is more believable.

So contra Brett, I don't think the teaching of it, at least initially, needs a reminder of 'complainants lie' any more than any other crime."

Fair enough, they start physics with Newton, not Einstein. It's not the choice I'd make, but it's a valid choice.

It's just not a choice which makes the chart correct.

[russell]

That's not implied, it's not ambiguous, that's what the chart says.

Yes Brett, that is correct. And if you read a page or two of the document the chart is excerpted from, you will find what the chart *means*.

I.e., it wasn't making the claim you thought it made, and that can be discovered fairly readily.

I wasn't making any point about your engineering, or any other, skills in saying that, I was just pointing it out.

That is all.

You seem to have very selective intellectual faculties.

Whatever.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, Russell, the chart means what it says. I'd readily believe that the person who authored it intended to craft a chart that meant something else.

They failed. Hey, it happens.

[Sebastian]

"She also bases her entire premise that teaching rape law is difficult because odds are that several people in the class room will be victims on the source of the 714 figure."

Umm, I doubt that. She probably bases it on the lifetime chance of rape figures in the US, which while I don't have them at my fingertips, almost ensure that in a class of say 100 law students, in which 55 or so of them are women, at least 2 or 3 will have been raped and about twice that many had been subjected to a sexual assault. (Numbers approximate but not ridiculous).

[Phil]

Can someone explain to me how, given russell's comment above, any of the chart or the substance of the post changes ifumber ginning number is 642 rather than 714?

[Phil]

friggin iPad. " . . . If the beginning number is 642 rather than 714?"

[avedis]

"That's not implied, it's not ambiguous, that's what the chart says."

yes, of course. I agree.

However, we are dealing with the words don't mean what they say crowd. So now we have a "living chart" and a "living post".

"Umm, I doubt that. She probably bases it on the lifetime chance of rape figures in the US, which while I don't have them at my fingertips, almost ensure that in a class of say 100 law students, in which 55 or so of them are women, at least 2 or 3 will have been raped and about twice that many had been subjected to a sexual assault. "

Nice try. However the 714 and the lifetime chance numbers come from the same place and that place and its methodology has been called into serious question. It is the high end number selected, with bias, from a pool of studies; some of which show a much lower %.

"If the beginning number is 642 rather than 714?"

Since we are now in the realm of just making sh!t up, why not 152? why 10,000? But yeah, obviously it makes a difference. The thrust of Dr S' argument centers on a high % of sexual assualts going unreported. If you think words and numbers have meaning, that is. Otherwise, you are right. What dif could some meaningless chicken scratches have. Gonna believe what you want to believe and argue anything just for the sake of it. Hell. Numbers add up to nothin'.

[sapient]

Khiara Bridges (from Doctor Science's post) says A couple of senior professors from other law schools had advised me not to cover sexual assault as part of my Criminal Law class at all. It was too risky, I was told. ...

It would be interesting to know who the professors were who advised this, and whether they were serious.

[hairshirthedonist]

My current reading of the flow chart is that they aggregated a large number of surveys and studies to arrive at a number of statistics that would apply across all the countries studied over the period 1990 to 2005.

They then started with a number of 100 sexual assaults reported to the police as a premise and used the stats to back into the preceding number and arrive at the numbers going forward. The 714 is simply 100 divided by .14, because their analysis suggests that only 14% of sexual assaults are reported to the police.

What they don't say is anything like "we assume false allegations to be statistically insignificant" or "we assumed x% of allegations to be false and didn't include them" or anything like that.

I did a word search for "assume" and go no hits. I did a word search for "false" and got only one.

I think addressing the issue more directly could have avoided the sort of controversy over false allegations we've seen on this thread.

Then again, if you assume that some of the alleged assaults didn't actually occur, do you then also assume that some get falsely reported to the police? If so, do the false ones get reported to the police more or less often than, or just as often as, the real ones?

If the data on instances of sexual assault come from surveys, and there would be no vindiction involved in responding to a survey, but there would be in reporting a false allegation to the police, what do you assume?

If there are false reports included in the 714, how many are included in the 100? And how many of the assumed false ones go any further?

If you were able to take the false ones out, you'd have to take them out everywhere they showed up, not just out of the 714, which could end up making the numbers on actual sexual assaults look even worse. It cuts both ways.

[Phil]

642 is 90% of the original "sexual assault occurs" number of 714, taking the high range of the estimated 10% of reports being false.

Would a non-stupid person, or one who can do percentages in his or her head, like to address my question? I see hsh has made a stab. Anyone else?

[hairshirthedonist]

One thing I just noticed is that I made up the word "vindiction," which was supposed to mean "vindictiveness" (or an act thereof). The problem is that it could easily be read as "vindication," which would make no sense at all.

But, back to the 10% false reports, is that 10% reported to the police? Would that then mean we're talking about 90 instead of 100? I can't imagine that figure has anything to do with people responding to surveys. If you remove the same 10 from the 714, leaving 704, you're now left with a reporting percentage of 90/704, which equals less than 13 percent.

That's a potential outcome of trying to account for false accustations to only consider actual sexual assaults.

[Patrick]

Phil- the chart was entirely extraneous to the content of the post, so whether the chart is wrong changes nothing. It doesn't matter if the proper number is 642 or 6, since the post is about the percentage of the general population who have been victims of rape, and the chart is about the prosecutorial attrition rate of sex offense case. This entire discussion has been a rather annoying sidetrack.

[avedis]

"....since the post is about the percentage of the general population who have been victims of rape...."

I have to disagree because the post says this;"The most shocking factor: only about 14% of sexual assaults are reported to the police.'

However, even regarding prosecution attrition, the chart is less than useful because it blends different types of rape, stat.s from different countries as well as age groups of alleged victims. If you actually read the study, some types of rape - like aggregated - have a very high successful prosecution rate. If I recall correctly, over 60%. As do rapes involving adolscents.

It is the so called "date rapes" and such that lower the prosecution and sentencing rates.

As I said up thread, the study itself reviews literature that suggests a much lower rate of sexual assulat and rape. The researchers chose to use a study with a high rate. The researchers also discuss that studies with hih rates involved some coaching or leading of interviewees to understand a more liberal definition of rape in order to gain the high rates.

It seems to me that a 10% false allegation rate does not come off the 714, but is a subset of the 100 that ultimately failed to result in sentencing.

[avedis]

meant to say aggrevated not aggregated.

Patrick, DR S' argument is always that women are being raped in huge numbers every day and that men typically get away scott free with the crime because we live in a "rape culture". The use of the 714 is a furthering of her standard argument. Also, it is integral to the other question she asks regarding students likely to have been victims. She uses the same % figures from which the 714 is derived to enforce her point about likely % of victims in a classroom.

[avedis]

"Further, the chances are that around one out of 20 males has raped someone, and has not been caught "

Is also based on the 714 methodology.

It is a classic man hating feminist statement that is offensive and most likely quite untrue.

[Patrick]

avedis- That might be Dr Science's belief in general, but almost none of that is actually in the post that opened this thread. For example, the phrase "rape culture" shows up only twice in this comment thread, with the second mention being yours in the above comment.

I stand by my impression that the chart did not advance any claim central to her argument. Nothing in the percentage attrition rate of rape cases can be used to support or counter a claim that a certain amount of students in a random classroom have been affected by rape. The statistics are simply two separate matters. Most likely the chart should not have been included, but given that it has been, it could at least be ignored, or used only to support or criticize points towards which it is relevant.

As someone who's quite critical of the intellectual honesty of the feminist movement, I beg you to accept this critique from me: You are not helping.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Phil- the chart was entirely extraneous to the content of the post, so whether the chart is wrong changes nothing."

Then I imagine it would change nothing if the chart started with a box which read, "Sexual assault does NOT take place, N714" Since, you know, the accuracy of the chart doesn't really matter...

Again, I was simply analyzing it as a teaching aid, and do not believe teaching aids should incorporate false premises.

[Phil]

Patrick, yeah, that was actually supposed to be my point, although I was expressing it perhaps clumsily.

One might also note that the chart does not specify the genders of either complainant or offender. Men can be raped, and women can be rapists.

LOL at Sebastian being characterized by avedis as a "man-hating feminist." There are so many things wrong with that statement I don't even know where to start.

[Phil]

(One might also want to note the right wing freak out, which went FAR beyond Rush Limbaugh, regarding a woman testifying to Congress about birth control being included in insurance coverage, when reflecting on how real "rape culture" is, but that's a topic for another post.)

[hairshirthedonist]

How does the 714 suggest that women are being raped all the time and we live in a rape culture? What math are you doing with it, because that number, as it stands, doesn't suggest that, considering the number of countries in question? And where does Doc Sci make any statement that it suggests such?

(Is this another episode of "Things I Imagine Doc Sci Said"?)

[Slartibartfast]

LOL at Sebastian being characterized by avedis as a "man-hating feminist." There are so many things wrong with that statement I don't even know where to start.

That is quite chortly; agreed.

[avedis]

Sorry, but Dr S uses this,

"It is a statistical certainty that at least one person, probably a woman, in your classroom has been raped. It is very unlikely that she reported the crime, and even less likely that it made it all the way through to a conviction. Use Daly & Bouhours [pdf] as your starting point."

and this,

"the chances are that around one out of 20 males has raped someone, and has not been caught "

to further her argument. Actually as a basis for it. I'm not making this up. Read the post. It's right there. It's a little disturbing that lawyers can't follow the flow of the case Dr S is making. i.e. that rape law is difficult to teach because so many women (how many? read the study linked to) have been raped and so many men are rapists that in any given law class we are certain to have both victims and perps and this creates an emotional stew that renders teaching the subject too risky.

Then she totally ignores the flip side of the emotional risk equation which is men who have been falsely accused and women who say they have been raped when they have not been.

So, 1 in 20 law students is a rapist? Really?

What if I said 1 in 20 law students is an arsonist that hasn't been caught? Or 1 in 20 is a murderer that has escaped justice? Or an armed robber? Pretty soon we'd have a class room 99% full of felons and wouldn't be able to teach any criminal law at all due to too-close-home sensitivity issues.

[russell]

She probably bases it on the lifetime chance of rape figures in the US, which while I don't have them at my fingertips, almost ensure that in a class of say 100 law students, in which 55 or so of them are women, at least 2 or 3 will have been raped and about twice that many had been subjected to a sexual assault.

Per the DOJ, lifetime likelihood of a woman in the US being raped is 18%. So, almost one in five.

So, out of a population of 55 women, the likelihood is that about ten of them will be raped at some point in their lifetime. 2 to 3 in a law school classroom does not seem like a stretch.

NB: not my numbers, I'm just reading. If you have an issue with it, take it up with the DOJ.

And yeah, to follow on Phil's comment, if 8% of 100 reported assaults are false, that means 92 were not. And out of that 92, a total of 12.5 made their way through the justice system and resulted in a finding of guilt.

I can't speak to Doc S's claim that 1 out of 20 males has committed a sexual assault or rape, but her claim that most of those who do will go unpunished seems reasonable.

Again, these are not my numbers, and I have no particular personal dog in the "rape culture" fight. I'm just looking at the readily available information. And with the exception of the 1 in 20 males are rapists number, what Doc S is saying seems reasonable, to me.

The 1 in 20 might be reasonable too, I just haven't spent any time googling it up yet.

How this applies or does not apply to the pedagogy of law is a topic I will leave to my betters.

[russell]

Sorry, my first post seems to have lost the cite for the 18% number.

Here it is.

[russell]

What if I said 1 in 20 law students is an arsonist that hasn't been caught? Or 1 in 20 is a murderer that has escaped justice? Or an armed robber?

If it were true, it would be a pretty interesting issue for law school professors. Or, at least, for the legal profession.

[Phil]

BTW, you're right, Slarti, I did let myself get trolled by Brett, and it's nobody's fault but mine.

In recompense, here is a video of baby sloths getting shaved and treated for mange.

[avedis]

Lets just assume, for the moment, that the DOJ stats reflect what you think they do. Even so, extrapolating from them to a 1 in 20 law students is a parist has several huge problems. For example,
as you note, the DOJ figures are a life time chance. Most law students have not lived a full life. Most not even a third of a life.

Another example, one would like to believe that law students are selected from a pool that is different culturally and intellectually from the general population in such ways that the incidence of rape is probably much lower than in the overall population. In fact, the DOJ and other studies suggest that various cultural, demographic and socio-economic factors are correlated with the probability of being a victim of rape; factors most likely less prevalent in a classroom full of law students.

"How this applies or does not apply to the pedagogy of law is a topic I will leave to my betters."

Again, it's right there in the post. She says the law might be risky to teach because there are victims and perps in the classroom.

[russell]

factors most likely less prevalent in a classroom full of law students.

Correct, which is why I found 2 to 3, rather than 10, in a population of 55 to be "not a stretch".

Younger, therefore not having lived their full lives. Socioeconomically, more likely to be relatively advantaged.

On the other side, probably younger, and sexual assault victimhood skews younger rather than older.

So, not 10, but 2 or 3.

And again, I'm not claiming to be making an authoritative statement, I'm simply making basic, Fermi-problem assessments about whether the various claims presented on this thread pass the smell test.

IMO both Doc S's and Sebastian's do.

In other news, from here:

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)

The footnote references a book called "I Never Called It Rape", subtitle "The Ms. Report On Recognizing, Fighting, and Surviving Acquaintance and Date Rape". So, likely not an unbiased source.

That said, the quote makes me think that some of the "it must be true" / "it can't be true" argument is definitional.

I.e., what constitutes a rape or sexual assault?

I found this to be interesting reading. If my stepson was college age, I'd make him read it.

[McKinneyTexas]

Question for McTx: Which rate is higher?

(a.)False rape accusations
(b.) lying about your golf score

I'll go with lying about golf scores for $50.00.

Julian, you are correct, as I think I acknowledged, that my personal experience is not representative.

There are a couple of markers for authentic reporting in my view. First and foremost, the victim is reticent about discussing what happened, subdued, embarrassed and ashamed. In many cases, they blame themselves. What they don't do, in my limited experience, is go on a national tour, discussing their story at every opportunity. Publicity is the last thing on their mind. Ditto money.

The problem with this discussion is that 'rape' (not scare quotes) has a fairly precise legal definition. As used by Dr. S, the definition is much broader (I'm not sure I've seen an actual definition, and it's something I'd like to see, since it would likely hone this discussion more productively).

I am fairly sure that Dr. S' 'rape' definition would be difficult if not impossible to incorporate into a meaningful criminal statue. That said, are 1 in 20 males capable of non-consensual sex? Quite possibly. Have 1 in 20 had non-consensual sex? It wouldn't surprise me.

A client of mine commissioned a broad, in depth study of pedophilia. The researchers it engaged determined that 6 of 100 adults have pedophilic tendencies and 3 out of 100 act on them in some way. So, would I be surprised if 5 out of 100 males are ok with and have participated in non-consensual sex? No, I would not.

[Phil]

Yeah, but that's just because you're a man-hating radical feminist, McK.

[Patrick]

russell wrote, "That said, the quote makes me think that some of the "it must be true" / "it can't be true" argument is definitional."

From my law school experience, this is definitely the case. And the area where its probably most salient is in impaired consent cases. Discussing those in law school was a travesty. No one had a bright line for what counted as impaired consent, but if you felt a particular legal scholar's view was too far to one side or the other, the opposite side would attempt to paint you as some sort of moral monster.

I quit caring about the point where I realized that the professor's definition would not only make most students in the classroom into rapists, it would actually mean that a lot of them had committed simultaneous rape, in which both partners were guilty of raping each other. Funny things happen when the level of intoxication required to nullify consent is significantly lower than the level of intoxication that negates mens rea.

[avedis]

OK Russell, your thinking makes sense regarding the numbers. But how knows what is too high or too low.

Also, I agree with McT statements in his last. A serious flaw in the study is that they don't elucidate the questions asked or the methods of asking in interviews to arrive at their unreported rape figure. They do not discuss the sampling selection methodology either. Very bad science.

Bottom line here is that I think rape happens too often; as do a lot of crimes and civil offenses. Rape is a serious issue and it is one where more education, for both potential victims and potential perpetraters, could help reduce its rate of occurrence.

That said, the seriousness of the issue of rape is diminished when it becomes the subject of obsession and hyperbolic statements as well as overly broad definitions that tend to cast the onus of responsibility on one group involved in the tango as opposed to the other (e.g. note from Russell's link that alcohol and drugs are involved in about half of the sexual assualts).

The post didn't need to be about rape and it didn't need to have the rape stat.s included. It could have about sensitivity issues involved in teaching law - any area of law - to students who are likely to have experienced a host of traumatic events salient to the law being taught. I imagine immigration and discrimination law hits home with a number of minority students who have experienced the consequences of both; perhaps even been been motivated by their experiences to study law. Ditto personal injury law, homocide and other criminal law.