He Said, She Said: The Weight of Statistics in Rape Allegations

In the event of unsubstantiated and uncorroborated claims and allegations of any sort, how is it wise to proceed in assessing the qualifications of the accused?

By looking at and evaluating statistics. In a situation which may be labeled a "he said, she said", with no feasible way for either side to concretely evince the accuracy of their position, statistics can help provide clarity.   

Statistics indicate that at least one in five women in the United States have at some point suffered as victims of sexual assault. The statistics also demonstrate that, of the thousands of rape charges that are levied every year, the number of false accusations falls somewhere between 2% and 10%, for an average false accusation rate of 6%.

This makes untrue allegations of sexual assault a statistical anomaly. Essentially, false claims of rape and sexual abuse are demonstrably an incredibly rare exception to the rule and a deviation from the norm. Empirically speaking, then, the vast, vast majority of times that a woman claims that she has been sexually assault, she is telling the truth.

The range of this statistic is the concurrence of the FBI, the Journal of Forensic Psychology, and the Los Angeles Police Department, in addition to numerous privately funded and conducted studies on the part of academic journals and university faculty departments. In other words, according to both one of the largest information and investigative bureaus in the world and to independently conducted legitimate studies, the consensus is that women are accurately reporting sexual assault an overwhelming percentage of the time. 

The aforementioned figures do not even capture the profoundly systemic nature of the issue because, per the National Research Council, sexual assault ranks as one of the most underreported crimes in the world, with the estimated total of reported incidents falling well below 50%. This is likely as a result of the fact that, according to the FBI, fewer than 15% of defendants tried for rape serve time in prison. To put this in perspective, out of every 1,000 accused perpetrators, 850 of them walk free. This presents us with a startling discrepancy: More than 90% of sexual assault accusations are truthful, and fewer than 15% of those accused face appropriate punitive action. 

The fact that sexual assault remains a common occurrence and that justice is so infrequently served goes a long way in explaining why crimes such as rape and sexual harassment go unreported to a devastating degree. If you do not understand the #WhyIDidntReport movement, put yourself in a hypothetical position wherein you have been victimized by an offender who has less than a quarter chance of being admonished and disciplined accordingly and where, along the way, you will doubtlessly be ridiculed, slandered, and accused of outright perjury as a standard defense strategy.

And yet while 92-98% of rape allegations are factual, it is relevant and important to remember that 99.99% of men standing trial (literally or otherwise) for sexual assault are not Judge Brett Kavanaugh nominated for a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court of the United States mere weeks before midterm elections could potentially afford Democrats the opportunity to block his appointment. Republicans point to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s initial refusal to testify, her inability to remember pertinent details (such as the date and location of the alleged events), and her insistence on an FBI investigation which would likely reveal very little beyond witness speculation as damning evidence of an expedient and last-ditch effort to stall the vote for Judge Kavanaugh’s appointment. They cite the case of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was also accused of sexual harassment immediately prior to his appointment hearing in 1991. In light of this, we would be remiss to completely overlook the fact that there is much to be gained here, which means that these specific allegations should be considered with extreme care. 

What stands to be gained, however, will not be gained by Dr. Ford. She has taken a tremendous risk, putting her career and status on the line in order to pursue justice. Personally, Dr. Ford has very little to gain and a lot more to lose. She has only placed herself in the vulnerable position of being keelhauled by media outlets who made up their minds about what they think long before there was adequate information and evidence to do so.

And therein lies the problem.

The fact that the societally pervasive and significant levels of rape and sexual assault have become a partisan issue speaks to the level of ignorance and discord that have infiltrated American politics. Though I do not have data to support this assertion, it is my anecdotal experience that our perception, opinions, and determinations of the guilt or innocence of an accused party and of the sincerity of an accuser are based largely on our political preconceptions and leanings.

In this instance, liberals largely maintain that Dr. Ford MUST be telling the truth in order to protect the integrity of the court, in spite of the fact that her testimony is, definitionally, circumstantial, that the witnesses called upon do not share her recollection, and that Judge Kavanaugh managed to dig up a shaky alibi. Conversely, conservatives generally insist that Dr. Ford MUST be lying in order to stonewall a Supreme Court nomination until after midterm elections, even though statistics on rape allegations are staggeringly in favor of Dr. Ford, several other women have subsequently come forward and charged Judge Kavanaugh with sexual misconduct, and multiple signed affidavits support Dr. Ford’s claims.

For the sake of clarity, I am not asserting that Judge Kavanaugh is, in fact, guilty. I am not arguing that an assessment should be made purely and solely on the basis of Dr. Ford's allegations. I am not maintaining that the burden of proof ought to be replaced with an evaluation of the statistical likelihood of any given event. I am not insisting that we make a final determination of the validity of claims simply because data indicates that these claims are more generally credible. Statistics cannot be used to prove or demonstrate guilt on an individual level; they CAN be used to tell a larger story and testify as to the probability of an alleged event.

In which case, I AM saying that, in light of these concerning figures regarding sexual assault, Dr. Ford's accusations warrant an investigation and some deeper digging before the accused is appointed a lifetime position on the bench of the highest court in the land.

Either way, a precedent will be set here, and both can be dangerous.

If Dr. Ford’s testimony is enough to avert Judge Kavanaugh’s appointment, we have determined that allegations alone are enough to sidetrack a career and smear an otherwise clean reputation. On the contrary, if Dr. Ford’s claims do not prove sufficient to prevent Judge Kavanaugh from taking the bench of the Supreme Court, we demonstrate that a woman’s memory of forty-year-old events must go completely unchallenged, notwithstanding the fact that data and statistics clearly exemplify the prevailing sincerity of sexual assault claims.

Those statistics compel me to side with Dr. Ford. But an equally compelling argument can be made for adhering to the maxim “innocent until proven guilty”, which directs our courts and legal system (though, of course, Judge Kavanaugh is not actually on trial). Judge Kavanaugh is not a perpetrator; he is an alleged perpetrator, and this is a vital distinction.

Regardless of what happens regarding Judge Kavanaugh moving forward, this ongoing debacle has shed further light on the fact that women in this country feel unsafe, that they ARE unsafe, and that little to no retributive action is being taken to correct and rectify this problem. The fact is that one of the most internationally underreported offenses has, for decades, been one of the least penalized. It is far more likely for a woman to be sexually assaulted than it is for a man to be falsely accused of sexual assault, and thus it stands to reason that we should be much more concerned for women than for men. Whether or not Judge Kavanaugh serves as the next Supreme Court Justice of the United States, it is time for women to be heard and believed because the data backs them up. It has for a long time.



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