The serious aspects of false rape accusations venture far beyond any moral boundaries as a false accusation can tie up police resources and ruin the lives of the people around you. Although rape is an incredibly prevalent violent crime throughout the world, there are individuals who seek the attention associated with stating that they had been raped and have later been found to be lying. False rape accusations are significantly less common than actual rapes, but they can be far more damaging to a larger group of people.
Statistics of Rape Accusation
1. It is more common for men and women to not seek the aid of law enforcement agencies in the event of a legitimate rape but it is far more common for false accusations to be reported.
2. According to the FBI, between 1.5% and 8% of rape accusations were later found to be false.
3. With that being said, there are a variety of other resources such as the United States Justice Department that states approximately 2% of all rape complaints are false.
4. With the opposing views, there is little scientific evidence to prove whether the number is higher, lower, or accurate.
5. There have been an array of community-managed programs who have conducted their own sufficient amount of research into the prevalence of false rape accusations such as Making a Difference, of MAD.
6. The data that was accumulated from their studies was gathered between 18 and 24 months.
7. Out of the 2059 false rape accusations that they documented, over 140 of them (approximately 7%) were false.
8. In order to ensure that these results were accurate and valid, there were a numerous amount of safety precautions in place to protect the identity of the “victims.”
The Outcome of False Rape Accusations
One of the most important things to consider in terms of reporting a false violent crime is where they come from. The majority of the time, women are the gender that brings forth the false accusations, though men are also responsible for fabricating details of alleged rapes. There are hundreds of these offenses that happen throughout the United States on a yearly basis and the most unfortunate aspect is that they waste a significant amount of the resources and time that a law enforcement agency may have. This time could be used to solve legitimate crimes with legitimate victims.
The most common reason as to why an individual may make false rape accusations is so that they can receive an ample amount of attention that they have always desired. It is also incredibly common for men and women to fabricate details of a rape in order to get revenge on a particular party, usually an ex-lover. Another unfortunate aspect of false rape accusations is that they can negatively impact a community and all of the people that work and live in the area.
The Motivation Behind False Rape Accusations
As previously mentioned, the most common reason as to why a person may claim that they have been raped when they haven’t is so that they can get revenge against someone in their life that they feel has betrayed them. There are a significant amount of other reasons as to why an individual may present false accusations, including:
• Mental Illness
• Depression
• Profit/Financial Reasons
• Create an Alibi
• Attention
• Sympathy
With that being said, someone who brings up false accusations may not be suffering from only one of the above issues but instead all of them at once. Depending on the state of mind that they offender may be in, there could be numerous motivations.
The Difficulty of Investigation
Aside from the horrible nature of falsely reporting rape, there are a numerous amount of issues associated with investigating these crimes. Due to the fact that when there is a false allegation, there is relatively zero evidence to show that the crime actually happened. Although it would be easy to say that if there is no evidence, it didn’t happen, that is not the process that law enforcement takes. Instead, officers spend an ample amount of time trying to unravel all of the fine details of these complex and often false crimes.
There are two main methods associated with dealing with false accusations: covert and overt. During the overt investigation process, the officers will work diligently to find the offender by using normal resources. This is generally conducted during the very early stages of the report. In terms of covert, the officers will go onto this method of the overt process does not work. This requires law enforcement agencies to analyze the case to determine if it is a false allegation. This generally involves gathering as many details as possible pertaining to any potential offenders of the crime and determining if they have any significant motivators that could cause them to rape the supposed victim. More often than not, the officers find that the allegations are false.