Rape and sexual assault are terrible crimes, but they still need to be verified.The bandwagon effect is real and hysteria is a recurrent phenomenon in the USA.
Some number of harrowing encounters described by Weinstein’s accusers and the #MeToo hashtag activists no doubt occurred. But experience and scientific literature show us that a significant portion of these allegations will turn out to be half-truths, exaggerations, or outright fabrications. That’s not victim-blaming. It’s reality-checking.
False accusations are a lot more common than the corporate media is willing to admit.
Turvey and his colleagues explode the “2 percent myth” peddled by politicians, victims’ advocates, and journalists “claiming that the nationwide false report rate for rape and sexual assault is nonexistent.” In fact, the statistic was traced to an unverified citation in a 1975 book by feminist author Susan Brownmiller.
Forty percent is probably about right for false accusations overall, but for delayed accusations the number is certainly much higher.
Published research has documented false rape and sexual-assault rates ranging from 8 percent to 41 percent. Savino notes that in his NYPD’s Manhattan Special Victim Squad, “our false report rate was in the double digits during all of my years. Sometimes, it was as high as 40 percent.” Turvey, Savino, and Mares make clear to students that based on the evidence, as opposed to Facebook trends, “false reports happen; they are recurrent; and there are laws in place to deal with them when they do. They are, for lack of a better word, common.”
Delayed accusations are almost certainly more likely to be false than true. Combine that with the bandwagon effect and multiple delayed accusations against the same individual should increase skepticism all the more!
LINK:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/452808/metoo-may-exaggerate-prevalence-sex-crimes