How to Lie with Rape Statistics: America's Hidden Rape Crisis

[redqueen]

Corey Rayburn Yung
University of Kansas School of Law

March 4, 2014

Abstract:
During the last two decades, many police departments substantially undercounted reported rapes creating "paper" reductions in crime. Media investigations in Baltimore, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and St. Louis found that police eliminated rape complaints from official counts because of cultural hostility to rape complaints and to create the illusion of success in fighting violent crime. The undercounting cities used three difficult-to-detect methods to remove rape complaints from official records: designating a complaint as "unfounded" with little or no investigation; classifying an incident as a lesser offense; and, failing to create a written report that a victim made a rape complaint.

This study addresses how widespread the practice of undercounting rape is in police departments across the country. Because identifying fraudulent and incorrect data is essentially the task of distinguishing highly unusual data patterns, I apply a statistical outlier detection technique to determine which jurisdictions have substantial anomalies in their data. Using this novel method to determine if other municipalities likely failed to report the true number of rape complaints made, I find significant undercounting of rape incidents by police departments across the country. The results indicate that approximately 22% of the 210 studied police departments responsible for populations of at least 100,000 persons have substantial statistical irregularities in their rape data indicating considerable undercounting from 1995 to 2012. Notably, the number of undercounting jurisdictions has increased by over 61% during the eighteen years studied.

Correcting the data to remove police undercounting by imputing data from highly correlated murder rates, the study conservatively estimates that 796,213 to 1,145,309 complaints of forcible vaginal rapes of female victims nationwide disappeared from the official records from 1995 to 2012. Further, the corrected data reveal that the study period includes fifteen to eighteen of the highest rates of rape since tracking of the data began in 1930. Instead of experiencing the widely reported "great decline" in rape, America is in the midst of a hidden rape crisis. Further, the techniques that conceal rape complaints deprioritize those cases so that police conduct little or no investigation. Consequently, police leave serial rapists, who constitute the overwhelming majority of rapists, free to attack more victims. Based upon the findings of this study, governments at all levels must revitalize efforts to combat the cloaked rise in sexual violence and the federal government must exercise greater oversight of the crime reporting process to ensure accuracy of the data provided.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2404424

As if women didn't already know.

We need regulations in place to force these departments to stop hiding these hate crimes against women.

Sgt. Trent McKinley, the Lawrence Police Department public affairs officer, said that the number of rape crimes reported to the Lawrence Police Department by victims is lower because of the personal nature that is sometimes present between the offender and the victim. McKinley also stated that being intoxicated eliminates, by law, the ability for consent to be made between individuals.

“I think when it comes to a stranger that would, say, grab someone off the street and rape them, I think the likelihood of those type of incidents being reported are higher than some of the other types of situations,” McKinley said. “Whether it be a dating type of thing, potentially even a marriage type of thing.”

...

Yung writes in his article that in one of the more extreme cases in Cleveland the dismissal of rape complaints “demonstrated the real danger from undercounting” when police discovered 11 decomposing bodies in the home of Anthony Sowell, a serial rapist and murderer, after following up on these reports after the third complaint.

“The previous complaints — even one that said they saw a severed head in the bathroom, and had wounds from their escape from this house — didn’t trigger an investigation because the police designated the complaints ‘unfounded,’” Yung said. “And so the result was, that when they finally went to his house, they discovered — you know — a dozen decomposing bodies. And this meant that he continued his crimes after the initial complaint was made, and we don’t know how many people may or may not have survived had the police acted sooner.”

http://kansan.com/news/2014/03/12/ku-law-professor-researches-hidden-us-rape-crisis/

[leftstreet]

1. DURec

[seabeyond]

2. designating a complaint as "unfounded", as a lesser offense; failing to create a written report

whenever you have the MRA cheering something on rape, we know to look deeper. for a couple years i have been doing the research, making this point. not to mention, until recently, the FBI themselves did not consider some rape, rape and did not take those rapes into the numbers.

[seabeyond]

3. considerable undercounting from 1995 to 2012. conservatively estimates that 796,213 to 1,145,309

complaints... disappeared from the official records from 1995 to 2012.

again, what i have repeatedly said

[seabeyond]

4. Instead of experiencing the widely reported "great decline" in rape... a hidden rape crisis. nt

[seabeyond]

5. total validation of my argument and confirmation to what i have been saying. thank you redq,

for finding this information. bookmarking for the future men that want to hold up the decline of rape, by fuggin 85% (like that makes any kind of sense or is logical) to tell us women that not only should we not be discussing rape, but we should feel GOOD rape numbers are so low.

calling bullshit to the obvious is a lot of work when it deals with women and mens abuse of women.

[redqueen]

6. My pleasure.

It's interesting how it's never women repeating that claim, that rape has declined so much. Isn't it? I've never seen one woman catapulting that particular propaganda.

[seabeyond]

7. when i sit with three other women. four of us. ask, how many rapes amongst us. the number at 4

with one of the four women never having been raped, i pretty well know that it is not on the decline or a rare event.

and all us women are in an upper social and income bracket. as much as we want to pretend otherwise, that is relevant in the numbers... nothing else, but numbers.

i have heard a few women use this to quiet argument. but then, they are the same anonymous on line women that have mens back in all that is sexist, all that is misogynist, that we argue with on du.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

33. Are you seriously suggesting relying on anecdotal evidence rather than data?

The data available is by no means perfect, but it's a hell of a lot more significant than anecdote.

[seabeyond]

34. it told me the FBI numbers were bullshit, while the men and MRA's held up the FBI numbers as

a celebration that women no longer needed to discuss rape and we should just be happy that rape was almost extinct.

now

who was right?

[hfojvt]

36. that's hard to believe

first, the numbers seem exaggerated. Only 22% of 210 cities were under-reporting. That says that 78% are not doing so.

For another, when I look at crime stats, I find this

Homicide rate
1993 - 9.5
2000 - 5.5
2010 - 4.8

robbery rate
1993 - 256
2000 - 145
2010 - 119.3

aggravated assault
1993 - 440
2000 - 324
2010 - 252.8

property crimes
1993 - 12.2 million
2000 - 10.18 million
2010 - 9.1 million

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/1tabledatadecoverviewpdf/table_1_crime_in_the_united_states_by_volume_and_rate_per_100000_inhabitants_1993-2012.xls

If the rate of all those other crimes is dropping significantly, then why should rape be the only crime that goes against that trend?

[Bonobo]

40. Good catch. Nt

[nomorenomore08]

46. It "sounds" right, intuitively. But that's assuming there's a strong correlation between rape and

other violent crimes when there may not be - different perpetrators, different motives etc.

It's very possible that the rate of sexual assault has indeed declined along with the violent crime rate in general - though difficult to say, because it's such an underreported crime - but the Pollyanna-ish statements of some ("Rape is down 85% so stop talking about rape culture!&quot are no less absurd and offensive for that.

[BainsBane]

79. Perhaps it has dropped

but was previously much higher than thought for reasons similar to those outlined above?

What most often happens is that people point to a decline in rape statistics to insist rape is being combatted, rather than simply reflecting the demographic changes leading to an overall decline in violent crime. The point is often made in order to insist rape isn't really that much of a problem. The comment seared in my memory that accompanied the use of such statistics was that rape prevention campaigns amount to "haranguing men." When such arguments are advanced, it's hard to see their use of statistics as anything other than an effort to delegitimate the experience of rape victims, the majority of whom know their assaults don't appear among those numbers.

Statistics are merely one form of evidence, as prone to bias as any other. The historian Joan Scott makes that point effectively in "A Statistical Representation of Work: La Statistique de l'Industrie à Paris, 1847-48." in Gender and the Politics of History (1988).
http://books.google.com/books?id=o2lApVRwxEoC&pg=PA113&lpg=PA113&dq=joan+scott+la+statistique&source=bl&ots=mWa5namQW3&sig=UrYHv3V1AubNu5tOrBbxSO13i2o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=axxFU9nEGsTisATR9ILoAw&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=joan%20scott%20la%20statistique&f=false

[nomorenomore08]

84. + 1,000,000

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. The "propagandists" at the Bureau of Justice Statistics have a slightly different take.

http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4594

Female Victims Of Sexual Violence, 1994-2010
Marcus Berzofsky, Dr.P.H., RTI, Christopher Krebs, Ph.D., RTI, Lynn Langton, Ph.D., BJS, Michael Planty, Ph.D., BJS, Hope Smiley-McDonald, Ph.D., RTI

March 7, 2013 NCJ 240655

Presents trends in the rate of completed or attempted rape or sexual assault against females from 1995 to 2010. The report examines demographic characteristics of female victims of sexual violence and characteristics of the offender and incident, including victim-offender relationship, whether the offender had a weapon, and the location of the victimization. The report also examines changes over time in the percentages of female victims of sexual violence who suffered an injury and received formal medical treatment, reported the victimization to the police, and received assistance from a victim service provider. Data are from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which collects information on nonfatal crimes, reported and not reported to the police, against persons age 12 or older from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households.

Highlights:

From 1995 to 2010, the estimated annual rate of female rape or sexual assault victimizations declined 58%, from 5.0 victimizations per 1,000 females age 12 or older to 2.1 per 1,000.

In 2005-10, females who were age 34 or younger, who lived in lower income households, and who lived in rural areas experienced some of the highest rates of sexual violence.

In 2005-10, the offender was armed with a gun, knife, or other weapon in 11% of rape or sexual assault victimizations.

In 2005-10, 78% of sexual violence involved an offender who was a family member, intimate partner, friend, or acquaintance.
Press Release
PDF (1.4M)
ASCII file (34K)
Comma-delimited format (CSV) (Zip format 26K)

[seabeyond]

11. “The National Crime Victimization Survey Is Likely Undercounting Rape and Sexual Assault.”

We’re not talking about small fractions—we’re talking about the kind of potentially massive underestimate that the military and the Justice Department have warned about for years—and that could be throwing a wrench into the effort to do the most effective type of rape prevention.

The NCVS statistics show the rate of completed and attempted rape in the United States declining from a high of 5 percent of girls and women victimized annually in 1995 to a low of about 2 percent from 2005 to the present. Sounds good, right—men behaving better, women protecting themselves more. But here are the flaws that call the nice-sounding stats into doubt: The NCVS is designed to measure all kinds of crime victimization. The questions it poses about sexual violence are embedded among questions that ask about lots of other types of crime. For example:

(Other than any incidents already mentioned,) has anyone attacked or threatened you in any of these ways: a) with any weapon, for instance, a gun or knife, b) with anything like a baseball bat, frying pan, scissors, or stick, c) by something thrown, such a rock or bottle, d) include any grabbing, punching, or choking, e) any rape, attempted rape or other type of sexual attack, f) any face to face threats, OR g) any attack or threat or use of force by anyone at all?

That’s not a good way to prompt women (or men) to report nonconsensual sex, broadly speaking, especially if they haven’t previously gone to the police—as most rape victims don’t. As the new report puts it: “This context may inhibit reporting of incidents that the respondent does not think of as criminal, did not report to the police, or does not want to report to police.”

There is, in fact, an existing survey that has many of the attributes the NCVS currently lacks. It’s administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it’s called the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. (NISVS is the acronym. Apologies for the alphabet soup.) NISVS “represents the public health perspective,” as Tuesday’s report puts it, and it asks questions about specific behavior, including whether the survey-taker was unable to consent to sex because he or she had been drinking or taking drugs. NISVS was first conducted in 2010, so it doesn’t go back in time the way the NCVS numbers do. But here’s the startling direct comparison between the two measures: NISVS counted 1.27 million total sexual acts of forced penetration for women over the past year (including completed, attempted, and alcohol or drug facilitated). NCVS counted only 188,380 for rape and sexual assault. And the FBI, which collects its data from local law enforcement, and so only counts rapes and attempted rapes that have been reported as crimes, totaled only 85,593 for 2010.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/11/national_crime_victimization_survey_a_new_report_finds_that_the_justice.html

then, once i did the research about the fbi numbers, learning all the ways the crimes is degraded to a lesser crime or simply not reported thru our police, MRA'rs started holding up NCVS to substantiate their argument that rape has significantly declined.

this meant i then had to do the research on NCVS to find the flaws, because of the obvious to us women that are being raped.

so.... with very little time or effort, here is just the start of that research. calling bullshit. and no desire to try to prove out any further. cause bullshit is bullshit, and we all know it. we see.

[redqueen]

13. You can post it a dozen times, sea. A hundred...

there are some who will simply continue to ignore it. Just as they ignore the harm done by sexual objectification.

[lumberjack_jeff]

19. Until the NISVS has some years of data under it's belt, the NCVS is the only one that can show trend

The NCVS and the law enforcement figures are largely parallel trend lines - both show significant declines in the last 20 years (60%-ish),

The NCVS showing a higher overall incidence... which is to be expected given that victims often don't report crimes to police, and the NCVS is, as you observe, an anonymous survey conducted annually.

They've been asking the same questions for forty years, so the trend is real. We are all significantly safer from all forms of violent crime than our parents were.

The only NISVS report I can find is 2010. Have they collected data in other years?

[seabeyond]

20. wrong numbers are wrong numbers. simply that. ncvs numbers are wrong. so we have NO numbers.

we do not use wrong numbers cause we do not have our right numbers. that is not logical. that does not make sense. and surely, that is the characteristic of man.... that women lack right? being logical. and not hysterical.

wrong numbers are simply that.... wrong.

i was right about fbi. cause they are obviously wrong. years of being attacked by men on du, holding up the fbi numbers and telling me to CELEBRATE the amazingly, totally awesome, significant reduction of rape. as i listen to my girls and womens rape stories.

it was bullshit. we women knew it was bullshit. and we were being snarked at, scorned, ridiculed to swallow MANS bullshit.

no

[qazplm]

26. trends are trends

even with wrong numbers you are not completely unable to identify trends.

One would assume that if they've been doing this for 40 years, at worst, they are asking the same "bad" questions, and more likely, the questions of today are better than the questions of 40 years ago.

They see a decline. Now, if you want to argue that the numbers are higher, feel free. There isn't exactly a good number for sexual assaults other than 0, and it's certainly possible every instance doesn't make either of these surveys/calculations. But it's unlikely that the NCVS is SO wrong, that the numbers/trends are completely meaningless. It is also very unlikely statistically, that the trends between the reported and NCVS would match closely if the numbers for both were completely meaningless.

[seabeyond]

29. you can chat trend, assume and all the rest. i disagree and wont play the game,

especially since it is all about a dismissal of our girls and women.

no

[Donald Ian Rankin]

31. No, that's simply wrong. Wrong numbers can still provide useful information.

In particular, if several numbers are all wrong, but the way in which they are wrong is comparable, then they can still be used to carry out meaningful comparisons.

[seabeyond]

32. i disagree. agenda teaches us otherwise when we find it. as we did in FBI numbers.

there was nothing there to be contributed in comparison, except corruption and agenda.

[Ohio Joe]

37. Wrong numbers are only useful to those that want them wrong...

And the only use they are is to perpetuate whatever lie is being foisted.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

38. To repeat myself: no, that's simply wrong

Here's a concrete example.

People surveying drug use often use a trick where they give people a hat with three cards, with questions "Is the sky green?", "Have you ever used drugs?" "Are bananas yellow?". They ask people to pick a card at random, answer the question and put it back, and they tally the yesses and nos; from this you can deduce the number of drug users, without anyone confessing. So there, you can get the right answers, so it's not a fair analogy.

But now, suppose you have a hat with lots of cards, each with one of those three questions on it, and you don't know how many of each there are. This time, if you tally people's answers, there's no way to work out what the actual right answer is from the wrong answers you have. *But*, if you use the same hat in multiple cities, your numbers will all be wrong by the same linear function, so if one city produces more "yesses" than another you *can* deduce that it has more drug use, even though your numbers are wrong and you can't work out what the right numbers actually are.

And that probably *is* a good analogy for using the same, flawed-but-not-worthless methodology to try to work out incidence of rape in America in different years. It won't let you get absolute answers, but it *does* provide genuine information about comparisons.

[Ohio Joe]

39. When trying to understand how prevalent rape is... Using wrong numbers is wrong

In fact... It's stupid. Defending people who do it is sick.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

41. Are you not reading what I am saying, or just ignoring it? Or do you think there is a mistake in it?

If you think there is a mistake in my explanation as to how one can extract useful information from numbers that are individually wrong, but all wrong in the same way, by all means point it out.

But simply repeatedly asserting something without giving any argument to support that, when I've explained to you in detail, with examples, why it's not true, in the hope that people will take your ipse dixit for it, is not a good way of carrying on a discussion.

[Ohio Joe]

42. You have several problems with your wrong numbers...

1 - Not all the numbers are wrong in the same way.
2 - No one wants to extract useful information but rather determine an actual problem.

Wrong numbers serve no purpose here. Your attempt to justify lowering these numbers is sick.

[Recursion]

44. But the argument is that the rape numbers *are* wrong in the same way

Specifically, that not all victims report, and not all reports are taken seriously by the police.

The claim that this situation was better 30 years ago seems absurd on its face to me. Maybe people are arguing that, but without that step, you still have to say that rape incidence, while grossly underreported, is still significantly lower than it was 30 years ago.

[nomorenomore08]

47. It may well be significantly lower. But I don't see how anyone can argue that it's not unacceptably

high. Whereas some, with God only knows what agenda, seem to use the rather tenuous "proof" of a decline in sexual assault as a bludgeon against feminists and victim advocates.

[BainsBane]

78. against feminists and rape survivors

Who are often one and the same. Yes, that is indeed the point. They use it as a bludgeon and as a way of saying your experiences are insignificant. You don't count.

[Ohio Joe]

49. conservatively estimates that 796,213 to 1,145,309 complaints of rapes have disappeared

You are really justifying that shit and trying to claim the number are still the same?

Sick shit... Simply sick shit.

[seabeyond]

50. that would be crimes not written down, investigated, taken serious. that would be crimes ignored.

and listen to the men...

they simply wear people down. the upside. there will be people that read the article, and not the men that are here to say. ya, so?

[Ohio Joe]

51. It's worse then that... Those are only the "forcible vaginal rapes of female victims"

It is not including any of the other sexual assaults that have been ignored.

And it still gets worse... Here we are on DU and people are fucking defending this shit... WTF? How is that acceptable in any way?

I don't get... I just don't get it.

[seabeyond]

53. oh... and the victim had to be over 12, and the no alcohol. you know. what is that shit. read

my post below. i do not get it. these people are suppose to be so fuckin brilliant and i do not get it. tell me where i am wrong, replying to recursion.

date rape did not even exist until the lower 80's. they just started getting info out, that rape, while on a date, was .... wrong. yet we are to believe that the numbers back in the 80's were ALL that and that today, with more people surely reporting, reporting a larger definition of rape, that rape has reduced to about a trickle.

makes. no. sense.

[nomorenomore08]

80. All seems to be for the purpose of massaging the numbers so they don't look so bad.

A point you've brought up here, rightfully, many times.

[JTFrog]

54. There really does seem to be a huge effort from a small group here trying to convince

people that rape isn't a problem in the US. Because evolution or some crap. All we have here in the good old US of A is first world problems.

I don't get that it's allowed here either. It is definitely not acceptable in any way.

[nomorenomore08]

81. "Because evolution" - yes, sex is a natural human (and animal) behavior, so what? What does that

have to do with violent criminal acts in which sex is simply the weapon used?

Honestly, from my vantage point, the MRA types seem to conflate consensual sex and rape together a whole lot more than feminists do.

[BainsBane]

77. as is all violent crime

A Ph.D. criminologist told me the number one factor in the violent crime rate is the percentage of young men in the population. As the population of young people has declined, so has violent crime. Murder rates are at their lowest point in a century. The problem is when people pluck rape stats out of that context in an effort to prove that rape really isn't that prevalent. Most of the time they do so in order to invalidate the experiences of rape victims. The fact is, the percentage of women and men raped has not changed during those same thirty years, even as the overall numbers seem to have declined. In terms of people's experiences, rape is as prevalent as ever, and there are no signs that the judicial system takes it more seriously than it did thirty years ago. In fact, the opposite may be the case. as women are no longer seen as having virtue, too many judges seem to feel nothing has been taken from a woman who has been raped. It appears to me that rape is taken less seriously, not more seriously, that in past generations.

[A Little Weird]

9. Yeesh!

“The previous complaints — even one that said they saw a severed head in the bathroom, and had wounds from their escape from this house — didn’t trigger an investigation because the police designated the complaints ‘unfounded,’” Yung said.

Several times I've seen the statement that rapes were lower than they had ever been and I found that difficult to believe. It's pretty disheartening though to realize that under counting is such a widespread problem and that it's being done deliberately (at least to some extent).

[TheSarcastinator]

10. This is happening everywhere

Denver PD recently got caught under-reporting all crimes -- including a whopping 25% of all homicides that occurred withing the city and 15% of all violent assaults. Denver cops blamed a "software error" for the under-reporting! Departments do it so they look as if they have actually accomplished something. It's shameful and is completely distorting the way people think about their communities. (Source: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_23524474/officer-error-software-trouble-skewed-denver-crime-stats)

Thanks for the information in your OP. It is sobering and frightening and provides another piece of the puzzle when attempting to confront the nightmare of our current culture.

[seabeyond]

12. yes. it is nation wide. it is voluntary. it is a horrible way to have a reality check for crimes.

thank you

[redqueen]

14. Yes, it is often intentionally done to cook the books / make the numbers look good.

However people aren't out arguing that we don't need to talk about violence because cooked numbers.

But people ARE using that tactic when women try to talk about rape culture.

[fasttense]

48. When the bushes got put into the White House by the Supreme Court

They instituted a new crime statistics system. It changed the way crimes were counted and suddenly, crime started to decline.

Obama has done nothing to change the systematic undercount.

[malthaussen]

15. So "being intoxicated eliminates, by law, the ability for consent..."

And this is a reason not to call it rape? The logic escapes me, somehow, Sgt McKinley.

-- Mal

[thucythucy]

16. Another excellent OP, and an important resource

thanks to Redqueen.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Redqueen you are an invaluable resource, and one of the main reasons I come to DU.

Thanks again, and best wishes.

[seabeyond]

17. +1. i could nto agree with you more. and it is du's loss when redq feels the need to step away.

a literal, loss. because she brings the info, and the reality of womens issues to us.

[johnp3907]

27. + [insert large number here]

[niyad]

18. k and r with deepest thanks, redqueen. but we are constantly told that there is NO war on women.

and waiting for the usual suspects in. . . .

[mercuryblues]

21. Not to

mention the MRA types use the "unfounded" statistics in their false rape claims. Without fail.

Why is it that *some* men who really are genuinely horrified by rape will cling to the false rape stats that are put out by the MRA types like gold? They will scour the net for articles to post to support that view.

[seabeyond]

22. you and i need to chat about the "some" thing.... lol

i have noticed with you. i so do this in thought. totally fuggin amazing that i type in thought, the whole "some" thing, when talking about very important issues.

you know... i think you will understand. there are definite times i use men, as a whole, knowing this board wants me to clarify, measure.... some, a handful, many, half, lots, few, a couple.....

you seem to get that. there are times, i say to self.... self, you need to measure.

and self says....

no

lol

[mercuryblues]

25. LOL

Yes. I use the asterisks to make some stick out more. Because, you know, when you say men you must mean all men, despite the fact that if you wanted to mean *all* men you would say mankind. Men is just plural of man and there is no qualifying number. IOW men in and of itself can be defined as *some* men. It is not my fault that *some* men do not/refuse to understand this when reading, so we have to appease them or they become indignant. Cause you know *their* ego is more important than the message.

But now that the issue of *some* men seems to have died down, the concern trolls are demanding that you now type *some* men and women.

yeah it is fucking ridiculous and petty sniping. When you do start typing *some* men and women, the concern trolls will start demanding that you include something else each and every fucking time or else they again are offended over what was written.

Soon enough I will be typing something like *some* *women* politicians, children, bats, dogs, spiritual, people may or may not think that the sky is blue. depending on what you personally believe is true.

It is odd how this meme is only used when posting about rape or rape culture. Not anything else.

[seabeyond]

28. Men is just plural of man and there is no qualifying number.

this is the reality of, the truth, fact of it. lol. i mean why not ignore reality, truth, fact.... cause SOME works for you.

that is when i get ot my

no

too funny. and ya, thank you. i was never able to articulate it correctly, as you did. Men is just plural of man and there is no qualifying number.

[mercuryblues]

30. trust me

there have been times when I was tempted to write 4,076,384 men.... to show that not *all* men are included when I say men. I settled on the *some* men.

The intention is to diminish the OP and self validate their views when they pull the *some* men and now, women argument out. over and over again; tag teaming each other to see whose turn it is to be outraged into not supporting the topic at hand. As if they would if it was phrased to their liking. As we have seen the goal posts are simply moved.

[Jackpine Radical]

23. Thanks. I knew ab out the media investigations and their results, but

not of this systematic study. It's now downloaded among the hundreds of other papers in my sex offender database.

[seabeyond]

24. interesting, huh. and ya. gotta remember. i forgot

to do my bookmarking. but... more, thank you for the reminder of what you do and why your voice is so appreciated and valued, in this discussion, by me.

[CFLDem]

35. K&R

Hope some heads roll on this one.

[Recursion]

43. But can the reporting in 2014 really be *worse* than it was in 1984?

That's the step here I have trouble following. I have trouble believing reporting rape was more common 30 years ago than now.

Unless you can argue that reporting of rape has gotten worse since the 1980s (this seems absurd on its face at least to me, but I'm open to the argument), we're left with the fact that rape, as underreported as it is, is still much less common than it was 30 years ago. It was underreported in both eras.

[Bonobo]

45. But Recursion...

The abstract linked in the OP used a "novel statistical outlier detection technique"! It has to be true!

[BainsBane]

57. Recursion isn't going to buy into your efforts

to mock something as serious as a crime that victimizes millions of Americans. You clearly haven't paid attention to him if you think he thinks anything like you do on this subject.

[Bonobo]

59. I am mocking the approach which

Sounds ridiculous as well as the fact that the OP is based on an abstract alone.

[seabeyond]

52. there are just so many factors with rape. it is not the same as other crimes. and does not have

the same history. the numbers should not behave the same as other crimes.

rape... date rape, any rape but behind the bushes, held down by a weapon rape, was not even recognized until the 80's. let alone and reported. psa'ed for awareness, ect...

so the argument is. and this makes sense to you? that all these many rapes that were not even considered rape, were reported to cause the number to be sooooo high in the 80's, ya right. and now with awareness, a name for this rape, date rape, a crime, police must investigate, ect... awareness. over the last couple decades.

this new type of rape. date rape. (73% of rapes)

and the numbers have plummeted?

if 1 in 3 girls are being raped in college and military, then what was it in the 80's? every girl. 1 in 1.5 girls raped a couple decades ago?

at some point, we have to walk from trusting the numbers to present our beliefs and see what makes sense.

and that does not make sense. and it does not make sense especially as we see all the ways rape was not put into the fbi numbers. the very fact that they use to not put in any rapes if they did not meet a very tight definition says something. and the next year, changing the fbi definition of rape should sharply escalate the number of rapes. you going to buy the number reducin yet again, even after fbi broadened the definition of rape?

the purpose from fbi to the police forces across the nation was to keep the numbers declining. why?

[foo_bar]

55. it's more than a distinct possibility

It became one of the best known successes in modern policing. Serious crime has dropped an astonishing 77% in New York City since CompStat began in 1994. Other cities very quickly started imitating it-- DC, Philly, LA. Baltimore's version of CompStat ended up in a recurring plot line on the TV show The Wire, where street cops are told by the bosses to do anything to pump up their numbers. And the problem with CompStat, says Professor Eli Silverman, who studies the way police forces use numbers, is that the early success of CompStat created the expectation that numbers must get better every single year, no matter what.

<...>

Graham Rayman:

He's a very distinguished detective. He was working in the 33rd precinct in Washington Heights. And one morning he comes into work and there's a guy who's accused of first degree rape sitting in his interview room. So he sits down and he looks at the guy. And he has a little twinge, and he says, have you ever done this before? And the guy said, yeah. And Hernandez says, how many times? And he says, oh, I don't know, seven or eight. And Hernandez says, where? And he goes, in this neighborhood. And Hernandez is now dumbstruck because there's been no report of a serial rapist-- sexual predator-- working the neighborhood.

Ira Glass:

Like, no crimes have shown up. People haven't shown up saying they've been raped or assaulted.

Graham Rayman:

He hasn't been notified. And he would be notified as a senior detective in the unit. It would be a very big deal. And so he says, can you give me the dates and locations? And the guy says, well, I can try, but you're going to have to take me around and I'll show. I'll show you. So he and a fellow detective get in the car and they drive around. And they look, and the suspect-- whose name is Darryl Thomas-- points out the locations. And then Hernandez takes his notebook and he writes down the locations. And then he goes back and he looks through stacks of crime complaints. And he finds them. And he realizes that they've been classified-- they've been downgraded. They've been classified either as criminal trespassing or criminal possession of a weapon-- both relatively minor crimes, given that the actual conduct in the narrative that the victims are describing is either first degree burglary, robbery, or sexual abuse, sexual assault.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/414/transcript

[BainsBane]

56. What's interesting

Is that some here are invested in downplaying the frequency of rape. The motivation for police forces is clear. They juke the stats to appear to be fighting crime, and rape is an easy crime to sweep under the rug. But why should a few members here buy into that ethos? What is their purpose in arguing that rape really isn't widespread? How does it serve them to continually invalidate the experiences of millions of Americans? There seems to be more than simple indifference to the lives of rape victims. The very existence of rape victims somehow seems an affront to them, so much so that they feel compelled to obliterate them from the public consciousness. Why? What purpose does that serve them?

[Bonobo]

60. A better question is:

Why do SOME people feel threatened by statistics that show that the efforts to reduce rape have been successful along with the efforts to reduce other serious crimes?

NO ONE, I repeat NO ONE is arguing that efforts to stop and further reduce rape should stop. We ALL agree that rape continues to be a terrible problem that needs to be fought with vigorous efforts. You may choose to pretend that some don't believe that because it suits you, but I assure you. We ALL want to live in a society with ZERO rape.

Having said that, the question here is why do you feel threatened by the idea that efforts are actually working?

Even LESS rapes are still TOO MANY rapes. Yes? I certainly think so.

The OP asks us to believe a 200 word abstract which refers obliquely to some kind of "novel statistical outlier detection technique" as how they have supposedly uncovered a nationwide conspiracy to reduce rape statistics. I am sorry but arguing against that silliness and woo is NOT the same as defending rape. To suggest that it is insanity.

And that's really all there is to say.

[opiate69]

61. + a metric fuckton

Spot-fucking-on, as usual, Bonobo.

[BainsBane]

66. "spot on"

I guess that means you didn't see the DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER icon in the big blue bar either.

[Ohio Joe]

64. "The OP asks us to believe a 200 word abstract"... There is a 60 page paper that goes along with it

Or are you simply ignoring that part?

Please feel free to show where the paper is not accurate or is misinformed in some way.

[BainsBane]

67. You mean actually read the paper?

What an outrage. It's essential to pretend it doesn't exist to maintain the fiction that rape really isn't an epidemic.

You would think the fact he knew it was an abstract would indicate awareness of a longer paper as well, since that is what abstracts are.

[BainsBane]

65. Because the same people who insist rape is down statistically

and therefore not a problem, refer to anti-rape prevention campaigns as "haranguing men" or misandrist. They make an appearance in virtually every thread about rape to make sure rape victims know they are not supported, that their experiences are invalidated, and that their audacity to speak in public is an affront to "men." They long ago poisoned the well by making clear they see the lives of rape victims as inconsequential in comparison to the far more important matter of rapists' feelings. They don't use the term rapist. They talk about "men's "feelings and men's rights, but I won't use the term men because I don't share the implicit assumption that men are by nature rapists. The majority of men have no reason to object to such PSAs because they know they are not rapists. Some of these people repeatedly defend accused rapists over rape victims, accused pedophiles like Woody Allen over their victims, and pretend assaults that are legally rape (such as sex with underage teens and the severely drunk) are somehow artificial constructs up for debate rather than crimes. When someone carries on an active campaign to insist rape isn't really a problem, despite all kinds of evidence to the contrary, it's clear that whatever agenda they have results in the denial of the basic humanity and civil rights of rape victims.

Your assertion that "NO ONE is arguing that efforts to stop and further reduce rape should stop" is clearly false. The fact is the country and the world is full of rapists who would like nothing more than to stop rape prevention campaigns, and some turn them into pseudo-political causes. MRA websites are full of such men, and their ideas have currency beyond those extremist hate groups.

If you bothered to read the responses in the thread, you would see all kinds of information showing that police systematically downgrade rape to lesser charges, whereas the point that rape is an underreported crime is hardly a newsflash. Yet for some reason a few people have a vested interested in making sure rape stats are low-balled and rape victims are silenced, leading some of those members to insult rape survivors by calling them liars or insisting that simply disclosing the fact they have been raped amounts to "lashing out" in hatred or that simply acknowledging one has been raped amounts to "disrupting" DU. Scarcely a day goes by on this site where someone doesn't insist rape shouldn't be discussed except in the women's groups or doesn't count as politics and therefore shouldn't appear on the site at all.

People have made clear where they stand on the issue. Everyone can read their posts. Pretending to take one position while systematically advancing another is clearly shown to be false through a simple search. In fact, since the same people tend to participate in many of the same threads about rape, no search is necessary. I had hoped that when certain people figured out that men too are raped, they would give up their crusade to undermine the experiences of rape victims, yet they manifest a disconnect along gender lines when it comes to rape victims, arguing that an unfair double-standard exists for male victims while insisting that rape really isn't an epidemic when it comes to women.

I should clarify that when I said I found their reactions interesting, I meant it terms of a cultural phenomenon of denial and rape culture. As individuals, their ideas are entirely predictable and of no consequence.

As for the so-called scarcity of evidence, the paper is free to download, as is evident in the DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER icon in blue at the top of the page.

[Bonobo]

68. Personal attacks are personal attacks and I KNEW you would come to that.

But no, I will not read your personal bullshit attacks.

[BainsBane]

69. I made no personal attacks

I commented on general patterns regarding rape. As usual, you deflect rather than engaging with content. You ignored the paper that is free to download. You also ignore the substance of my argument. No surprise. If I had wanted to focus on you specifically, I would have provided links to your prior posts. My comments were about general responses to threads on rape.

You seem to feel observing what people have said amounts to personal attacks. I recall you responded that way once when I provided a series of links to your own posts. I would think if one felt posting their own comments was an attack, there might be something amiss with the comments they made in the first place.

[Bonobo]

72. Try to answer post #36 without making this about me. How's that BainsBane?

You do not even seem to understand what "personal attack" means. Let me explain.

I say, for example, that I want a world with no rapes. Then YOU claim that my previous posting history shows that somehow this is not true, that I am, in fact, a person that somehow defends rape, diminishes the importance of the issue, etc.

I take strong exception to that and I will not accept that characterization because it is false, malicious and yes, a personal attack.

Previous posts can certainly be discussed in their proper place -the original post - but to mischaracterize as you do so often is wrong.

Essentially what you do is to mischaracterize the intent of a post from the past, provide a link and pretend that that is merely "shedding light"... the problem is that the effort that it would require for your mischaracterizations ("attacks&quot to be cleared up each time is overwhelming. It would, in fact, require a lot of typing and work to overcome your disingenuous mud-slinging.

The bottom line is that you make it personal. Always. It is what you do. And yes, that is not right.

[BainsBane]

73. Where did I name you?

Or make an accusation against you in particular? I used the word you twice: "Your assertion that "NO ONE is arguing that efforts to stop and further reduce rape should stop" is clearly false" and "If you bothered to read the responses in the thread, you would see all kinds of information showing that police systematically downgrade rape to lesser charges."

Most of my comments were not about you. To assume they were is mistaken. A few of things that pertain to you include: minimizing rape stats; your objection to the anti-rape PSA (but not the part in quotes), that you insisted on defending Woody Allen and ignored the court record to do so, and a thread about drunk "sex." Other comments related to responses I've seen from other members. The commonality is a point of view in opposition to rape victims.

It seems to me you entered this thread predetermined to dismiss the argument of the OP, as did some others. That you so quickly denounced an academic study without reading it suggests as much. (I still don't understand how you imagined an abstract existed without an article that it summarized.) I think if you were truly concerned with more evidence, you would have said something like it's hard to know based on the limited info. in the abstract. Your response reveals your bias, as I fully admit mine does as well. The difference is I don't pretend not to have a bias.

Other posts cannot be discussed where they occurred since you banned me from the group in which you make them. That includes not only your outrage about the anti-rape PSA, your frequent comments about how awful "radical feminists" and "the usual suspects" are, as well as hostile comments about me personally, which I will not repeat here. I understand you feel free to say anything in the Men's Group because juries allow it. That, however, doesn't free you from the consequences of how I see you as a result of what you have said. You object to what I say to you directly. I happen to consider it far worse to talk about someone from a place they cannot respond.

I believe you believe you want to do away with all rape, yet you also argue against anti-rape PSA's that target rapists rather than victims. You post threads asking if drunk "sex" is okay, when it is in fact rape. If you really want to do away with rape, why do you write posts indicating that is anything other than rape?

As for your intent in posting what you do, I take you at your word that you posted the thread in outrage to the anti-rape PSA out of concern for your own feelings. In posting that and other threads, you, like all of us, make clear what your priorities are. You previously claimed you don't see your own feelings as more important than the experiences of rape victims, but what you post and how you respond says otherwise. What we write reveals our priorities more than what we say we care about. As for your intent in the threads expressing your hostility toward "radical feminists" and me in particular, it is hard to see that as anything other than it appears.

[Ohio Joe]

70. What about the paper... Are you going to read that?

Or just keep pretending it does not exist?

[Bonobo]

71. I will. I did not originally know the actual article was available for everyone.

I assumed some kind of subscription was needed. I will try to find the time to read it now.

I was not pretending. I genuinely thought -erroneously- that only the abstract was available.

[nomorenomore08]

82. She made no attacks whatsoever against you personally. Unless you identify as an MRA

which I'm pretty sure you don't. And most of what she just posted is absolutely true, if not of DU then certainly of many other sites.

[nomorenomore08]

83. "...refer to anti-rape prevention campaigns as 'haranguing men' or misandrist."

How perfectly Orwellian of them, right? But I guess I should expect no less from a bunch of crybabies who by and large have never experienced a hint of real discrimination in their lives.

(Note that I'm not talking about DU'ers, but rather the majority of self-identified "MRA's" out there in cyberspace.)

[Major Nikon]

75. For whatever reason some have a vested interest in convincing people down is up

Whenever anything is mentioned about law enforcement underreporting sexual assault, we are given this as evidence that rape is really up instead of down.

The problem is hypothesis is that if the police were underreporting sexual assaults between 1995-2012, there's no reason to believe they weren't underreporting prior to 1995 as well. Futhermore the percentage of sexual assaults reported to police has gone up over the same time period.

The usual tactic of those who keep claiming down is up is to try an impeach those who claim otherwise by alleging they are using "MRA stats" or they are misogynists or some other ad hominem gibberish which is consistent with their usual MO.

When you ask them why the NCVS (which isn't based on police reporting at all) says sexual assault is down by 50%, you get either crickets as a response or they just pretend the NCVS doesn't exist and keep repeating the same thing.

[BainsBane]

76. Another one who refuses to read the study

Last edited Wed Apr 9, 2014, 08:10 AM - Edit history (1)

that explains why those stats are wrong. If you refuse to read it, why even open the thread? You clearly aren't interested in what the study says. Testimonial evidence doesn't appear to interest you either. So what exactly are you doing in this thread? You do realize that most of the women you so glibly mock in your post above are rape survivors? I would think it would be hard to miss that fact.

I don't see you asking anyone here to discuss the rape numbers. I know with certainty you have never asked me, and when I respond you ignore me. I could give some responses about rape stats--I could talk about the overall decline in violent crime due to demographic changes, even while the percentage of women and men assaulted has not decreased--but I doubt you'll pay attention to what I say now anymore than you have in the past or than you pay attention to this study or what any others in this thread have to say.

And why exactly do you even care about rape statistics? Why are you so focused on this versus any other crime? What does it have to do with you anyway? If you had an actual empirical interest in the subject, you would have read the study. Is their some reason you have decided your rights as a man hinge on erasing our experiences? I suspect few of the survivors in these threads ever reported their assaults. But if we aren't in the federal record, we don't exist. Our assaults never occurred. And naturally you claim to know far more about it than those who have actually experienced rape. Have you ever noticed how many men have talked about being raped on these boards? Most of them never reported their assaults either. Perhaps you might think of the male survivors before you again decide to enter one of these threads to mock people who have the audacity to believe their experiences matter.

[ismnotwasm]

58. K&R

[Jasana]

62. Even Fox News admits 11,000 rape kits weren't even processed in Detroit...

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/03/11/mariska-hargitay-works-to-get-backlog-rape-tests-in-detroit-processed/

Makes me wonder what's going on in other cities.

Edit to add: Oh for FSMsake, I just read the full Fox address. They put it in "entertainment" because of Mariska Hargitay. Only Fox News could be so tone deaf!

[seabeyond]

63. There Are 400,000 Unprocessed Rape Kits in the U.S. How Can This Be?

After New York City processed its 17,000-kit backlog in 2001, the arrest rate for rape cases jumped from 40 percent to 70 percent, reports Erin Delmore at MSNBC. In Ohio, going through 4,000 kits led to 58 cases, and in Detroit, where an 11,000-kit backlog remains, analyzing the first 10 percent of kits led law enforcement to 46 serial rapists.

There’s the easy answer and the hard one. Easy is that rape kits cost a lot to analyze—anywhere between $500 and $1,500 each. But on closer investigation, this excuse, floated by police departments, reveals its big flaw: Interpreting evidence in general is a wildly expensive process; digital forensic analysis—of a single computer—might set a department back $5,000, while the average cost of processing any case with DNA evidence is $1,397. Despite this, I'm guessing murders and other instances of nonsexual violence don’t get shoved down into the collective subconscious quite the way rapes do.

A bleaker and more compelling explanation is that, for a long time, our culture has refused to call sex crimes what they are: crimes. When a sense of blame or responsibility clings to the victim, it’s easier for cops to set her case aside. And the blurriness (or perception of same) surrounding a lot of rape allegations doesn’t inspire much optimism among prosecutors that they can score a conviction—so, overworked and underfunded, they don’t even try. I wonder, too, whether hypermasculine values in law enforcement have created a mini bro climate. The Village Voice reported two years ago on NYPD officers who urged street cops to manipulate crime statistics by downgrading reports of sexual assault. One man was able to commit six attempted rapes (“misdemeanors”) before he was apprehended mid-seventh. I like to imagine those cops reporting back to Olivia Benson.

It’s sobering to compare TV’s fantasy sheriffs with the actual detectives who may not regard sex crimes as a big deal. But perceptions of rape and anti-woman violence do seem to be shifting. Caplan-Bricker provides a rundown on the various bills working their way through legislatures across the country: laws in Colorado, Illinois, and Texas requiring police to process their languishing kits, and bills in Tennessee and Maryland requiring new evidence to be analyzed within strict time limits. It's too bad that police departments need laws to force them to process criminal evidence, but until our perceptions around rape change, I'll take it.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/03/12/unprocessed_rape_kits_cost_concerns_can_t_explain_the_400_000_kit_backlog.html

[Jasana]

74. (Sad sigh) I will have to start bookmarking these in a special folder...

in case I decide to argue with the idjits among us. I usually don't argue anymore though. My temper quickly goes through the roof on these issues now because I've already spent 25 years saying basically the same stuff and I'm fucking tired of repeating myself just for illiterate men who waste female time because Privilege... and after 25 years some still don't even understand what Privilege is.

Just before I took a break from arguing so called "women's issues" I had some idiot tell me I had no right to abort because "females are made by God to give birth." Like he didn't even understand how dangerous child birth can be. He couldn't even conceive of the simple fact that I was not god's property! I threw my keyboard against the wall. That's when I knew it was time to take a break. I see you arguing in these threads. I know what drives you. Please don't burn out... and thank you.

[nomorenomore08]

85. "Men" like that should be offered a free vasectomy at best, quarantined at worst.