JONNA SPILLBOR WRITES ABOUT FALSE ACCUSATIONS OF RAPE:
The statistics on false rape reports in the U.S. are widely divergent, and often too outdated to be meaningful. Not surprisingly, the numbers also depend on whom you ask. Organizations that tout a feminist agenda claim the number of false rape reports to be nearly non-existent – about two percent. But other organizations, taking the side of men, claim that false reports are actually very common – citing numbers ranging from forty-one to sixty percent.
Amid the statistics, the truth is impossible to ascertain – but it’s plain that false reports are indeed made, and that they can ruin the life of the accused, whether or not a conviction follows.
Falsely reporting any crime is shameful. Falsely reporting a rape is especially heinous. The liar who files the false claim dishonors – and makes life all the more difficult for – the many true victims who file genuine rape claims because they have been terribly violated, and seek justice for it. At the same time, and perhaps even more seriously, the false report begins to destroy the reputation, and sometimes the life, of the accused from the very moment it is made – a fact of which many accusers are keenly aware.
She says that penalties for false accusations need to be stiffer, and more strictly enforced. (Via TalkLeft).