Rape is not a joke.
One in four women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, and one in six men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.
This is not something that just happens to these people and then they move on. These people go through an intense physical assault and then live with the memories and scarring for the rest of their lives.
Rape is one of the most serious crimes that can be committed and it is not something to joke about. Convicted rapists are forever branded as violent, vicious attackers and that will follow them through whatever they plan to do in their future, if they are ever released from jail.
While I am not saying this is a bad thing for people who commit these malicious acts (in fact, they deserve much worse), what about the people who are not actually violent or criminals? What about the people who were not attacked physically, but through slander and false reports?
Of rapes accusations, one in 20 turns out to be false. Now, these are not all men or women who have it out for a certain person and decide to accuse them of rape. Many of these situations are ones where the victim was simply confused or incorrect based on millions of different factors that could go into solving a rape investigation.
However, there are some ‘victims’ who put shame to that word. This is not something that happens often, but there are some people who knowingly falsely accuse someone of rape.
These are people who either were not raped at all or who know who the person is that raped them and simply chose to put the blame on a different person.
False rape accusers knowingly ruin the lives of the people they accuse. These accused people are marked with the same crimes as some of the worst criminals imaginable.
Falsely accused rapists can still be convicted, and often are. Innocent people spend much of their lives in jail while those who spread lies about them walk free to continue their ways (often with a hefty payout).
Take for example Brian Banks. Brian was a high school football star who was being recruited by professional teams just before being accused and found guilty of rape. It was not until he served five years in jail and lost all chances at a professional football career that the alleged victim admitted to lying about the entire thing.
After Banks was released, the alleged victim, Wanetta Gibson, refused to repeat that it had all been a lie for fear of losing her $1.5 million received from a civil suit against the school.
Men or women who knowingly accuse someone of rape who was not their rapist should be punished equally as harshly as the accused would be punished if found guilty.
The only difficulty that comes with enforcing this punishment is finding proof that the alleged victim knowingly lied about the rape, which could be even harder than proving a rape in the first place.
Also, men or women who actually were raped may be more hesitant to report the rape for fear of it being turned back around on them.
Even with these difficulties, something needs to be done in the near future so that these innocent people’s lives are no longer ruined by false accusations.
Hear, hear!
Thank you very much for shining a light on this previously neglected problem.
By the way, according to a recent study by David Lisak (who believes our campuses are crawling with serial rapists) et al, up to 1 in 10 rape allegations are *proven* false.
And proven false is not a redundancy. How many he said she said cases are lies?
Let’s say only 6% of rape complaints result in convictions — that is, are proven true. Would we say that 94% of rape complaints are false because they weren’t proven true?
How many people will we always know to be rapists because we or a jury believed their accusers…who in fact didn’t do it? Literally, only God (assuming there is one) knows.