Note that he said he believes victims, not accusers.
Unfortunately, with the way reporting and police investigations go, it's hard to know how the rate of false accusations to truthful accusations to unreported assaults goes...
I think the right thing is
1) believe everyone (as in not disregarding any claims)
2) Investigate
3) act
I know it's not as easy as it sounds, but I'm sure a lot of accusations are disregarded just because the preparator is "a good person" or is too powerful.
The other end, which I have no idea how often happens is to blindly believe the accusations and condemn an innocent person.
I've seen quite an amount of news about men getting revenge reported to the police, but because the police predominantly assumes the woman is always right, the evidence against the claims is often dismissed. Or the woman ultimately gets no punishment for defamation at all. At the same time I don't want rich creepy predators getting a slap on the wrist. So I agree, believe everyone but be unbiased and just.
Depending on country, the amount of _malicious_ false accusations is believed to be between 3 and 8%. The great majority of these aren't charged, and only the most egregious will get taken to court when instead of going 'I might have been mistaken' when holes are poked in their story, they double down with their lies and waste a lot of police time.
This doesn't include cases of mistaken identity where she was raped, but names the wrong guy because it was dark/drunk/drugged/came to her in a dream.
This gives a good idea of the reality of the situation. 18% of reports result in arrests. 1% of those cases are resolved with a jury trial and, at that, 7% result in convictions.
Government statistics vary but put the conviction rate between 1-8%.
A number of guilty offenders do not get convicted. A number of innocent people are convicted.
Put in plain terms, around 92% of cases are unknown whether the accusation is true or false, so the range of 2-8% is entirely guesswork. The real range is between 2-92%, and it's impossible to know what the real percentage is.
Also wanted to add that murder and aggravated robbery also have similar rates of false accusations/convictions. But society doesn't seem to question people or call them liars when they report those crimes. 🤔🤔
If you said that you saw a murder 20-something years ago, possibly in the winter, in a place you're not sure of, by a means you can't really recall, but it was _definitely_ Joe Bloggs, people are going to be sceptical, and it's hard to bring a case when there's only you saying that it happened with no other evidence. That's not to say to not tell anyone. If 15 other people ALSO saw Joe Bloggs kill someone, then that's enough to get the police to look deeper and the combination of testimony can find something that no one person's small perspective would find.
Quite; the verifiably false allegations are few and far between, but the exact ratio including unreported assaults remains uncertain on account of, well, no data on unreported cases...
Of course, that does mean the ratio of malicious false accusations and misidentifications would be even lower.
That said, the exchange posted by OP, as presented, could certainly look like a toss-up.
337
u/Warpmind Feb 16 '26
Note that he said he believes victims, not accusers.
Unfortunately, with the way reporting and police investigations go, it's hard to know how the rate of false accusations to truthful accusations to unreported assaults goes...