A very tough (and possibly controversial) poll about sexual abuse and rape

[beecee]

5 hours ago, Dord said:

I and the team of detectives I supervise do exactly that, thank you very much

Not by me they're not..

I have immense respect for all Law Officers and those in other emergency services. They put themselves in the line of extreme danger every day. Last year's Australia's East coast bush fires is a good example, where sadly three American fire fighters were killed when their tanker exploded, while they were simply helping us Aussies out.

By the same token, there are always bad eggs and sometimes emotional reactions or lack of action in some cases. The Blue Mountain's family and the Police involved in that "non investigation" was a travesty of justice.

The following is the full episode of that 60 minute account and the Interviews with the victims that were alleged to have committed a terrible crime. My previous link was not the full episode and I ask anyone who doubts the total lack of investigation by Police in this case to watch.

Again to make my position clear, which is [1] the accuser of rape or sexual assault needs to be believed. [2] The object/person being accused, needs to be investigated and interviewed first before being thrown into jail. This was not the case in this instant. Obviously this is an emotive subject, and the actions of many men against women needs to be addressed, fully and fairly, and any perpetrator that is found guilty, thrown into jail. By the same token, any serious accusation by anyone against another, that is found to be false, should face the same punishment as any perpetrator of any sexual assault or rape.

Again here is the full 50 minute program worth watching....

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by beecee

[tim.tdj]

2 minutes ago, iNow said:

Now you’re conflating “the criminal justice system making mistakes” with “people involved in the justice system taking extreme positions on one side or the other.”

For someone so self-professedly passionate about justice and accuracy, your style of argumentation is decidedly inaccurate and unjust. 

It seems that some of the mistakes are because of people taking extreme positions. It seems that your faith in the criminal justice system is unshakable which is either admirable or foolish.

[iNow]

3 minutes ago, tim.tdj said:

seems that your faith in the criminal justice system is unshakable which is either admirable or foolish.

It seems far more like you have problems with reading comprehension and/or honesty 

[tim.tdj]

1 minute ago, iNow said:

It seems far more like you have problems with reading comprehension and/or honesty 

You have been asking me to prove my assertions. How about I ask you to prove the allegations you have made against me?

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, tim.tdj said:

Before you have heard or seen any evidence whatsoever, the best position is definitely always the middle. Once you start hearing and seeing the evidence, you should apply as much caution and intelligence as possible to deciding how to interpret the evidence you are hearing and seeing (making sure you are not being mislead) and allow your considered interpretation to guide you. Only when this careful process takes you beyond any reasonable doubt can you come to any conclusion.

This seems like the stance of a man who has good intentions wrt women, someone who would never assault a woman, and desperately wants NOT to be lumped in with the rapists.  But why would you think that "believing women" somehow means innocent-until-proven-guilty no longer applies? The problem NOW is that many cases don't start from "the middle", or a neutral clean slate. Do you think what a woman is wearing is any defense against rape, or how late it was, or that she didn't say NO enough times? That's where the defense usually starts from, which is the "middle" you seem to be defending.

[iNow]

11 minutes ago, tim.tdj said:

You have been asking me to prove my assertions. How about I ask you to prove the allegations you have made against me?

You mean beyond where I quoted you summarizing my position as having unshakable trust in the justice system?

[tim.tdj]

1 minute ago, Phi for All said:

This seems like the stance of a man who has good intentions wrt women, someone who would never assault a woman, and desperately wants NOT to be lumped in with the rapists.  But why would you think that "believing women" somehow means innocent-until-proven-guilty no longer applies? The problem NOW is that many cases don't start from "the middle", or a neutral clean slate. Do you think what a woman is wearing is any defense against rape, or how late it was, or that she didn't say NO enough times? That's where the defense usually starts from, which is the "middle" you seem to be defending.

I think that instead of saying "believe women", it is better to say "don't disbelieve women". The difference may seem subtle but if you understand the difference, you will know how important it is. Obviously what a woman wears etc is no defense in a case of rape or sexual assault and only one expression of reluctance from a woman should be enough to tell a man to stop. Obviously the words "woman" and "man" in what I am saying can be swapped and it will be equally true. When you say, "The problem NOW is that many cases don't start from "the middle", or a neutral clean slate.", I totally agree with you and that is the problem that I have tried to point out.

[beecee]

6 hours ago, StringJunky said:

I find it offensive too, that the law is expected by some here to pre-favour the testimony of one over the other. That's not how justice works, which is to treat people equal under the law, until the jury decides who is telling the truth.

Agreed. The video I just provided of the full episode says it all. The 6 minute mark is the first this family knew anything about any charges against them. The 45/50 minutes maybe too long for some, but that from the 6 minute mark for a couple of minutes totally illustrates and details the dramatic raid and arrest, and thrown into jail, without any interview or investigation whatsoever.

[Phi for All]

4 minutes ago, tim.tdj said:

I think that instead of saying "believe women", it is better to say "don't disbelieve women".

NO! That's a rhetorical bandaid for YOU and other men who've felt wronged by women in the past. This is about the women, and the unfair challenges they face in assault cases with men.

4 minutes ago, tim.tdj said:

When you say, "The problem NOW is that many cases don't start from "the middle", or a neutral clean slate.", I totally agree with you and that is the problem that I have tried to point out.

Yet you want to squash the one movement that's trying to do just that, because you want to be clear about you being fair and not being a rapist.

 

[iNow]

4 minutes ago, beecee said:

the dramatic raid and arrest, and thrown into jail, without any interview or investigation whatsoever.

That’s obviously a miscarriage of justice that must be addressed. It’s also such a marginal example... so rare and extraordinarily uncommon... so remote a possibility that one wonders why we need a thread with over 4 pages already to explore it. 

Except, I don’t wonder. We’ve had this conversation before here and elsewhere. There’s an agenda being pushed. 

Edited January 19, 2021 by iNow

[beecee]

1 minute ago, iNow said:

That’s obviously a miscarriage of justice that must be addressed. It’s also such a marginal example... so rare and extraordinarily uncommon... so remote a possibility that one wonders why we need a thread with over 3 pages already to explore it. 

Yes, to put it mildly. How uncommon? Thankfully, fairly uncommon otherwise none of us would be safe, but still highly disturbing, and imho, the Police in charge of this should be, and probably will be in time thrown out of the force. Just as imho anyone shown to have made any false allegation of rape or sexual assault, should experience the same punishment as a genuine sexual assaulter or rapist.

On the overwhelmingly higher genuine cases of sexual assault and rape, and domestic violence of any kind, at least in Australia, our screens are always displaying messages of ringing the Police or a particular hot line for any women experiencing such depravity. It's advertised on the sides of our buses and even taxis also.  Not sure how much good it has done, but certainly the general populace is now far more aware of such criminality.

[tim.tdj]

8 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

NO! That's a rhetorical bandaid for YOU and other men who've felt wronged by women in the past. This is about the women, and the unfair challenges they face in assault cases with men.

Yet you want to squash the one movement that's trying to do just that, because you want to be clear about you being fair and not being a rapist.

You are making assumptions about the sort of man I am.

I do not want to squash any movement that genuinely wants fair justice. I actually think that, by-and-large, the "Me Too" and "Time's Up" movements are very heroic and much needed movements. It is just that there are some not-so-good elements within those movements. Much the same way as there are bad apples in every barrel.

[Phi for All]

"One incident is one too many" is how you defend the men in these highly uncommon instances, but for the myriad of women who've gone through being assaulted all you want is fair justice. They need more from all of us.

[tim.tdj]

1 minute ago, Phi for All said:

"One incident is one too many" is how you defend the men in these highly uncommon instances, but for the women all you want is fair justice. They need more from all of us.

You seem to very much underestimate what I mean by fair justice. Fair justice is a huge concept which should not be sniffed at like that.

[iNow]

9 minutes ago, tim.tdj said:

You seem to very much underestimate what I mean by fair justice. Fair justice is a huge concept which should not be sniffed at like that.

You seem to miss where the unfairness actually exists in the current justice approach to this issue. 

[tim.tdj]

2 minutes ago, iNow said:

You seem to miss where the unfairness actually exists in the current justice approach to this issue. 

I am entirely aware of the unfairness on both sides of this issue. That is why I think the middle position is so important. The middle position is the most fair position. I don't understand how this is not completely obvious.

[iNow]

If Situation_A occurs 1,000,000 times, and Situation_B occurs 2 times, it is not obvious nor logical to assert the middle position is 500,001. 

You’re using average when you should be using median. 

[CharonY]

OK so perhaps one should look at broad picture and at the justice system rather than using individual anecdotes to extrapolate cases. We can address the rate of false accusations. Studies on college students have shown that in this group roughly 5% were false allegations. Or conversely 95% of allegations brought to police were not found to be false. Moreover, only about 10% of all rapes get reported to authorities to begin with. So from the get go we have a situation were we have 0.5% of wrongful allegations vs about 99.5% actual cases.

The conviction rate is incredibly low, though. Even among the 10% reported cases only a fraction (again, about 10%) are actually resulting in conviction. So the likelihood of conviction in an actual rape is very low (~1%) and the likelihood of wrongful conviction much lower than that. So again, we are not talking about a symmetric situation here.

There are a couple of issues, of course, especially in the absence of evidence convictions are unlikely and then of course victims (especially male victims) are very unlikely to come forward as they see no point in doing so and want to avoid social consequences. The other issue on the justice level side is that often rape allegations, even when reported, were simply not pursued. There are many reports, articles and internal investigations throughout at least UK, US and Australia which have shown that allegations from certain folks, especially indigenous folks, drug addicts, younger victims, victims from what are classified as problematic households, homeless and so on, were often routinely dismissed. In the US rape kits were often not submitted for analyses and so on. This is all because in those cases police deemed the victims unreliable from the get-go and decided not to even start investigating. It is also possible that due to low likelihood of success police focuses on the more winnable cases which might improve their statistics.

Some of the campaigns, such as believe the victim slogans and alternative hotlines for rape reporting are attempts to address this systemic issue. 

 

Edit: crossposted with iNow, but same idea.

[tim.tdj]

3 minutes ago, iNow said:

If Situation_A occurs 1,000,000 times, and Situation_B occurs 2 times, it is not obvious nor logical to assert the middle position is 500,001. 

You’re using average when you should be using median. 

If you are ever falsely accused of a terrible crime (I very much hope you never will be), it will suddenly matter to you a lot that your trial is a fair as possible. It doesn't matter that you are just one person.

[iNow]

Just now, tim.tdj said:

If you are ever falsely accused of a terrible crime (I very much hope you never will be), it will suddenly matter to you a lot that your trial is a fair as possible. It doesn't matter that you are just one person.

I’m more likely to raped, but thanks 

[tim.tdj]

4 minutes ago, iNow said:

I’m more likely to raped, but thanks 

I pray that you never will be.

[beecee]

I'm pretty sure everyone means well in this thread.

[Phi for All]

48 minutes ago, tim.tdj said:

You seem to very much underestimate what I mean by fair justice. 

Because it's obviously a kind of righteous ambiguation you're using wrt women accusing men of rape. Your fair justice ignores that today's courts don't start from your proverbial middle ground. Women have always had to prove MORE in rape cases just so people with your stance never have to see even a single incidence of a man being falsely accused. Women suffer twice under the system you're defending.

[CharonY]

23 minutes ago, tim.tdj said:

If you are ever falsely accused of a terrible crime (I very much hope you never will be), it will suddenly matter to you a lot that your trial is a fair as possible. It doesn't matter that you are just one person.

This also does not make sense. The believing the victim proposals are aimed at looking into the possible crimes in the first place. The actual trial will be as any other one. And again, that at least in part explains low conviction rates. It should be noted that the false rape allegation rate is roughly in line false accusations of other criminal acts and it is somewhat peculiar that this type of allegations is what get folks riled up.

2 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Because it's obviously a kind of righteous ambiguation you're using wrt women accusing men of rape. Your fair justice ignores that today's courts don't start from your proverbial middle ground. Women have always had to prove MORE in rape cases just so people with your stance never have to see even a single incidence of a man being falsely accused. Women suffer twice under the system you're defending.

Indeed. One of the things that both prosecutors and defenders probe is credibility of the victim. And these types of probes can be very aggressive. E.g. and steeped in moralism. E.g. women who had multiple sex partners are more likely to be assumed to be responsible for being assaulted than men. Of course credibility is important as they need to look into motivations such as custody proceedings, financial interests and so on, but obviously it is quite a harrowing process for an actual victim and that on top of social stigma and psychological wounds.

[tim.tdj]

2 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Because it's obviously a kind of righteous ambiguation you're using wrt women accusing men of rape. Your fair justice ignores that today's courts don't start from your proverbial middle ground. Women have always had to prove MORE in rape cases just so people with your stance never have to see even a single incidence of a man being falsely accused. Women suffer twice under the system you're defending.

I am not ignoring that today's courts don't start from the middle position. I don't know why you think I am.

 

2 minutes ago, CharonY said:

This also does not make sense. The believing the victim proposals are aimed at looking into the possible crimes in the first place. The actual trial will be as any other one. And again, that at least in part explains low conviction rates. It should be noted that the false rape allegation rate is roughly in line false accusations of other criminal acts and it is somewhat peculiar that this type of allegations is what get folks riled up.

I am not opposed to allegations being investigated and I think it is bad that some allegations which should be investigated are not. I just think that the investigations should be as fair and intelligent as possible. False accusations of all types, sexual or otherwise, worry me. It does not matter what type it is.

15 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Indeed. One of the things that both prosecutors and defenders probe is credibility of the victim. And these types of probes can be very aggressive. E.g. and steeped in moralism. E.g. women who had multiple sex partners are more likely to be assumed to be responsible for being assaulted than men. Of course credibility is important as they need to look into motivations such as custody proceedings, financial interests and so on, but obviously it is quite a harrowing process for an actual victim and that on top of social stigma and psychological wounds.

I am not comfortable with any of what you are describing either. I think that ideally, only evidence from the actual alleged event should matter.