You get called into your supervisor's office this afternoon and s/he tells you that a co-worker has accused you of sexual assault. S/he asks you for your office keys and tells you that you're suspended without pay or company resources while the claim is being investigated. A security guard hands you your personal effects in a box and escorts you out of the office while everybody watches, judgment on their faces. Youre told you can't return to the office until the investigation is complete. It could take many months and you're on your own till then.
Your co-workers are told that you have been suspended indefinitely due to a rape investigation, but your accuser is not identified. The news spreads through your industry, and rumors run rampant because nobody really knows the facts. Your accuser refused a rape kit. There's no hard evidence. You're not charged or arrested. But you were accused. Companies won't hire you. Your own company won't help you. Friends avoid you. Expenses mount.
You're identified as an alleged rapist in the local paper, but your accuser is anonymous. You can't tell your side of the story because your attorney advises you to be quiet. Management thinks you made the company look bad, so your job is probably history-- and forget a reference. Maybe you did something inappropriate; maybe it was rape; maybe your accuser had an agenda. But you're innocent until proven guilty, right? Justice will prevail.
Everybody good with that?
Cool, we're playing make-believe. Let's round out the story, with a prequel:
The evening prior to being called into my boss's office, I was at a party at a friend's house untl the wee hours of the morning. There was a lot of alcohol flowing. I mean a LOT. Truth be told, I was pretty hungover when I showed up for work that next morning.
I don't remember it, but at one point during the party I apparently followed the hot chick from personnel management into a bedroom. I've thought for several weeks now that she and I had some kind of flirtation going on. I've been told she left the room in tears a few minutes before I came back out. I honestly remember none of this.
So yeah, I don't KNOW who the accuser is, but I have a pretty good idea. I'm sure nothing happened, though, because I would remember if it did right?
And then, you know the rest.
[If you're gonna play make-believe, gotta live with other people playing make-believe too.]
Chances of being accused of sexual assault go up dramatically if you put yourself in situations where something coulda mighta happened. Solution: be a little more careful who you party with, and how drunk you get. A little self-control goes a long way.
I am saying that out of every 32 complaints made to police, only 3 survive the investigation process and make it to a prosector's desk. That means that police investigations weed out over 90% of rape complaints for one reason or another (maybe it is determined to be a lie, maybe the accuser was confused, maybe there just isn't any corroborating evidence, etc.). Only 2 result in convictions, but it is an astonishing statistic that only 3 (less than 10%) are even credible enough to prosecute. I'm not saying definitively that the others are "false," but when the police investigate and decide that the complaint isn't credible, we should generally roll with the presumption of innocence.
The other 68 (out of 100) are based on extrapolating self-reported survey responses, so there's no telling what those are, but it can fairly be presumed that complaints to police are, on average, more credible than survey responses.
Okay, you're struggling pretty bad with the statistics of this site that you found and linked for us. Your first and most basic problem is cherry-picking the facts of the site to suit your argument.
Look at the very top of the chart you referenced. It says, "Out of Every 100 Rapes". Things it does not say: "out of every 100 supposed rapes," or "out of every 100 potential rapes," or "out of every 100 possible rapes."
So the site itself is saying, these are ALL actual rapes. All 100 of them.
And then you go arguing how most of them aren't credible rapes. Which leaves you ignoring the foundation of the study. So any conclusions you draw, from that point on, are going to be flawed.
Is that study accurate? No idea. How do they know all 100 are actual rapes? No idea. But see, I didn't link that site, you did. So you either believe it, or you don't. You seem to believe it, since you're using its numbers to make your case. But you ignore its most basic premise.
See how you're wrong, drylo? Not trying to demean you, just pointing out your logical fallacy.
