{"id":859,"date":"2016-04-07T00:45:56","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T07:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/lateraltruth\/?p=859"},"modified":"2016-04-07T00:45:56","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T07:45:56","slug":"believe-victims-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/lateraltruth\/2016\/04\/07\/believe-victims-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"“Believe the Victims” – Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"believe\"<\/a>Why \u201cBelieve the Victims\u201d is a Really Bad Idea.<\/p>\n

Part Two: \u201cBelieve the Victims\u201d can be wrong: false testimony.<\/p>\n

Contrary to politically correct belief, it sometimes happens that people making accusations of sexual assault are not telling the truth\u2014though this is a more complicated issue than the infamous \u201cbitchz be lyin<\/em>\u201d trope. In the Ghomeshi case, the lack of truthfulness did include some outright lies by both omission and commission, but also\u2014critically\u2014some important issues to do with memory. False testimony and false memory are separate issues, and I have not seen the latter discussed in connection with Ghomeshi\u2019s accusers; and yet, the red flags are there.<\/p>\n

But, first\u2014the general issue of bearing false witness. Implicit in the mantra \u201cbelieve the victims\u201d (BTV) is the assumption that women do not lie about sexual assault\u2014that false accusations are vanishingly rare, and can therefore be pretty much discounted. Also implicit is the attitude that it does not matter if a few innocent guys get punished for assaults or rapes they did not commit.<\/p>\n

As to how often false accusations are made, the rate (like the rate of unreported \"believe2\"<\/a>assaults) is impossible to peg statistically<\/a> for methodological reasons, partly to do with trying to separate out unfounded<\/em> from unproven<\/em> from entirely hypothetical unreported<\/em> assaults. The definitions and criteria are iffy, inconsistent across jurisdictions, and may be differently interpreted according to one\u2019s agenda. Take, for example, a case where no charges are brought<\/a> because of a lack of evidence. BTV advocates may see it as an example of the system failing a victim, whereas others may classify it a false accusation; in fact, it should not really be entered in either<\/em> of those columns. Which part of \u201clack of evidence\u201d is difficult to understand?<\/p>\n

But the fact that false accusations are made at all should hold us back from rushing to presume willy-nilly that an accusation is true. It is hard to see, for example, how BTV can be bandied about so uncritically in the face of unambiguous high-profile cases of fabricated accusations, some of them very recent\u2014the Rolling Stone debacle<\/a>, Mattress Girl<\/a>, the Duke lacrosse team hoax<\/a>, the tragic injustice done to Brian Banks<\/a>. But these high-profile cases are only the tip of a disturbing iceberg, as documented, for example, by the Community of the Wrongly Accused<\/a>, Families Advocating for Campus Equality<\/a>, and the Innocence Project<\/a>.\u00a0 The narratives and statistics these sources make available reveal how many different ways false accusations may be made, and the terrible effects they have on innocent men and their families.<\/p>\n

Some are simply mistakes, cases of mistaken identity when a genuine assault has taken place. The accusers in such cases are indeed victims, but not victims of the accused. The effect on an accused innocent, however, will be just as dire. More than half of the exonerations effected by the Innocence Project<\/a> have involved mistaken rape allegations, with the wrongfully convicted having spent years, even decades, in prison, until being cleared by DNA testing.<\/p>\n

\"believe3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some false accusations are deliberate, and the possible motives can be hugely diverse, including but not limited to revenge<\/a>, mental illness<\/a>, attention-seeking<\/a>, and the old classics of avoiding blame<\/a> or shame<\/a> or the consequences of infidelity<\/a>. More disturbing yet is the class of fabricated accusations<\/a> made by \u201crape-culture\u201d activists seeking to promote awareness of sexual assault\u2014which is rather like shouting Fire<\/em> in a crowded theatre to promote awareness of fire safety. For example:<\/p>\n