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Originally Posted by SebC
You don't see a line being crossed when someone who says "don't make false rape accusations" message is immediately attacked for being part of "rape culture" and called a "rape apologist"? Throwing around terms like that when they are not applicable doesn't do anyone any good.
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Although a false allegation of sexual assault has terrible consequences for the accused (and also for police and justice system resources), the problem of false reporting absolutely pales in comparison to the problem of underreporting. As has already been noted in this thread, the rate of false reporting of sexual assault is consistent with false reporting of other crimes in Canada. However, the rate of underreporting of sexual assaults is far higher than the rate of underreporting of other crimes in Canada:
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Of the three types of violent offences recorded by the GSS, sexual assault was the least likely to be reported to the police. Less than one in ten incidents of sexual assault were reported to the police, a proportion significantly lower than that for the other violent offences, robbery (47%) and physical assault (40%).
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Source:
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85f0033...008019-eng.pdf
Therefore, it seems likely that public campaigns attacking "false reporters" do more harm than good.