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A false accusations of rape is an accusation, formal or informally made against another individual or individuals concerning a forcible sexual assault. Such false reports occur with a high enough frequency that failure to consider a false accusation of sexual assault during a criminal proceeding is considered a due process violation. Pereptrators may be motivacted by a number of factors including profit, revenge, embarrassment, crime concealment, or some mental defect. Detailed investigations using differing samples and methodologies have found widely differing results ranging from as high as 41% to as low as 1.5%. As a scientific matter, the frequency of false rape complaints to police or other legal authorities remains unknown."

Prevalence and studies

The FBI reports that number of "unfounded" rape accusations around 8%. The average rate of unfounded reports for Index crimes is 2%. Several academic and governmental studies and surveys have been performed on the subject with various results.

British Home Office study

The largest and most rigorous study was commissioned by the British Home Office and based on 2,643 sexual assault cases (Kelly, Lovett, and Regan, 2005). Of these, 8% were classified by the police department as false reports. The researchers noted that some of these classifications were based on the personal judgments of the police investigators and were made in violation of official criteria for establishing a false allegation. Closer analysis of this category applying the Home Office counting rules for establishing a false allegation and excluding cases where the application of the cases where confirmation of the designation was uncertain reduced the percentage of false reports to 3%. }}

Australian police study

Another large-scale study was conducted in Australia, with the 850 rapes reported to the Victoria police between 2000 and 2003 (Heenan & Murray, 2006). Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, the researchers examined 812 cases with sufficient information to make an appropriate determination, and found that 2.1% of these were classified by police as false reports. All of these complainants were then charged or threatened with charges for filing a false police report.

Kanin study

In 1994, Dr. Eugene J. Kanin of Purdue University investigated the incidences of false rape allegations made to the police in one small urban community between 1978 and 1987. He states that unlike those in many larger jurisdictions, this police department had the resources to "seriously record and pursue to closure all rape complaints, regardless of their merits." He further states each investigation "always involves a serious offer to polygraph the complainants and the suspects" and "the complainant must admit that no rape had occurred. She is the sole agent who can say that the rape charge is false." The number of false rape allegations in the studied period was 45; this was 41% of the 109 total complaints filed in this period.

Cambridge Law Journal study

A 2006 paper by N.S. Rumney in the Cambridge Law Journal provided an exhaustive account of studies of false reporting in the USA, New Zealand and the UK. A tabulated list of studies on false reporting published between 1968 and 2005 placed the percentage of false reports between a minimum on 1.5% (Theilade and Thomsen, 1986) and a maximum of 90% (Stewart, 1981). DiCanio (1993) states that while researchers and prosecutors do not agree on the exact percentage of false allegations, they generally agree on a range of 2% to 8%.

See also

• False allegation of child sexual abuse
• Crystal Mangum in the Duke lacrosse case
• Tawana Brawley rape allegations
• The Scottsboro Boys

References

1. John Savino, Brent Turvey. Rape Investigation Handbook. Academic Press. 2011
2. John Savino, Brent Turvey. Rape Investigation Handbook. Academic Press. 2011
3. The Legacy of the Prompt Complaint Requirement, Corroboration Requirement, and Cautionary Instructions on Campus Sexual Assault Forthcoming
4. Crime Index Offenses Reported 1996
5. A gap or a chasm? Attrition in reported rape cases Home Office Research - February 2005
6. Cybulska B (2007). "Sexual assault: key issues". J R Soc Med. 100 (7): 321–4. doi:10.1258/jrsm.100.7.321. PMC 1905867. PMID 17606752. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
7. "Abstracts Database - National Criminal Justice Reference Service". Ncjrs.gov. Retrieved 2010-12-31.
8. Kanin, Eugene J., "False Rape Allegations", Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 23, No. 1, Feb 1994, p. 81. (MS Word document at the Internet Archive)
9. Rumney, N.S., "False Allegations of Rape", Cambridge Law Journal, 65, March, 2006, pp.128-158
10. DiCanio, M. (1993). The encyclopedia of violence : origins, attitudes, consequences. New York : Facts on File

• Rape
• Criminal law