Paulina EnckSome statistics are thrown around so much that certain communities treat them as truisms, even though a moment’s thought reveals they don’t make much sense. As debates about sexual violence and false reports are once again center stage in the national conversation, many are confidently parroting various statistics that are both inconsistent and clearly unrealistic.
Countless people confidently claim that somewhere between 2% and 5% of sexual assault allegations are false, with the implication that, because of these low numbers, the overwhelming majority of accusations ought to be believed on statistical grounds alone. Some will admit that up to 10% of allegations could be false, but this one in 10 is treated as still quite minor, especially with the argument that factoring in the many women who never report their assaults pushes the real, uncountable number of false accusations even lower.
These numbers weren’t made up to win comment section debates; they come from legitimate studies that track real data over time. The problem is less with the data itself and more with how it’s being represented.
What is a false allegation? While this sounds like a fairly straightforward question, it’s far more complicated than it first appears. Because while pretty much everyone agrees that a lie either about a consensual sexual encounter reframed as rape or an entirely invented attack are what is meant to be measured, the question becomes how to classify the untrue against the true amidst a sea of ambiguous or difficult to prove situations.
The widely cited 2%–10% range comes from Margaret DiCanio’s 1993 book, “The Encyclopedia of Violence: Origins, Attitudes, Consequences,” where she argues that prosecutors and researchers largely agree on that range for the rate of false reports, despite ambiguity about the exact percentage.
The 5% number arises from the 2010 study “False allegations of sexual assault: An analysis of ten years of reported cases” published in Violence Against Women 16, which appears to be the primary basis for these widely circulated numbers. David Lisak, Lori Gardinier, Sarah C Nicksa, and Ashley M Cote examined 136 cases of sexual assault reported to a major Northeastern university. Their study coded eight cases as false, leaving a false-report rate of 5.9%, which, when considered alongside the ’93 study, led researchers to agree that 2%–10% is the likely range of false allegations.
The problem is that these studies can only assess what is proven false, not what remains unproven or inconclusive. Every number is therefore a gross underestimation, but how much is unclear. These studies take a sort of “believe women,” “guilty until proven innocent” tack, taking for granted that inconclusive or unprovable allegations do not include in their numbers any falsehoods.
And for every study that supports a false report rate in the low single digits, others allege dramatically higher numbers.
Peter Neufeld and Barry C. Scheck, co-founders of the Innocence Project, claimed in 2006, “Every year since 1989, in about 25 percent of the sexual assault cases referred to the FBI where results could be obtained, the primary suspect has been excluded by forensic DNA testing.” They break down the numbers further, that out of the approximately 10,000 cases since 1989, around 2,000 excluded the primary suspect while 2,000 were inconclusive, and only around 6,000 “matched” or included the primary suspect. Their findings showed that just around 60% of these rape allegations were definitively true with DNA evidence.
A 1994 study by Eugene Kanin published in Archives of Sexual Behavior went even further. Kanin worked with a small metropolitan community’s police department, and noted 45 false allegations of forcible rape during the study’s nine-year period. This was 41% of the 109 rapes reported during the window.
If some studies show a mere 2% false report rate and others up to 41%, it’s not feasible to treat one number as fact and ignore the myriad studies to the contrary.
A noteworthy difference that could account for these dramatic variations is what population is being studied. One university only describing the provably false and ignoring the inconclusive is understandably different than a small city with looser criteria for what counts as false, and a DNA-focused look at FBI-specific cases is likewise contrary.
The exact rate of false reports is impossible to know, as the truth lies somewhere in the inconclusive and unprovable cases. But touting an impossibly small number as a gotcha in order to silence dissent and quiet critical thinking is dangerous.
Even if the most conservative estimates are taken, up to one in every 10 allegations is false, a worryingly high number for such a life- and reputation-ruining allegation.
Whatever your worldview is regarding sexual assault allegations’ veracity, it’s easy to find a study to back up your preconceptions. Rather than outsource analysis to a percentage, we should instead look at the facts of each individual allegation as they come. Rapists deserve to be held accountable and face justice for this truly heinous crime, but only if guilty.
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Paulina Enck is a media specialist in Washington, D.C.
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