October 6, 2018 was a disappointing, and quite frankly
gut-wrenching, day for sexual assault survivors and their families and friends,
for those who will be assaulted in the future, and for America as a whole. Many
have used Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s powerful testimony to induce fear about
what can happen to males across the country should survivors (90% female) go
unchecked: at any given moment, a woman can falsely accuse a man of a crime he
did not commit, and it will uproot his entire life (This belief is highly
contradictory given Brett Kavanaugh’s recent Supreme Court confirmation, as Dr.
Ford’s courageous testimony became nothing more than a minor inconvenience in
Kavanaugh’s career). Even the President of the United States of America mocked
Dr. Ford and instructed America to “Think of your son. Think of your husband,”
as if all men are now in danger of being falsely accused of sexual assault.
This mentality is extremely dangerous for all men, women, and children who have
been and who will be victimized – it insinuates that false accusations are
commonplace and encourages individuals to be more dismissive of survivors than
ever before.
In reality, false accusations of sexual assault are
extremely rare. Only roughly 10 to 35
percent of sexual assaults are reported to law enforcement in the first place
(Planty & Langton, 2013), and of those, an estimated 2 to 10% are deemed to
be false (Lisak, Gardinier, Nicksa, & Cote, 2010). According to Joanne
Belknap, a criminologist and sociologist at the University of Colorado Boulder,
“This puts the actual false allegation figure closer to 0.005 percent…”
Now let’s look at sexual
assault rates. Roughly 36% of women, 17% of men, and 47% of transgender people
are sexually assaulted (James et al., 2016; Smith et al. 2017). This means that
one in three women, one in six men, and one in two transgender people
experience some form of sexual assault in their lifetime. One in four girls and
one in six boys will be assaulted before their 18th birthday
(Finkelhor et al., 1990).
Moral of the story: it is
MUCH MORE LIKELY that someone will be the victim of sexual violence (36.3% chance
for women, 16.7% chance for men, 47% chance for transgender people) than be
falsely accused of it (0.005% chance).
In fact, even for your son or husband, it is 3,340 to 9,400 times more
likely that they are a victim of sexual assault than falsely accused of it.
Given the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, women’s marches,
and Dr. Ford’s courageous testimony, the country is focused more than ever on
the topic of sexual assault. However, many are denying the reality of a
nationwide problem by claiming false allegations to be common instead of
discussing high base rates of sexual assault and providing support to
survivors. Through the current platform that survivors have, I hope that we can
shift the narrative around sexual assault from politically-motivated denial of
a pervasive problem to focus on prevention of the hundreds of thousands of
sexual assaults that occur in the U.S. each year (National Crime Victimization
Survey, 2015) and best treatment and support for survivors.
Written by: Emma Lathan, M.S.
Finkelhor, D., Hotaling, G., Lewis, I. A., & Smith, C. (1990).
Sexual abuse in a national survey of adult men and women: Prevalence,
characteristics and risk factors. Child Abuse & Neglect 14, 19-28.
doi:10.1016/0145-2134(90)90077-7
James, S. E., Herman, J. L., Rankin, S., Keisling, M., Mottet, L., & Anafi, M. (2016). The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. Washington, DC: National Center for Transgender Equality.
Lisak, D., Gardinier, L., Nicksa, S. C., & Cote, A. M. (2010). False allegations of sexual assault: An analysis of ten years of reported cases. Violence Against Women, 16(12), 1328-1334.
National Crime Victimization Survey, 2010-2014. (2015).
Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice
Statistics.
Planty, M., & Langton, L. (2013). Female victims of
sexual violence, 1994-2010. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice
Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Smith, S. G., Chen, J.,
Basile, K. C., Gilbert, L. K., Merrick, M. T., Patel, N., … Jain, A. (2017).
The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2010-2012
state report. Retrieved from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/NISVS-StateReportBook.pdf
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