(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

DNA evidence is increasingly be used to free innocent people from prison, often men wrongly convicted of rape. (Bizarrely, anti-feminists claim this is evidence that women lie about rape.) Less high-profile are cases where criminals are being caught thanks to DNA evidence, as in the conviction of the rapist and murderer of Johanne Hatty, after twenty years.

Comments

[qthewetsprocket.livejournal.com]

there was recently a similar case here in the pacific northwest, when the waste of space who murdered mia zapata got caught with his chromosomes down. yay science.

also, i'm liking the online news trend of including a photo of the victim, not the killer. i wish tv news would follow suit.

[jvowles.livejournal.com]

People (regardless of sex) lie about things all the time, for all sorts of reasons. Why would this situation be any different?

I'll admit to being confused here -- if the DNA evidence clearly shows that THAT GUY was *not* the one who raped a woman, there are only a few options.

Option one is that the woman was mistaken. Lots of reasons why that might happen.

Option two is that the woman was lying -- and it is an option that seems more likely if there are anger issues between the parties involved. Why assume that this is NEVER the case?

In either case, the man is out a life due to a rape conviction he wasn't guilty of.

[jvowles.livejournal.com]

Let me just add this: one should never *assume* that it's a lie -- that's very wrong. But it has to be an option on the table.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

I think you misunderstand the reason for mentioning that there's a misinformation campaign about women who lie about rape. In the UK, rape convictions have fallen from 32% in 1977 to 5.6% in 2007 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1424915,00.html), because the culture believes women habitually lie about rape to get revenge.

There are side effects to creating a cultural myth about how much it appeals to women to lie about rape, and supporting it with prosecution mistakes that have not been conclusively attributed to lying, which is what Kate was talking about. One of the side effects is that convictions become almost impossible to obtain, even in very clear cases.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Anti-feminists want us to believe that women frequently lie about rape and that this presents a major danger to men; their goal is to undermine the credibility of rape victims. However, men have more to fear from dishonest police or shoddy forensics than they do from the strange scenario of a woman who is raped, then deliberately accuses the wrong man. Pop over to the Innocence Project for a list of the causes of wrongful conviction.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

did you see the New Scientist editorial about Ida Dickie's interviews where 42% of the men admitted to rape or statutory rape?

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

42%?! No way!

[jvowles.livejournal.com]

That seems highly unlikely unless you're talking about the fairly typical scenario where you have a boy and girl who are on either side of 18 yrs old doing the nasty. Technically about half the first sexual encounters I know of took place between teenagers and it's fairly likely that most were technically statutory rape, even though both partners were willing and at similar levels of maturity.

I simply can't believe that nearly half of men are that loathsome.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I tracked down a quote from the NS editorial:

"Ida Dickie, a forensic psychologist at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, conducted a survey of men seeking casual work in Ottawa, Canada. Her as yet unpublished research shows that 42 per cent admitted either to having raped an adult, or having had sex with a minor at least five years younger than themselves."

Until the research is published, there's not much more we can say about it. But I don't believe that figure is representative of Western men as a whole.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

it's possible, i suppose, that unemployed casual workers have a much higher proportion of bastards who deserve to have their genetalia hacked off, but THAT much higher?

[jvowles.livejournal.com]

I am very relieved to hear that!

As-yet unpublished research is a hell of a thing to base such a huge statement on -- but lazy reporting is *probably* the culprit here.

Still, "men seeking casual work" are inherently unlikely to be a great barometer for "Western men". I would not be surprised to find a greater percentage of miscreants among men with presumably poor education, limited skills, and other problems.

Rape is, after all, fundamentally about violence, not sex.

Hmm. 17 and 22 would fit the "college guy dating a minor" mold and be five years' difference. I wonder what percentage was that sort of thing rather than raping an adult?

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I have been tch-ed at by doctors for reading about radical new treatments in New Scientist and asking if I could get them. :-)

You could be right about "men seeking casual work", though I'd add the caveat that no stratum of society is free of rapists - for example, about 8% of college men admit committing rape or attempted rape (not including statutory rape IIRC).

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

In the US, the big cognition which people seem to be really understanding is how poor eyewitness identifications are, even in cases where (one might think) that the victim could have gotten a good look at her attacker.

I'm thrilled that DNA evidence is freeing the unjustly jailed, and capturing those who have until now escaped punishment.