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Former high school football star breaks down in court as rape charge dismissed after accuser admits false accusation following six years in prison (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/interestingasfuck@lemmy.world
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This image captures the moment a former high school football star breaks down in court when his rape charge is dismissed. The dismissal occurred after the 16-year-old accuser admitted that the alleged incident never happened, concluding six years he spent in prison.

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[–] 21 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

I think it says a lot that some folks downvoted this despite it just being sourced stats of the level of sexual violence experienced by both men and women and the rarity of false reports. OP chose to post info about a case from more than 15yrs ago and didn't even bother posting sources (probably because the age of the case would have tipped off how rare these types of situations are). Yes, these types of false reports are awful but the sheer number of incidents of rape against both men and women are staggering.

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  • [–] 8 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

    I upvoted it because it should be said, but to play devil's advocate in regards to why people might be downvoting it: On threads about sexual assault, people discussing false accusations is generally discouraged, not because false accusations aren't a problem in theory, but because it distracts from and to a point dismisses the discussion about the injustice of sexual assault currently being presented. This is essentially the same thing; if people truly believed that these issues should be discussed separately, then this is as much a breach of that rule as discussing false accusations on a post about a sexual assault incident is.

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  • [–] 1 point 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 child)

    If as few as 2% of reported rapes are false accusations but as recently as 2018, it was estimated that only 25% of rapes were reported to police, I think the argument that stuff like this "should be said" falls apart. When looking at false reports, you're looking at essentially a statistical anomaly when looking at the total number of incidents of rape. Yes, it can be said to happen, but focusing on false reports actively discourages both men and women from reporting acts of sexual violence. The problem of people not feeling safe to report or that they wouldn't be believed is a problem orders of magnitude greater in size than false reports.

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