While rape is a horrific crime that no one should have to feel ashamed to report, it is also a convenient way for women to "get back" at men they are upset with. To make rape a serious and severely punishable crime is important. It is equally important to make reporting rapes that never occured as serious an offense. An officer I know well in the DC area told me that 90% of the rape cases he is called to never happened after he spent time discussing details with the "victim". While a woman is trying to hide where she was the previous night, an innocent man is criminally charged, possibly convicted, and women who need police and medical assistance for an actual crime are viewed with a jaundiced eye.

How would an officer know that 90% of the rape cases he is called to never happened? Simply having a discussion with an alleged rape victim is not the equivalent of running a full investigation--it's only one part of an investigation. False reporting is reprehensible (and is a crime, BTW), but trotting out frankly BS estimates of "90% of the rape cases he is called to never happened" indicates to me that your friend doesn't take crime investigation seriously. Which leads many victims of rape or assault to have significant qualms about reporting their crime. It's one of the only crimes left in the U.S. where the entire burden of proof is placed on the victim.

The ultimate reason that I think that police officers and departments who complain about false rape reporting is nothing but a load of BS: how many of these supposed false reporters are actually charged with crimes? Virtually none. Which again indicates that doing legit police work and protecting the populace is the last priority of these cops. Unsympathetic and derelict of duty to those who are true victims, yet not worrying about prosecuting those who abuse the system.

So, Jim, do you think Baltimore has 500% more women who fabricate rape claims than the rest of the country?

Actually, Jim, that's a common myth. I wouldn't call anything about reporting a rape to the police 'convenient'. Do you understand the sort of emotional trauma and medical scrutiny that is involved with making a rape report? As a rape crisis counselor, I can site my own statistics. Only 20-30% of rapes and assaults are even reported! The percentage of false reports hovers somewhere around 3%.

Can someone please tell me the last time someone in this state was named publicly in the newspapers and on the tv for making a rape report?

I'd really like to know, because I don't remember the last time it happened. But I do know if you accuse someone of this crime they get their "fifteen minutes of fame" so to speak.

So once again, snappygolucky and you others...what public shaming are we talking about here?

CatsMcGee has hit the nail right on the head (though snappygolucky and Laura make excellent points as well), and is the whole reason for these articles.

Baltimore's "unfounded rape" statistics are completely out of line with the rest of the country and by a wide margin. People like Jim and the Baltimore police can say whatever they want about the number of fabricated rape reports (even though the 90% statistic alluded to is clearly pure BS), but that still doesn't explain why Baltimore's "unfounded rape" reports are so much higher then any place else in the country. Apparently the Baltimore police would have us believe that we're just unlucky enough to live in area where we have a particularly large number of women (mostly I assume) who enjoy yelling rape every 5 seconds for no apparent reason.

All Baltimore needs to do is to rename the person who takes the original report a "detective". People seem to be reacting to the notion that a detective isn't called.

Then I think they just need to change the nomenclature and stop calling them "unfounded". Perhaps they can just call the ones with real evidence, "prosecutor ready."

report on unrep. rape cases