MCVP Staff
One of the number one questions we get asked while doing educational workshops with college students on campus is “What about false accusations?”. It has always made my head spin to hear that this is a main concern for some college students. Unsurprisingly, the question is almost always asked by men to challenge the statistic that 1 in 7 college men engages in behavior that meets the legal definition of sexual assault (Thompson, M.; et al. 2010). College men’s biggest fear is being falsely accused of sexual assault; meanwhile, college women’s biggest fear is being sexually assaulted, raped, and possibly murdered.
One strategy we have used to combat this line of thinking is to share the numbers. Even though there is so much more context and nuance to dating and sexual violence, statistics are particularly useful for some people in their learning.
The Numbers
First, let’s make sure we are using the same language. There is a difference between a false report and an unfounded report. A false report refers to someone intentionally making up and reporting an experience of sexual violence. The statistics on false reports are all over the place and nearly impossible to decipher (Orchowski, 2020). Just like it is difficult to prove someone has experienced sexual violence, it is difficult to prove that a report is false. Additionally, most false report prevalence studies lump together false reports with reports that were classified as unfounded, unsubstantiated, or baseless.
An unfounded report means that a victim makes a report to a criminal punishment system, yet the system does not find enough evidence to support the claim. This is certainly more common, but it is not a false report and does not have legal consequences for the person accused. Something happened that made one person feel violated in a sexual situation and they sought help through the legal system – one of the only options available for people who experience harm. This is not a false accusation – it is an experience that was harmful, yet did not rise to the level of a violation of the law, according to police officers or investigators receiving the report. In some instances, a victim may actually choose to withdraw from the process because it is so harmful to them. These are also considered “unfounded,” not false, accusations. The threshold for meeting the legal requirements of sexual assault is extremely high, actually designed to protect people from being wrongly convicted of something they did not do. We need to keep in mind that there is a wide discrepancy between what is defined as harmful according to the law, and what might be described as harmful by each of us individually.
Sexual assault is the most underreported crime in the US. Data from the 2022 National Crime Victimization Survey indicates that only 21.4% of sexual assaults were reported to the police, representing the lowest reporting rate of all crimes measured by the survey. For every 100 forcible rapes committed, only 5 to 20 are reported, 0.4 to 5.4 are prosecuted, 0.2 to 5.2 result in a conviction, and 0.02 to 2.8 result in incarceration (Lonsway, K. A., & Archambault, J., 2012). These statistics illustrate that if someone actually chooses to report, false accusations are not likely, and a false accusation resulting in a court hearing, conviction, or incarceration is nearly impossible. So why is this such a common fear among college students?
Moving Beyond Carceral Punishment to Support Survivors
Many survivors of sexual violence don’t want the person who hurt them to get in trouble- they just want them to stop the harmful behavior. When we put such heavy emphasis on the criminal punishment system as a solution, we fail to listen to survivors’ needs and we instill false fear in college students that they will be falsely accused of sexual violence.
Teaching and practicing accountability as an alternative to carceral punishment can be a solution to both the concerns of survivors and the person who caused harm; which are not always mutually exclusive (Dickson, 2016). When we create pathways for real healing, people have the opportunity to heal from their previous traumas, resulting in them being less likely to cause harm in the future. The fear of false accusations comes from the fear of being exiled, canceled, and seen as “bad” which are all rooted in punishment. When we work towards accountability practices we can heal our communities and prevent dating and sexual violence at its roots without the fear of being disposed of.
No one wants to be told they have hurt someone. It is hard to come to terms with the harm we have caused and take responsibility for our actions. The reality is if someone goes through the long and confusing process of reporting an instance of sexual violence, it means they have been hurt in some way. If we work to normalize practicing personal accountability when we have been told we have caused harm, then we can intervene with the harm we are causing before it becomes irreversibly damaging to others. As communities, we need to engage the people we love and care about in accountability work. If communities are able to emphasize accountability over punishment, we move away from fear. This is a step towards healing for everyone.
References
Cantor, D., Fisher, B., Chibnall, S., Townsend, R., Lee, H., Bruce, C., & Thomas, G. (2021). Report on the AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct.
Linder, C., Richards, J., Melton, H., Griffiths, A., Peters, C., & Lund, H. (2024). Words Matter: How College Students Use and Understand Terms Related to Dating and Sexual Violence. Journal of College Student Development, 65(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2024.a919347
Lonsway, K. A., & Archambault, J. (2012). The “Justice Gap” for Sexual Assault Cases: Future Directions for Research and Reform. Violence Against Women, 18(2), 145–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801212440017
Orchowski, L., Bogen, K. W., & Berkowitz, A. (2020). False Reporting of Sexual Victimization: Prevalence, Definitions, and Public Perceptions. In R. Geffner, J. W. White, L. K. Hamberger, A. Rosenbaum, V. Vaughan-Eden, & V. I. Vieth (Eds.), Handbook of Interpersonal Violence and Abuse Across the Lifespan (pp. 1–23). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62122-7_193-1
Dickson, S. (2016). Queers don’t do sexual violence, do we? In J. Patterson (Ed.), Queering sexual violence: Radical voices from within the anti-violence movement (pp. [page numbers]). A Magnus Imprint. Riverdale Avenue Books.