The Crime Resource Room

The statistics on false rape reports in the U.S. are widely divergent, and often too outdated to be meaningful. Not surprisingly, the numbers also depend on whom you ask. Organizations that tout a feminist agenda claim the number of false rape reports to be nearly non-existent - about two percent. But other organizations, taking the side of men, claim that false reports are actually very common - citing numbers ranging from forty-one to sixty percent.

Amid the statistics, the truth is impossible to ascertain - but it's plain that false reports are indeed made, and that they can ruin the life of the accused, whether or not a conviction follows.

Falsely reporting any crime is shameful. Falsely reporting a rape is especially heinous. The liar who files the false claim dishonors - and makes life all the more difficult for - the many true victims who file genuine rape claims because they have been terribly violated, and seek justice for it. At the same time, and perhaps even more seriously, the false report begins to destroy the reputation, and sometimes the life, of the accused from the very moment it is made - a fact of which many accusers are keenly aware...

States can increase the penalty for false reporting.


Juries should be allowed to rule an accuser "not credible" as well as find a defendent "not guilty", if they believe both conditions to be true. This will help remove the taint from a falsely accused defendant.