ABSTRACT
False Allegations of Rape False allegations of rape create dilemmas not only for the police but for communities, activists, and government officials as well. Identifying these types of allegations and minimizing their potential impact are crucial to maintaining the integrity of the investigative process and removing the infectious fear that false reports of sex crimes can have on communities. Unfortunately, experience has shown that the frequency of false reports in rape investigations is much larger than for any other criminal endeavor. Activists and sociologists argue that the available statistical data are incomplete anyway because they do not include those victims who do not report sexual assault. Many victims fear reprisal, others are ashamed, and many others simply feel that they will not be believed by the police or the criminal justice system. Such victims feel that reporting sexual assaults will expose them to yet another cruel ordeal that will result only in their further humiliation and distress. In any event, activists point out that the statistics are not representative of the true problem. The reasons for this disparity are many, and we will discuss those, but first let us look at the impact of false rape investigations.
Although false rape investigations inflate the number of reported crimes in a particular area, their numbers are relatively small when compared to the overall crime rate. The resources required to conduct sex crime investigations and their impact upon communities, however, are much greater than the statistical data would show.
