Research on Rate of False Rape Reports

Eugene Kanin
One of the most commonly offered names when people claim that false police reports in rape cases are common.

False Rape Allegations by Eugine J. Kanin, 1994. A key flaw in this study is revealed on page 2 under method.

First, its police agency is not inundated with serious felony cases and, therefore, has the freedom and the motivation to record and thoroughly pursue all rape complaints. In fact, agency policy forbids police officers to use their discretion in deciding whether to officially acknowledge a rape complaint, regardless how suspect that complaint may be. Second, the declaration of a false allegation follows a highly institutionalized procedure. The investigation of all rape complaints always involves a serious offer to polygraph the complainants and the suspects. Additionally, for a declaration of false charge to be made, the complainant must admit that no rape had occurred. She is the sole agent who can say that the rape charge is false. The police department will not declare a rape charge as false when the complainant, for whatever reason, fails to pursue the charge or cooperate on the case, regardless how much doubt the police may have regarding the validity of the charge. In short, these cases are declared false only because the complainant admitted they are false.

Notice that all full investigations of rape included in this study involved either the use or suggestion of polygraph tests. This indicates to me that investigators in that city lacked the skill or the will to do rape investigations without the unreliable crutch of the polygraph.

Since investigators were not given the power to use their discretion about whether or not to investigate a rape case, investigators who didn't want to investigate had a clear motive for pushing those women they didn't believe into recanting ASAP. The polygraph would have been a handy lever in achieving this goal.

In the rape cases over 9 years of the study, investigators succeeded at getting 41% of those who reported rape to recant. That rate as a measure of verified false reports is invalid for 2 reasons. 1) Polygraphs are often used to induce confessions which turn out to be false and all rape investigations included the use or mention of polygraphs as standard procedure. 2) This methodology of investigation would likely intimidate many genuine rape victims away from filing official police reports when they had intended to do so.

None of the allegedly false rape reports in Kanin's 9-year study independently proved these women's reports to be false. That is highly significant.

Rather than showing a verified rate of false reports at 41%, Kanin's study shows a verified rate of false reports at 0%.

That result provides no reason to treat rape reports as more likely to be false than any other type of police report.