"Vibe" of CIS-White men [Road Split from: Sexual Misconduct in the CAF

[Lumber]

I will acknowledge what some may accuse as being biased, but is it any less right to invalidate my views because my and my friend’s experience don’t support a particular view/narrative?

I'll repeat: if there's any evidence that a claim has been made falsely, then I too believe it should be investigated and if warranted, have charges filed.

However, a "not-guilty" verdict does not constitute evidence that the initial claim was fraudulent.

 

[TacticalTea]

I will acknowledge what some may accuse as being biased, but is it any less right to invalidate my views because my and my friend’s experience don’t support a particular view/narrative?

I would say it's not right at all.

I also don't think there's any need to compare the two sides' hardships and try to make it a victimhood championship. @Haggis

As leaders, I strongly believe we need to have compassion for both sides here.

I'll repeat: if there's any evidence that a claim has been made falsely, then I too believe it should be investigated and if warranted, have charges filed.

C'mon, you know that never happens. For a variety of reasons, but I'll highlight one: prosecutors also have a reputation to maintain. In the liberal world that is the legal profession, you don't want to be the one going after ''alleged rape victims''. That weighs, consciously or not, on their thoughts and actions.

(Case in point: Amber Heard.)

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I was going to say something similar about how the privileged white male vibe is getting very strong in this thread.

Absolutely amazing how the racism and ageism of some sad sack souls just oozes out, isn't it??

 

[Good2Golf]

However, a "not-guilty" verdict does not constitute evidence that the initial claim was fraudulent.

With this, I agree. I do think believe that there have been systemic issues regarding reporting, which I fully understand - and in this one, I do fully understand, but also chose to not provide any details (don’t feel I need to) to justify why I feel this to be the case. And the reporting issue is, while predominantly impactful on females, it is not restricted unique to one sex.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Before I dip out,

Hopefully you stuck around. Your posts are insightful and interesting.

1. CMR in the 80s, female cadets were often not believed when they complained of assault/rape. They were called liars and nothing was done unless there were male witnesses willing to back them up. We were not allowed to lock our doors. Women seldom were willing to endure the trauma of official complaints.

Very true. Terrible behavior. It's still happening today.

2. The sexual misconduct class action, while it did provide some validation that women should have been able to expect protection and support from the CAF that they did not receive, has also reawakened deeply repressed trauma. Women are talking about events that occurred decades ago for the first time. And the pain isn't always less just because it's old.

Also very true.

I do have distain for those of you who suggest the complaint is malicious. There is a singular lack of compassion here.

Does your disdain come from someone passing judgement on the nature of the complaint before the trial has happened? Or is it because we should automatically believe self-identifying victims?

 

[brihard]

Those of us who aren't the criminal justice system incarnate are, of course, allowed to make their own judgement calls, to account for the fact that said system is inherently stacked in favour of the defendants.

It has to be. If the coercive powers of the state become focused on a suspicion of criminality with you at the center, your life and world could be fucked in a way you can never recover from. The things we can do in investigations are incredible. There must, must, MUST be a total presumption of innocence and rigorous safeguards against state intrusion, with solid judicial oversight over those intrusions.

You, I, and everyone in this thread is unequivocally innocent of any criminal allegation until and unless the state satisfies the high burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Any standard less than that carries great moral hazard. And I’m saying this as one of the people whose job it explicitly is to investigate those suspicions, to justify and carry out those intrusions, and to bring an investigation, if warranted by the facts, to the point where crown will drag you into court and try to prove you guilty of something. We must have these safe guards. Our job should be hard and inconvenient.

 

[KevinB]

It’s a terrible situation these days.

Years of inaction have led to a situation where quite often now LE and Prosecutors will go forward with investigations and charges based on very flimsy evidence with the goal of ‘let it settle out in a trial’.

A friend of mine was accused and charged during COVID. Despite some pretty poor evidence (and a lot of conflicting witness statements, and some pretty exculpatory text history between the two) he was charged.
His security clearance was flagged and he was effective left to sit at home. One advantage he had was it wasn’t public, but his boss and the DM knew about it baecause his position. His other advantage was he had enough money for a good lawyer.
The Crown eventually dropped the charges, but no charges where laid on the accuser — despite clear evidence (via her texts) that she had fabricated the incident. When he hit retirement a month later he was out the door and enjoying his PS Pension, which at his level was a net loss to his entity.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve dealt with a couple Sexual Assault victims, and having had to take a few to the hospital after, it is an awful situation and I have no compassion for their attackers.

 

[KevinB]

Further to my last.
No I do not have a good solution for the current predicament that society is in.

The best solution would have had society not being so rotten in the past, and actually investigating claims and supporting victims as they came forward.

But given the history I think it’s important to understand the facts that @brihard laid out above.

 

[Jarnhamar]

I was going to say something similar about how the privileged white male vibe is getting very strong in this thread.

Can you explain what a privileged white male vibe is? Maybe give an example of it.

 

[lenaitch]

Declaring someone "Innocent" is messed up, when you haven't actually proven they are innocent. There are plenty of things which have happened in this world where the evidence to convict someone of that offence doesn't exist even though it did happen.

People who want complete exoneration should have to prove they didn't commit the offence (i.e. solid alibi, etc.), a much higher burden than simply the crown failing to prove they did it. For those that fall in the middle 'not proven' is a fair way to go. Legally it has the same effect as 'not guilty'.

It seems the Scottish 'not proven' option is on the way out anyway:

Scotland's not proven verdict set to be axed

Scrapping the three-verdict model would be a "change of truly historic significance", says the FM.

www.bbc.com

We don't have to be 'proven innocent'; innocence is the default state until the criminal justice system proves otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

[Jarnhamar]

The Crown eventually dropped the charges, but no charges where laid on the accuser — despite clear evidence (via her texts) that she had fabricated the incident. When he hit retirement a month later he was out the door and enjoying his PS Pension, which at his level was a net loss to his entity.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve dealt with a couple Sexual Assault victims, and having had to take a few to the hospital after, it is an awful situation and I have no compassion for their attackers.

I haven't dealt with sexual assault as a LEO but have as a friend, peer, supervisor, and scarily a parent.

I have zero compassion for anyone who would sexually assault (or harass) someone else.

I will say with confidence that from what I have seen in the military, and what I've seen from policing, there is very very little interest in going after people who make false allegations and complaints. It feels like people take a "we've wasted enough time on this already" approach and the accused-turn-victim are left without support or justice.

Victims of vexations complaints aren't taken seriously. I think what some people here are missing is that taking a hard stance against fake complaints doesn't mean you don't support real victims.

 

[Good2Golf]

I think what some people here are missing is that taking a hard stance against fake complaints doesn't mean you don't support real victims.

This times 1000…

 

[daftandbarmy]

I haven't dealt with sexual assault as a LEO but have as a friend, peer, supervisor, and scarily a parent.

I have zero compassion for anyone who would sexually assault (or harass) someone else.

I will say with confidence that from what I have seen in the military, and what I've seen from policing, there is very very little interest in going after people who make false allegations and complaints. It feels like people take a "we've wasted enough time on this already" approach and the accused-turn-victim are left without support or justice.

Victims of vexations complaints aren't taken seriously. I think what some people here are missing is that taking a hard stance against fake complaints doesn't mean you don't support real victims.

I have no deep knowledge of the subject, but it seems that false accusations of sexual assault are not common:


Reliable studies consistently measure the rate of false reports as 2% to 10%. For example, an analysis of ten years of cases reported to a University police department involved setting coding criteria in advance, reviewing case summaries, meeting with police officials to review the cases in more detail, and establishing coding reliability by comparing the classifications made by two research teams across all 136 cases. This study found that only 6% of the cases were false allegations (Lisak et al., 2010). A 2014 study of sexual assault cases reported to the Los Angeles Police Department used quantitative and qualitative methods to review reports and analyze detective interviews. The study found that 4.5% of cases were false reports. These results are consistent with other well-constructed international studies.

As with any crime, false reporting of sexual assault does occur; however, it is very rare. When it does occur, it is both incredibly harmful to the falsely accused and extremely damaging to survivors of sexual assault who find themselves subject to stereotypes and disbelief as a result.

Myths about Sexual Assault Reports | Health Promotion | Brown University

False reports of sexual assault are dramatically overestimated. Poorly constructed studies and a lack of understanding of the dynamics of sexual assault contribute to this problem. In rigorous research, rates of false reports are consistently very low, ranging from 2% to 10%. This is similar to...

www.brown.edu

Please forgive the Wikipedia reference, but it's got some more info here:

Crown Prosecution Service report (2011–2012)​

A report by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) examined rape allegations in England and Wales over a 17-month period between January 2011 and May 2012. It showed that in 35 cases authorities prosecuted a person for making a false allegation, while they brought 5,651 prosecutions for rape. Keir Starmer, the head of the CPS, said that the "mere fact that someone did not pursue a complaint or retracted it, is not of itself evidence that it was false" and that it is a "misplaced belief" that false accusations of rape are commonplace.[29] He added that the report also showed that a significant number of false allegations of rape (and domestic violence) "involved young, often vulnerable people. About half of the cases involved people aged 21 years old and under, and some involved people with mental health difficulties. In some cases, the person alleged to have made the false report had undoubtedly been the victim of some kind of offence, even if not the one that he or she had reported."[30][31][32]

False accusation of rape - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[KevinB]

I have no deep knowledge of the subject, but it seems that false accusations of sexual assault are not common:


Reliable studies consistently measure the rate of false reports as 2% to 10%. For example, an analysis of ten years of cases reported to a University police department involved setting coding criteria in advance, reviewing case summaries, meeting with police officials to review the cases in more detail, and establishing coding reliability by comparing the classifications made by two research teams across all 136 cases. This study found that only 6% of the cases were false allegations (Lisak et al., 2010). A 2014 study of sexual assault cases reported to the Los Angeles Police Department used quantitative and qualitative methods to review reports and analyze detective interviews. The study found that 4.5% of cases were false reports. These results are consistent with other well-constructed international studies.

As with any crime, false reporting of sexual assault does occur; however, it is very rare. When it does occur, it is both incredibly harmful to the falsely accused and extremely damaging to survivors of sexual assault who find themselves subject to stereotypes and disbelief as a result.

Myths about Sexual Assault Reports | Health Promotion | Brown University

False reports of sexual assault are dramatically overestimated. Poorly constructed studies and a lack of understanding of the dynamics of sexual assault contribute to this problem. In rigorous research, rates of false reports are consistently very low, ranging from 2% to 10%. This is similar to...

www.brown.edu

Please forgive the Wikipedia reference, but it's got some more info here:

Crown Prosecution Service report (2011–2012)​

A report by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) examined rape allegations in England and Wales over a 17-month period between January 2011 and May 2012. It showed that in 35 cases authorities prosecuted a person for making a false allegation, while they brought 5,651 prosecutions for rape. Keir Starmer, the head of the CPS, said that the "mere fact that someone did not pursue a complaint or retracted it, is not of itself evidence that it was false" and that it is a "misplaced belief" that false accusations of rape are commonplace.[29] He added that the report also showed that a significant number of false allegations of rape (and domestic violence) "involved young, often vulnerable people. About half of the cases involved people aged 21 years old and under, and some involved people with mental health difficulties. In some cases, the person alleged to have made the false report had undoubtedly been the victim of some kind of offence, even if not the one that he or she had reported."[30][31][32]

False accusation of rape - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There are some pretty disturbing studies out there beyond those as well.

1) Sexual Assaults are generally underreported
2) Recently there has been an uptick in reporting
3) Unfortunately fraudulent reporting has had a large uptick as well.

The disgusting aspect of fraudulent claimants is they really hurt the legitimate ones, not just for optics, but as they waste investigative and prosecution efforts.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Edit- KevinB said it better.

 

[kev994]

Again, lets not pretend that the police and authorities aren't capable of shoddy work themselves. I've personally read GO Files from the MPs that look like they were written by a child in elementary school (given how many basic spelling and grammatical mistakes the files had).

So yes, every aspect of a trial should be subjected to the highest levels of public scrutiny. So that we hold the right people accountable and know who to hang when the dust settles .

What does their ability to articulate themselves have to do with their ability to investigate? To me it’s perfectly reasonable that an MP could conduct a thorough investigation and present a logical case but be unable to reduce it to writing. They’re completely different skill sets.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

What does their ability to articulate themselves have to do with their ability to investigate? To me it’s perfectly reasonable that an MP could conduct a thorough investigation and present a logical case but be unable to reduce it to writing. They’re completely different skill sets.

I can't tell if you're being serious or not

 

[kev994]

I can't tell if you're being serious or not

I am, but mostly over reacting

 

[Kat Stevens]

I was going to say something similar about how the privileged white male vibe is getting very strong in this thread.

Dismount, Galahad. White guys don't have the market cornered on assholery.

 

[TacticalTea]

Dismount, Galahad

That's excellent, I'm stealing it!