False accusation of rape

A false accusation of rape is the act of claiming that someone has been raped when the rape has never happened.

Causes

Scholars say that there are two reasons for why someone makes a false accusation of rape: deliberate deception (lies) and non-deliberate deception. Non-deliberate deception can be caused by false memories, facilitated communication, or no good reasons at all.

Deliberate deception

Scholars say that those who lie about getting raped may do it for

However, mental illnesses may also make someone raise false accusations of rape.

Non-deliberate deception

Further research shows that false accusations of rape can be a result of false memories. False memories can be caused by

  • the victim confusing the memory of the rapist with the memory of someone else
  • Recovered-memory therapy: memories of sexual abuse created during a therapy
  • Memory conformity: the victim confusing his or her memory with that of other witnesses

Prevalence

It is hard to know how often false accusations of rape happen. Few jurisdictions specifically define false accusations of rape. Accusations for which no evidence could be found were often classified as "unfounded" or "unproven".

Statistics Canada (2018)

As per the Statistics Canada, 19% and 14% of sexual abuse claims were ruled as "unfounded" in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

Archives of Sexual Behavior (2016)

Claire E. Ferguson and John M. Malouff did a meta-analysis of confirmed false rape reporting rates. They found the rate of false reports of sexual assault to be 5.2%.

Rumney, US, New Zealand, UK (2006)

A selection of findings on the prevalence of false rape allegations. Data from Rumney (2006)
SourceNumberFalse reporting rate (%) Rumney considers
dubious		 Discussed
below
Kelly et al. (2005) 67 out of 2,6433% ("possible" and "probable" false allegations)
22% (recorded by police as "no-crime")		 Yes Yes
Jordan (2004) 68 out of 164
62 out of 164		41% ("false" claims)
38% (viewed by police as "possibly true/possibly false")		 Yes Yes
Lea et al. (2003) 42 out of 37911% Yes
HMCPSI/HMIC (2002) 164 out of 1,37911.8% Yes
Harris and Grace (1999) 53 out of 483
123 out of 483		10.9% ("false/malicious" claims)
25% (recorded by police as "no-crime")		 Yes
U.S. Department of Justice (FBI) (1997) n/a8% Yes Yes
Gregory and Lees (1996) 49 out of 10945%
Kanin (1994) 45 out of 10941% Yes Yes
Grace et al. (1992) 80 out of 33524%
Smith (1989) 17 out of 4473.8% Yes
Theilade and Thomsen (1986) 1 out of 56
4 out of 39		1.5% (minimum)
10% (maximum)
Chambers and Millar (1983) 44 out of 19622.4%
Stewart (1981) 16 out of 1890% Yes
Maclean (1979) 16 out of 3447% Yes
McCahill et al. (1979) 218 out of 1,19818.2%
Geis (1978) n/a3–31% (estimates given by police surgeons)
Clark and Lewis (1977) 12 out of 11610.3%
New York Rape Squad (1974) n/a2%
Hursch and Selkin (1974) 10 out of 5452%
Philadelphia police study (1968) 74 out of 37020%

Racially motivated false accusations of rape

United States

Excuses for lynchings

In 1895, Ida B. Wells published The Red Record to document lynchings between 1892 and 1895. Of the 241 lynchings she documented, suspected rape and murder were the two most common excuses for lynchings. Wells found that many victims of lynching had been falsely accused of rape.

In other cases, Black American men were lynched in public after they were found to be dating White women. In Louisiana, suspected rape was the second most common excuse for lynchings between 1889 and 1896. In a 1930s survey of a Mississippi town, 60% of respondents believed that lynching was appropriate towards those accused of raping White women, regardless of truth. There are many notable cases of mass murder being caused by false accusations of rape in the Jim Crow era (1877 ‒ 1964).

Tulsa race massacre

In the 1921 Tulsa race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, White supremacists killed between 75 and 300 residents, mostly Black Americans, and injured 800 more. The massacre began over a false accusation that a 19-year-old Black shoeshiner had attempted to rape a 21-year-old White elevator operator.

Rosewood massacre

The 1923 Rosewood massacre began after a White woman in nearby Sumner accused a Black man from Rosewood of attacking her. Rumors of her getting raped spread like wildfire. A White supremacist mob attacked Rosewood, which had a high proportion of Black residents, causing large parts of Rosewood to be burned down. As many as 150 Black residents are estimated to have been killed.

Scottsboro Boys

Consequences

United Kingdom

For someone falsely accusing someone else of rape, he or she can be charged with "perverting the course of justice" or "wasting police time" under section 5(2) of the Criminal Law Act 1967. The law applies to any of the following situations:

  • It is suggested that the accusation is false
  • The accuser has retracted his or her accusation
  • The accuser has withdrawn his or her retraction, also known as double retraction

Examples

In March 2023, Eleanor Williams, a woman from Cumbria, England, was sentenced to 8.5 years in jail for falsely accusing multiple men of rape and trafficking her. Some of her victims spent time in jail, when they were not supposed to, due to her false accusations, causing the judge to give her a heavy sentence.

References

  1. ↑ Turvey, Brent E. (2013). Forensic Victimology: Examining Violent Crime Victims in Investigative and Legal Contexts. Academic Press. p. 277. ISBN 978-0124080843.
  2. ↑ Hutcherson, Audrey N. (2011). "Fact or Fiction?: Discriminating True and False Allegations of Victimization". Psychology of Victimization. Nova Science Publishers Inc. pp. 1–79. ISBN 978-1614705055. Archived from the original on 13 December 2021. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 Kanin, Eugene J. (February 1994). "False Rape Allegations" (PDF). Archives of Sexual Behavior. 23 (1): 81–92. doi:10.1007/bf01541619. PMID 8135653. S2CID 6880191. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016.
  4. ↑ Sandra Newman (11 May 2017). "What kind of person makes false rape accusations?". Quartz. Archived from the original on 5 April 2019. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
  5. ↑ de Zutter, André; van Koppen, Peter J.; Horselenberg, Robert (February 2017). "Motives for Filing a False Allegation of Rape". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 47 (2). International Academy of Sex Research: 457–464. doi:10.1007/s10508-017-0951-3. PMC 5775371. PMID 28213722.
  6. 1 2 3 Chris French (25 November 2010). "False memories of sexual abuse lead to terrible miscarriages of justice". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 14 August 2019. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
  7. ↑
  8. 1 2 Hazelwood, Robert R.; Burgess, Ann Wolbert, eds. (2008). Practical Aspects of Rape Investigation. CRC Press. ISBN 9781420065053. Archived from the original on 2024-07-06. Retrieved 2016-02-03.
  9. ↑ Government of Canada, Statistics Canada (July 23, 2018). "Unfounded Sexual Assaults in Canada, 2017". www150.statcan.gc.ca. Archived from the original on February 19, 2020. Retrieved January 17, 2020.
  10. 1 2 Ferguson, Claire E.; Malouff, John M. (2016-07-01). "Assessing Police Classifications of Sexual Assault Reports: A Meta-Analysis of False Reporting Rates". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 45 (5): 1185–1193. doi:10.1007/s10508-015-0666-2. ISSN 0004-0002. PMID 26679304. S2CID 42680693. Archived from the original on 2021-06-02. Retrieved 2019-12-01.
  11. 1 2 Brundage, William Fitzhugh (1997). Under sentence of death : lynching in the South. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0807846360. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  12. 1 2 Beck, E. M.; Tolnay, Stewart E. (August 1990). "The Killing Fields of the Deep South: The Market for Cotton and the Lynching of Blacks, 1882-1930". American Sociological Review. 55 (4): 526. doi:10.2307/2095805. ISSN 0003-1224. JSTOR 2095805.
  13. 1 2 Inverarity, James M. (1976). "Populism and Lynching in Louisiana, 1889-1896: A Test of Erikson's Theory of the Relationship between Boundary Crises and Repressive Justice". American Sociological Review. 41 (2): 262–280. doi:10.2307/2094473. JSTOR 2094473. S2CID 55467777.
  14. ↑ "Jim Crow Era - Timeline - Jim Crow Museum". www.ferris.edu. Archived from the original on 2023-03-09. Retrieved 2023-03-25.
  15. ↑ Oklahoma Commission (February 28, 2001), "Final Report" (PDF), Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma, p. 124, archived from the original on June 2, 2018, retrieved June 20, 2018{{citation}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  16. ↑ Hopkins, Randy (2023-07-06). "The Notorious Sarah Page". CfPS. Retrieved 2024-10-04.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ray Downs (11 February 2015). "Florida Lynched More Black People Per Capita Than Any Other State, According to Report". New Times Broward-Palm Beach. Archived from the original on 26 April 2018. Retrieved 25 April 2018. Between 1877 and 1950, the report, Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror, counts 3,959 examples of "racial terror lynchings," which EJI describes as violent, public acts of torture that were tolerated by public officials and designed to intimidate black victims. The staggering tally is 700 more than previously reported and is based on research of court records, newspaper accounts, local historians, and family descendants.
  18. 1 2 3 4 5 "Perverting the Course of Justice and Wasting Police Time in Cases involving Allegedly False Allegations of Rape and / or Domestic Abuse". Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). 2023. Retrieved March 7, 2025.
  19. 1 2 3 "Eleanor Williams jailed over false rape claims". BBC News. March 14, 2023. Retrieved March 7, 2025.