20 November 2003

"[N]umbers are . . . unreliable because victims may choose to not report at all, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice, which estimates that 64 percent of all female rape victims do not report to the police."

Statements like that drive me nuts. How do you get a statistic like that? There is no way that I can think of to accurately gather that statistic with self reporting and the actual legal definition of rape (not the stuff they were pushing at us when I was in college). It sounds like something law enforcement and interest groups put forth to win a point and don't really worry too much about its accuracy.

And yes - before the nasty e-mails flow in - I do realize that rape is perhaps the most awful crime out there (maybe second only to murder). I'm not arguing that. There is a difference between arguing a crime itself and arguing things said which do not relate to a specific crime but are broad generalizations.

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