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The truth, the half-truth, and nothing like the truth: reconceptualizing false allegations of rape

Saunders, Candida L.

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Abstract

There is a longstanding dispute between criminal justice professionals on the one hand and researchers and commentators on the other regarding the prevalence of false allegations of rape. Prevalence, however, is contingent upon definition. If the various protagonists’ definitions of a ‘false allegation’ do not coincide, it is virtually inevitable that their estimates will diverge. Drawing on original empirical data from in-depth research interviews conducted with police and Crown Prosecutors, this article explores the following important but much neglected question: When criminal justice professionals tell us that false allegations of rape are common, what precisely are they talking about? What ‘counts’ as a false allegation?

Citation

Saunders, C. L. (2012). The truth, the half-truth, and nothing like the truth: reconceptualizing false allegations of rape. British Journal of Criminology, 52(6), https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azs036

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 1, 2012
Online Publication Date Jul 30, 2012
Publication Date Nov 1, 2012
Deposit Date May 9, 2018
Publicly Available Date May 9, 2018
Journal British Journal of Criminology
Print ISSN 0007-0955
Electronic ISSN 1464-3529
Publisher Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 52
Issue 6
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azs036
Keywords false allegations, rape, prevalence, no-criming, witness veracity, credibility
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/711608
Publisher URL https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article-abstract/52/6/1152/347356
Contract Date May 9, 2018

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