If a man gets life imprisonment for rape, should a woman also get life imprisonment for false allegations?

[tate8]

The only thing that might stop me from saying yes is that it might make it harder for rape victims to come out about it.
There should be a punishment, harsh enough to stop women from falsely accusing men as it is a huge issue these days, but not so harsh it scares people from telling the police if they really did get raped. I would say about three to six months of prison.
And whoever said most rapists get off Scott free... That is not true. At all.

[elkan80]

Rape does not carry a life sentence unless it is pretty gruesome.

No. Women should not get life imprisonment for false allegations. That is a waste of government resources, and frankly, the waste of a life.

We do, however, need to be raise awareness about what it means to accuse a person of a crime they did not commit. There are ways of doing this that do not involve revenge or excessively hateful vitriol.

We have raised awareness about stuff like condoms protecting from AIDS, spaying and neutering, breast-cancer screening ... we can do the same for false accusations.

[sampson]

Problem is even the jury takes a woman's side in a "her word against his word" case. Look at all the wannabe famous gold diggers who hooked up with rich celebrities and accused them of rape, while he said it was consensual sex. What happened in those cases? That's right! An out of court settlement. The woman has nothing to lose.

[bardoul]

Did you ever notice how feminists often find "understanding" for the perpetrator of a crime when the criminal is a woman?

Suddenly, strangely, when a woman harms a man we need to seek understanding and better ways than incarceration, better ways than "That is a waste of government resources, and frankly, the waste of a life." Instead we must "raise awareness".

Odd how that's so consistently such a one-way street.

[oakley]

There are already laws for slander and filing a false police report. If you aren't arguing equally for people to have prison sentences for false murder or assault charges, then you're arguing from emotion, which has no place in law or in a courtroom. Plus, retaliation for any false charges is too broad. Our legal system is set up with the understanding that we are more willing to let the guilty go free than we are to imprison an innocent man. Lots of guilty people go free, and to allow them the freedom to legally punish their victims for speaking out would just turn the law into another weapon for them.

In a way I understand what you're going for here, but I also just don't get it. I feel like this opinion is formed from a perspective that doesn't take the issue of actual rape into account. Have you taken the time to understand the psychological effects of sexual assault? Do you know the numbers of maliciously made-up allegations as opposed to honest mistakes or failed investigations? I mean, I understand simply feeling offended that someone has the ability to hurt you so profoundly. I just don't think your plan is really thought through.

[garwyli91]

There are already laws for slander and filing a false police report. If you aren't arguing equally for people to have prison sentences for false murder or assault charges, then you're arguing from emotion, which has no place in law or in a courtroom. Plus, retaliation for any false charges is too broad. Our legal system is set up with the understanding that we are more willing to let the guilty go free than we are to imprison an innocent man. Lots of guilty people go free, and to allow them the freedom to legally punish their victims for speaking out would just turn the law into another weapon for them.

In a way I understand what you're going for here, but I also just don't get it. I feel like this opinion is formed from a perspective that doesn't take the issue of actual rape into account. Have you taken the time to understand the psychological effects of sexual assault? Do you know the numbers of maliciously made-up allegations as opposed to honest mistakes or failed investigations? I mean, I understand simply feeling offended that someone has the ability to hurt you so profoundly. I just don't think your plan is really thought through.

I don't think the two are strictly comparable. If the allegation leads to the man being convicted, or if the man takes his own life, then her punishment ought to be harsher than if the allegation is easily proven to be false. I don't think what *could have* happened should count in sentencing someone.

[mads]

That chick who said there needs to be some hard evidence in order to prosecute men of rape is complete BS. Im in law school and an entire chapter of our books is dedicated to false allegations, i can name two cases where a young white woman was raped and blamed a young black man. Without ANY evidence both were arrested, charged and convicted of rape and sentenced to 25 to life. Well, when forensic science came into popularity, it was discovered that the two black men weren't the ones that raped the two separate girls because their dna did not match. They were convicted solely on a woman's story, completely ignoring the black men's rights.

The two black men were in jail for 20 YEARS!! after they were freed because of a "mistake", you know what happened to the women? NOTHING!