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72 Police J. 151 (1999)
False Accusations of Rape in the News

handle is hein.journals/policejl72 and id is 155 raw text is: LINDA PIGGOTT Teaching Fellow, Department of Applied Social Science, Lancaster University KEITH SOOTHILL Professor of Social Research, Department of Applied Social Science, Lancaster University FALSE ACCUSATIONS OF RAPE IN THE NEWS The Sexual Offences Act 1993 has, for the first time, allowed boys under the age of 14 to be charged with rape and we have been interested in media responses to such allegations (Soothill, 1997; Soothill, Dennison and Piggott, 1998). In the media reporting of this phenomenon - new in law but not a new activity - there were some interesting continuities, some familiar tunes being played, and not much difference in newspaper reports about this supposedly 'new' kind of rape compared with the media reporting of other kinds of rape. In fact, while there have been some changes in the media reporting of rape - such as wider coverage of rape cases in popular newspapers, much more sensationalism and so on - it can also be said that much of the media reporting of rape has remained remarkably constant, despite the concerted attempts of feminists to influence the debate. Certainly, the problem of rape has many different aspects, but one that perhaps causes more heated debate than any other is the likelihood (or otherwise) of women making false accusations against men. Many feminists would be reluctant to entertain the notion that women do sometimes make false accusations. However, we are willing to acknowledge both in theory and in practice that they sometimes do. Indeed, over the last 20 years or so there have been quite regular, but not frequent, reports of women who have been found guilty in court of making false allegations of rape. Such reports are usually brief and short on facts, and it is not clear whether they appeared in newspapers because they were unusual and isolated cases, or whether they were simply some examples of what in reality are quite regular occurrences. Whatever the purpose, the effect of such reports seems clear in that they provide continuing, quiet proof that women do make false accusations of rape. We have been looking at the press reports of as many of these cases as we could find, of women who are brought before the court for making false accusations of rape. We have ranged widely and these are an unselected series. In looking at rape cases in the press, however, one quickly recognizes that much more pervasive than these cases is the The Police Journal April 1999

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