The Alleged Robbery. The Alleged Victim Of Robbery

[me b zola]

Why do we never hear the phrase "the alleged robbery" or the "the alleged victim of burgerly"?? There have been many instances of people fabricating a crime of robbery or burglery that was never committed so as to cover up another crime. We never hear the media or police asserting an "alleged" robbery while they are investigating. If anything other than what was reported comes to light, the police then shift their investigation and call it what it is--whatever that is.

So why is it when a woman is beaten & terrorized by her SO in her own home that becomes an "alleged" assault? Why when a woman is raped is she an "alleged" victim?



I've listened to this marginalization of woman for years and I am fucking sick of it.

[MadMaddie]

1. I am sick of it too....

[Kutjara]

2. Excellent observation.

I spend a lot of time looking for examples of this kind of bias, but confess this one passed my filters right by. It's absolutely outrageous.

Of course, this now means that I have to add it to my already overflowing list of things that irritate the living bejeezus out of me.

[PublicWrath]

14. Here's one expression that drives me nuts.....

Women who die from the complications brought on by parturition are usually described as "dying IN childbirth" as if these deaths are somehow unrelated to the birth process. Granting that a small number of these women are struck down by meteorites during delivery, most women who die during labor are dying "OF childbirth".

[Nobody]

20. Were you aware that the number one cause of death

among women before the 20th century was childbirth?

This is because there was no access to reliable contraception, and obstetrics was held back by the religious argument that women were supposed to be in pain while giving birth. Funny, the same bible verse also mentions men having to toil on the land, but somehow men get to use tools.

[realisticphish]

3. Actually, I hear it all the time

The alleged crime... the alleged perpetrator entered the store with a gun. Maybe it's just the news near you, but I hear "alleged" applied to all kinds of crimes; any crime that hasn't been proven in a court of law

[pitohui]

6. jinx!

hey realisticphish looks like we posted at the same time

i like your tarot card

[me b zola]

8. Completely different thing

What you are refering to is the assumption that suspects or defendants are innocent until proven guilty--hence the alleged perpetrator. What I am talking about is the reluctance to acknowledge that men committ certain crimes--or that they are even crimes at all.

When crimes mostly specific to women are committed they are not considered to be crimes until a prosecutor says so. More specifically, when it is a crime that has for hundreds (thousands?) of years were not even considered to be a crime that society still digs it's heals in when dealing with it. It used to be legal and widely practiced for a man to brutalize his wife. If a woman were raped, then she must have done something to make a man do it to her.

[realisticphish]

11. what?

I don't deny that there are rape finalists/apologists. But you said that news media do not call other crimes alleged.
"We never hear the media or police asserting an "alleged" robbery while they are investigating."
But, yes, they do. :shrug:

Again, that doesn't mean that a lot of assholes don't think that a woman "asks for it." But I just don't think your original premise is true.

[me b zola]

13. I'm 42 years old, and I have never heard "alleged robbery"

Not once. I really don't believe that I suffer from "selective listening" as another poster suggests. I really have never heard it.

Are you saying that you hear all crimes referred to as "alleged" all or most of the time, or just occasionally? I have, on *rare* occasion, heard a rape or DV referred to as a crime w/o the qualifing "alleged" label attached.

Do you really feel as though past acceptable behavior towards women play no role in how they are handled now?

[realisticphish]

16. did I say that?

anywhere? no. And, I'm 20 years old, and have heard "alleged robbery" quite often. Again, it may be a local thing.

The problem with things like rape, assault, and other individual vs individual incidents is that AT THE ONSET it is a claim vs claim situation. Now, of course, there is a lot of evidence that would lead the police to press charges (The evidence of rape is pretty darn clear, and the evidence of assault is obvious). But all of that evidence, from photos to medical reports to items found on a person, is for the court to see, not the media. Thus, the media, in absence of the actual evidence, plays it safe and says alleged.

Now, even if you DON'T see "alleged robbery" you DEFINATELY see "alleged perpetrator" or "suspect." In that case (or the case of vandalism mentioned somewhere below) the event is a given; the person who did it is the variable. In a case like a rape/assault, the people involved are the given; what happened is the variable.

Is there a bias against women with regards to this? In some cases, I would say yes. Especially among police departments. And I would be very much interested to see a systematic analysis of how the media reported on crimes of this nature. It may very well be that I'm wrong, in which case I apoligize. But I haven't seen anything in my personal experience that would suggest such a thing

[pitohui]

4. we do hear it -- all the time!

maybe selective listening? if you are more sensitive to rape issues, you might hear the alleged in the rape case but glide over the word in the robbery case

but believe me robberies are also "alleged"

most robberies in my area the police do not even come out, even for a big theft, they make up some excuse not to take fingerprints because crime units cost money

when i was a victim of a drive-by the cops told us to our face there was no evidence of a shooting -- and then my husband pointed to one of the bullets lodged in our wall, oops, then the police had to take a report

cops are lazy, they think everybody is lying and for sure they are lying about a robbery because they prob. want to collect on the insurance

get robbed, the first thing they ask you is do you have insurance? fine, then we'll just give you an item {police report} number

and police have some right to be cynical i suppose, an amazing # of prosecutions occur ea. year of people who report robberies to cover up the fact that they lost their employer's money at the casino, at least around here


if you think only rapists get accused of lying, welcome to the real world

cops think everybody's a liar

[me b zola]

9. Selective listening? Not I.

The police's desire to believe the complaintant is often relative to race and class, but I still don't hear that same bias in the press. If a fight breaks out and an assualt occurs, they call it an assault. If the media reports on a robbery, then they say robbery. If they report on a rape, they say alleged rape.

[Warpy]

5. Right, nobody ever considers the possibility of insurance fraud

and says "alleged burglary." Certainly nobody ever looks at a white guy in a suit and says "alleged mugging victim."

If anything shows the antiwoman bias of the justice system, it's the "alleged victim" pejorative directed at rape victims.

No wonder only about one in ten is ever reported. Women are treated like SHIT by the system men have set up to deal with crime.

(This doesn't stop me from wanting to strangle stupid gits who scream rape to cover up consensual sex and a guilty conscience over it any more than wanting to strangle greedy rich people who stage fake burglaries to con insurance companies out of play money to cover losses from stupid investments)

[Nobody]

21. Make that an "alleged" insurance fraud

I'm sure you noticed how one lying, cheating, greedy insurance fraud doesn't automatically destroy the reputations of all other victims of burglaries and arson.

But the instant one woman lies about being raped, all other rape victims suddenly become "alleged" victims. No matter how many bones were "allegedly" broken during the "alleged" rape.

[Rabrrrrrr]

7. Because people are innocent until proven guilty, which is a good system.

At least, as far as I am concerned, I think it's a good system. Probably why they wrote the Constitution and set up our country the way they did.

You might feel differently, that certain accusations of crimes should come with automatic and complete finding of guilt. I sure don't. Even crimes that I find abhorrent, I prefer to wait to find out if the alleged perpetrator is the ACTUAL perpetrator; I also prefer to wait to find out if a crime even took place.


And legally, because one is innocent until proven guilty, you can't call someone a criminal in print or media until they've actually been convicted.

[me b zola]

10. Um, I believe you misread me

I have NO problem with a person suspected of ANY crime--including rape--being referred to as the alleged whatever (rapist, burgler, etc). I am rather partial to our Constitution and the civil liberties that we are granted.


What sets me off is that the crime of rape or domestic violence is not a crime until a prosecutor says its a crime. If your home was vandalized by rw nuts with hate speech, would you appreciate it if the local media called it "alleged" vandalism? The implication of them saying that, of course, is that they would be calling you at the very least someone who is untrustworthy, and at worst they would be calling you a liar.

This double standard, I believe, goes to the fact that until recently, the crimes against woman that I am speaking about were very legal and widely accepted as appropriate behavior for men to perpetrate against "certain" women.

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. Because to call it a crime is also to then therefore call the alleged perp

a criminal.

So even if my home were vandalized, it is still an alleged vandalism until it is proven that it wasn't done by me.

So, even though it might feel "icky", from an emotional viewpoint, to refer to an alleged rape, that's the only way to do it. Doing so protects EVERYONE. If we give a pass on certain crimes that cause us emotional boo-hooing and hand-wringing, then we might as well give a pass to everything.

[Jersey Devil]

15. What baloney! Try this

google "alleged crime". When you're done viewing the over 31 million links then come back and make the same claim.

Oh, btw, if you do the same thing for "alleged robbery" you get 4,300,000 links

[me b zola]

17. Not even salami.

I went to our local news website to see if they had any stories on crime. I found just one local story, here's what it says:

PORTLAND -- The Portland Police Bureau, in cooperation with Crime Stoppers, needs your help finding and apprehending Eric Lee Presley. A felony warrant charging Presley with multiple counts of theft in the first degree is on file with Multnomah County.

http://www.koin.com/news.asp?ID=3345



Then I decided to google "robbery", w/o the word alleged--33,400,000 hits

The first story that came up was this:

Baltimore County police have released a description of the suspect wanted for the robbery of a Provident Bank inside the Shoppers Food & Pharmacy in Owings Mills on Saturday.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_county/bal-robbery0410,0,4849999.story?coll=bal-local-headlines


So then I googled alleged robbery. Where as it is true that the headlines stated "alleged", which I don't hear on telivision or radio, but the guts of the stories state "robbery". Here's an example:

Four arrested for alleged robbery of 3 pedestrians


Herald staff



MARYSVILLE - Four people from Marysville, including a 14-year-old girl, were arrested Monday in connection with the robbery of three pedestrians from a passing vehicle.

~snip~

The driver of a passing vehicle implied he had a gun and would shoot if they did not hand over their valuables. The victims surrendered their property.

http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/03/28/100loc_b2rob001.cfm

NOTE: The story never--NEVER--said "alleged" victims


I would imagine that if there were a statistical analysis of the number of times alleged is ever mentioned in regards to robbery vs rape, my OP would be vindicated.

[bloom]

18. Your search was not about victims - which is the point of the OP

I googled it (adding the word "news" differentiates it from other articles and such):

93 hits for "alleged robbery victim", news ** 53,600 for "robbery victim", news.

397 for "alleged murder victim",news ** 824,000 for "murder victim", news

78,400 for "alleged rape victim" , news ** 1,060,000 for "rape victim", news

---

So while alleged IS used for other crime victims - it appears to be FAR less frequent.

[Cherry Blossom]

19. But

Wouldn't you also have to factor in the context in which the phrase is used, or how often the phrase "alleged murder victim" would be practically applied? I'm silly, ignore me. Anyway, I understand what the original post is saying. There appears to be a lot more skepticism in regards to rape than other forms of crime, from what I've seen.