<p>“they are worthless”</p>
<p>If that is true, then I agree, but I am not certain that it is true when the results of several tests are aggregated. </p>
<p>I really do not have an interest here except trying to get to the truth for both the victim and the accused.</p>
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<p>There is every reason to believe that the results of separate tests would be correlated. In other words, if a guilty person is able to “fool” the polygraph once, they’ll be able to fool it again, and if an innocent person is erroneously implicated once, they’ll be implicated the second time. So several tests are little better than one test.</p>
<p>I always find the significance not in the results of the polygraph, but in the individual’s willingness to take one. I think the average person not knowing a lot about the unreliability of the tests, view it as a way of confirming the veracity of what they are claiming. So if they are anxious to take one, I usually view that as a point in their favor.</p>
<p>Or else they are sociopathic rapists who think, correctly, that they can outwith the polygraph.</p>
<p>“if a guilty person is able to “fool” the polygraph once, they’ll be able to fool it again”</p>
<p>That is not what I mean. I mean that the victim’s results suggest honesty while the accused’s result suggests deception, or vice versa.</p>
<p>@Much2learn , polygraphs have many issues. But, if you’re doing this outside of a legal setting, and IANAL, then you’re not throwing the book at the rapists. Just as in white collar crime, the criminals often do no jail time. A few well-publicized and unambiguous rape convictions resulting in jail time might really reduce their number. But, they’re treated not so differently from the athletes who seem to get away with beating up civilians, wives, girlfriends, children. </p>
<p>@HarvestMoon1, I’m afraid that most of these “kids” probably know more about the workings of polygraphs and the whole legal system than you and I do. </p>
<p>“if you’re doing this outside of a legal setting, and IANAL, then you’re not throwing the book at the rapists”</p>
<p>Yes, that is unfortunate. I just image that it would be better than the close to zero successful prosecution rate we have now, while still providing protection for the innocent. I do not love this solution, but I don’t have a better one.</p>
<p>@Much2learn , I don’t have a solution, but I can dream. Maybe we have to first go after one layer further from the direct criminals. Maybe if sports teams had empty stands when they enabled athlete criminals, things would get better. Maybe if fraternities had no members after a culture of bad behavior was made public. Maybe if boards fired college enablers. Maybe if alumni refused to donate to enabling schools, and made it clear why the well had run dry. </p>
<p>Oh, sorry, never mind, I was just dreaming out loud. </p>
<p>I would not take a polygraph, and I would advise anyone who is so asked not to take one. As odious as rape is, as appalling as the stories of gang rape are, I am seriously concerned with the rights of those accused as it is possible that innocent people do get ruined in these situations. </p>
<p>Universities have a lot of leeway to come up with enforcement of their own house rules that do not have to be run through the courts in terms of discipline and expulsion of those who breach them. However, they also have to be mindful of the rights that the accused have which is an important part of our justice system. </p>
<p>What to do when a Jackie comes to you and says she was gangraped by fellow students 2 years ago. She did not report it to anyone other than friends who told her not to do so and she did as they advised. By this time, there is little evidence left to pursue the charge. If I were a university employee, so told of any such crime, I would pick up the phone and call the police. I would advise the student to call parents, get counseling resources on a list, check if the student has allowed parents to be notified of such issues-waived the privacy right. I have always pushed parents and universities to have that paper work on file with a stipulation that if the student chooses to withdraw that right, the parents get so notified, so that a college can contact the parents. Parents might want to pursue civil lawsuits, get counseling, medical care, insist on a leave of absence for their child who has undergone such an ordeal It could save someone’s life. </p>
<p>However, as unlikely as anyone might believe that the story is not true, I do not believe that a university can take exception and go after others just on someone’s words without enough evidence. A committee can investigate and question with the accused asked to take an absence during such an investigation, but IMO an expulsion without direct evidence is going too far, and taking chances that infringe on the rights of those who might be innocent The investigation of the episode would be part of university record, and though an unfortunate thing for those who truly are innocent of this, it would serve as some form of record for those so accused, so that future action can have this as a base. If for, example, any of the accused do this sort of thing again. Sexually harass, rape, any such thing in the future, this is there as part of the record. Anyone having such a thing in their past, would have to exercise special caution in the future in this sort of thing for the rest of their lives, which is not such a tragedy. An investigation could also clear some names–in one incident where students were named for something, one student so accused was not even in town that day–at a funeral, and was so totally cleared both in the minds of the accuser and on record. Yes, mistakes are made in these sort of things which is why it is dangerous to bring out the pitchforks and torches.</p>
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<p>Difficulty of prosecution may also be due to parties and witnesses (if any) not remembering the event very well due to drunkenness. Of course, this is likely why the actual predators try to get their victims very drunk or drugged before the act (and a party where everyone else is drunk may be an ideal cover for their crimes in terms of not having any reliable witnesses).</p>
<p>“I am seriously concerned with the rights of those accused as it is possible that innocent people do get ruined in these situations.”</p>
<p>It is hard for me to imagine being innocent and not wanting to be tested and exonerated. Additionally, you say that innocent lives can be ruined, but as I look at the Brown case or the Bill Cosby situation, it seems like victims are increasingly learning how to use the media to damage the accused anyway. If I were really innocent, I would think that I would much rather prove myself actually innocent rather than settling for the accuser being unable to prove my guilt. Are we really trying to protect the innocent, or are we just protecting the guilty? Wouldn’t someone who was considering falsely accusing another person also be a lot more hesitant to do so if they knew that they would have to pass this type of test? </p>
<p>" I would pick up the phone and call the police."
But why would you do that when you know that there is zero chance of a conviction? To me that seems like the action of someone who wants to shut these women up.</p>
<p>According to the fraternity involved, they notified the local law enforcement authorities about the incident in September. See, <a href=“http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2014/11/letter-statement-from-phi-kappa-psi”>LETTER: Statement from Phi Kappa Psi - The Cavalier Daily - University of Virginia's Student Newspaper;
<p>That means an investigation into the rape has probably been ongoing for two months now.</p>
<p>It’s easy for me to imagine being innocent and refusing to take a polygraph. I would not take one. How do I know it would exonerate me? They’re inaccurate. That’s why I wouldn’t take one, and that’s why I wouldn’t accept one as evidence.</p>
<p>The problem is that that even if you “pass” the polygraph, if anything comes up that LE feels is still an issue, it’s not like you are off the hook. And, if you come out with a bad reading, it’s going to be a huge problem. It can’t exonerate you in a court of law, and yet it can cast more suspicion on you if you are one of those who just don’t do well with them. I know people, a cousin, who just doesn’t do well with a polygraph. Couldn’t get some jobs as a result. I’ve been told that pathological liars often do well on them. </p>
<p>The error rates are just too high. These studies had issues themselves, but it clearly is not reassuring that the truth (guilty or innocent) will be determined. The “correct innocent detection” is pretty frightening. Its use should be reserved for bad daytime TV. </p>
<p>From <a href=“Scientific Validity of Polygraph Testing: A Research Review and Evaluation (Chapter 7)”>http://fas.org/sgp/othergov/polygraph/ota/conc.html</a></p>
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<p>I was pretty surprised to hear of 3 different sexual assaults at tiny Davidson so far this school year!</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/officials-student-sexually-assaulted-davidson-coll/nhdgQ/”>http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/officials-student-sexually-assaulted-davidson-coll/nhdgQ/</a></p>
<p>Not surprisingly, that doesn’t get much play at the school when we visited…</p>
<p>It’s easy to get a high rate of correct guilty detection if you just say everyone is guilty. Which, apparently, was more or less the strategy of that one study that gave a correct innocent detection rate of 12.5%. </p>
<p>“False positive rate (innocent persons found deceptive) ranged from O to 75 percent and averaged 19.1 percent; and
false negative rate (guilty persons found nondeceptive) ranged from O to 29.4 percent and averaged 10.2 percent.”</p>
<p>Thank you for that data Bob. So lets assume that this data is correct. Then these tests are not great, but do demonstrate a level of detection ability.</p>
<p>So the chance that an innocent person is falsely accused and wrongly found “responsible” would be one in five chance that an innocent person will be found to be lying, multiplied by the a one in ten chance that a lying accuser will be found to be honest. So, 1/5 X 1/10 is a 1/50 chance of both disagreeing and being incorrect. I would say that a 98% chance of being correct is not good enough to put anyone in prison, but I suspect that it would be a more accurate than the results that are currently coming out of the college process today.</p>
<p>Furthermore, in cases where there are more than two individuals involved, the accuracy would seem to increase significantly.</p>
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<p>I do not agree with this analysis. You can’t use the average of all the studies here to determine the expected false positive and false negative rates, because the university that uses bad polygraphers will be using them for both people. </p>
<p>Moreover, typically this kind of a test works better in a lab setting than in a real-life setting, so these false positive and false negative rates would be even worse in real life. In real life, innocent victims will be nervous and upset, and presumably more likely to register a positive. It’s virtually impossible to test polygraphs in real life settings, because you don’t know whether the person is guilty or innocent so you can’t tell whether the polygraph is correct.</p>
<p>Also, how would the polygraph handle the case where the rapist falsely thought he was innocent? I’m thinking, for example, of the drunken rapist who at the time thought that his victim really wanted to be forced, and has convinced himself that he did nothing wrong? Pretty obviously, from disgusting videos that young men have made and shared, at least some rapists don’t believe they’re doing anything wrong. Couple that 75% false positive rate with a rapist who thinks that he did nothing wrong, and you get the wrong answer. </p>
<p>@Much2learn , that assumes that the tester in my case has average results. What if the tester is one who gets 75% of innocents wrong? There’s no way for me to know his error rate, so I would refuse the test, and you are thinking that reflects badly on my innocence. The innocent have an impossible choice to make. </p>
<p>I’m not a probability guy, but the tester might well have a pro-accuser bias or pro-accused bias. There is no way that the tester won’t know which he’s examining. I don’t think the errors are independent of each other, but I’ll leave that for homework :)</p>
<p>Eta: post crossed with CF. </p>