Well, famous helps, sure, but IMHO, it's more that being "one of Us". A celebrity is going to be "one of Us" to more people, but a normal person is still "one of Us" to their peers. Now, if the accused is homeless or comes from some other group people don't like, they are likely to be treated in a way that gets used as evidence of being tough on crime.Simonism451 said:
And you catered the choices in the poll so you'll be one-hundred percent guaranteed to get the exact results you want to get out of it, and confirm your own superstitions. I can guarantee you, if the poll was:ThingWhatSqueaks said:
This is true. It seems that we all agree with, "innocent until proven guilty," but in general people seem to subconsciously judge people guiltier the more serious the accusation. Especially when children or sex are involved, logic and reason seem to go out the window (and especially were when it's both). So in the case of a child, I would rather be accused of raping a woman than murdering a child, as for raping a child vs murdering a child, now that is a tricky question...BathorysGraveland2 said:
Let's start at the bottom first. If you strongly believe that the results would be different with less generalized options then I would suggest waiting until this thread has faded away and starting your own poll. I sincerely doubt that the results would be significantly different. Based on the current response rate you'd probably need to see the the the answer spread go from 100% of men preferring to be accused of murder to something close to a 50/50 split to be able to argue that the phrasing of the options mattered. I would also like to mention that while I am disappointed in the low female response rate that your proposed options do not differentiate and that that could be a problem in interpreting the results.Zannah said:
Hell Edith. You've basically stated why I posed this question. It basically comes to to "Not Guilty =/= Innocent" and how that perception relates to various crimes and the perceived severity of those crimes. I would also add, and this question wasn't included because I doubted that any people meeting this criteria post here, wealth also plays a role in perception of guilt vs. innocence. That said the wealth issue is more of just a general thing where having lots of money -> you play by different rules.
Neither rape nor murder happen in a vacuum. And for the public perception these things do matter, a lot. We've seen in recent history, that if an overweight black man dies of heart-failure while you're doing your job as a police officer, even if you're found innocent, half a nation can demand your blood. We also saw that you can rob and beat a white man to death with a hammer, and barely make the local news. I don't think generic criteria are helpful here, because without being given a benchmark, people have preconceptions. For most people, their preconception of rape is close to that scene in robocop, minus the here. Murder on the other hand has been colored by a hundred cop shows. Of course these vary from person to person, but this diversity, as well as the diverse backgrounds of people here do more to muddle the results.ThingWhatSqueaks said:
I'll take your word for this but - how ridiculous is it, that someone can commit a crime one could very well make a case for being more heinous then murder, and the punisment they have to fear is... *expulsion*? Hell, I don't know about the people here, but I'd much rather have a stern talk from the dean and risk expulsion from university, then be dragged to court and risk 25 years in prison.
I'd like to say that I apologize should I have misread your intentions. It's just depressingly common to see this kind of discussion raised with rather reprehensible agenda in mind.
There aren't. There's a very high rate of fear about them, but the actual rate of them occurring is tiny.FirstNameLastName said:
You're right. Nothing happens in a vacuum. For purposes of this exercise I don't see how being incredibly specific is going to be useful.Zannah said:
Firstly I don't see how this is related to the current discussion. Secondly the police officer was not doing his job. He was applying a hold to a non-resisting offender that had been specifically prohibited for use in that sort of situation and then proceeded to ignore severe and very clearly stated medical complaints. But I digress...
I wouldn't take what does and does not make the news as validation of anything. Something like that doesn't make the news because there's likely no ambiguity.
You're going to need to clarify what you're referring to with regards to Robocop but that was, as already stated, the goal here. I wanted to see what peoples preconceptions where. I only stated that I had an idea how this would turn out. That's it.
My brief Google-fu on this topic leads me to suspect that neither or us has a complete grasp on how holding cells and bail work as it seems like a lot of the outcome on that is left up to the judge. Also, to flip this around a bit, what about a rapist who can't post bail? Would you rather be an innocent person in jail who everyone thinks murdered someone or an innocent person in jail who everyone thinks is a rapist? My suspicion is that the former is far less likely to be fucked with by other inmates while there's a decent chance that the latter isn't going to have a particularly pleasant prison experience.
Slight problem with the expulsion vs. prison. The universities punishment of expulsion is often being based on a level of evidence/lack thereof that would get laughed out of a courtroom. There is, at many of the universities that have these policies in place, nothing resembling due process. I will concede that I'm not sure how/why so many institutions managed to maneuver into a position where they are the arbiters in sexual assault incidents but it is frighteningly common. You are also, sadly, greatly overestimating the length of a prison sentence for sexual assault if first conviction.
The intention was simply to collect information.
Again this was my point. Perception of what innocence means for different crimes. Is Kobe Bryant a rapist? Probably. Ben Roethlisburger? Again, probably. Why? Well, it's basically what you're saying. They where found not guilty of a crime that has a fairly low conviction rate (it also doesn't help that both settled with their accusers out of court for presumably large sums of money in exchange for silence). That said, and I realize that what I'm about to say to some probably comes off as blaming the victim, but there really needs to be some sort of campaign to encourage rape victims to seek out police and medical assistance ASAP as without physical evidence it is (as it honestly for crime in general) very difficult to justify a conviction on word alone.
