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Okay, okay. I made a mistake and looked at your comment and now I can't help but reply to it. I should know better, but I just can't resist the bait. You say

Okay, okay. I made a mistake and looked at your comment and now I can't help but reply to it. I should know better, but I just can't resist the bait. You say that you "named two countries - Denmark and Norway" - presumably you mean that these are countries where multiple rapes are aggregated into a single instance. Rather, as the Amnesty International report puts it Denmark reports statistics on rape-cases, not rape incidents - quoting the report from footnote 24 "In Denmark and Norway, the statistics refer to cases. In general, one case will be opened for each victim, so the statistics do not indicate the actual number of rapes." Okay, lets consider that for a moment. On Denmark's government website[1] where they report rape statistics (the English version of their website). There, they write "The statistics show the number of offences of criminal code and special laws/legislation reported to the police or discovered by the police itself." They also note that their laws on reporting rape, and what classifies as rape, changed in 2013 - perhaps that explains the discrepancy with the Amnesty International report. If you look in Eurostat[2] you can see that Denmark's rape rate was ~15 per 100k in 2013 and is at 38 by 2020. So, no. Denmark's stats seem to be on crimes reported to the police per their current live government website. You can query the tool here[3] to see that the rapes reported on this page match is reported in Eurostat. Norway too reports on "offenses reported to the police."[4] If you look at the table there for rape, and divide by Norway's population, you can find approximately the same numbers reported in Eurostat. Let's recall that not only are you wrong about Denmark and Norway, you also didn't even try to answer the relevant questions. Suppose it were true that Denmark consolidated all reports of rape to a single instance - how does that change things? Again, the best you can do is that maybe, in some circumstances, some countries count differently. I tend to think the reason you are hesitant to be specific is that whenever you are specific I can just look up the specifics and see that you're wrong. You allege that I'm claiming there is some kind of conspiracy here. This is typical of your arrogant and lazy style of commenting. Rather than read your own sources or look at official government sites, you skim wikipedia and throw out "What ifs" and "Maybes". When I point out that you are completely wrong and directly refuted by official sources, you go to the "You're a racist conspiracy theorist" defense. Perhaps you've tried that in real life and you've noticed that people stop talking when you try this, and you've assumed that meant it was a winning argument. In reality, I think it's more of a tell that you don't know what you're talking about and you don't bother to try and find out - and that's why people stop talking. You refer again to the statista table as if this were meaningful. You do not compare trust in the police in Sweden across Europe. Worse, you don't have any theory that predicts "If Swedish women trust the police more than Swedish men then Swedish women will report more rapes than any other country in Europe." The theory sounds like nonsense when you read it, so why are you showing me evidence that Swedish women trust the police more than men like it confirms anything? As I previously quoted from your source - the majority of Swedes do not have confidence that the police will solve crimes. Quoting it again "Also when it comes to the police's ability to solve crimes 19 percent of Swedish women and only 11 percent the men perceive that the police is doing a good job. But nevertheless, most of surveyed people stated that they are doing a bad job in terms of solving crimes." You write that Belgium's reporting method is not written in their law, so that ctrl+f would be useless. This is true, Belgium's reporting methods are not described in their penal code. However, you seem to have gotten confused. When discussing Belgium's penal code we were discussing the issue of whether or not Belgium considered non-penetrative sex acts to be rape - and the answer, which you can find by searching their penal code for "rape" is that there are indeed circumstances where non-penetrative sex acts can be charged as rape - same as Sweden. Regarding Snopes - they simply repeat the same talking points you are, with basically the same evidence. "Maybe some other countries we can't name count in ways we can't describe and that explains the difference." Snopes is not some authoritative source - they hire freelance bloggers to churn out articles based on what's trending. If I don't trust you, when you repeat the nonsense from Sweden's government, why do you think I'd trust a random blogger? 1 - https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/sociale-forhold/kriminalitet/anmeldte-forbrydelser https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/sociale-forhold/krimin... 2 - http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/submitViewTableAction.do http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/submitViewTableActio... 3 - https://www.statbank.dk/statbank5a/selectvarval/saveselections.asp https://www.statbank.dk/statbank5a/selectvarval/saveselectio... 4 - https://www.ssb.no/en/sosiale-forhold-og-kriminalitet/kriminalitet-og-rettsvesen/statistikk/anmeldte-lovbrudd-og-ofre https://www.ssb.no/en/sosiale-forhold-og-kriminalitet/krimin...

eesmith 4y ago
> If I don't trust you, when you repeat the nonsense from Sweden's government, why do you think I'd trust a random blogger? It really does seem like you're right-wing conspiracy theorist, given the diverse set of sources you don't trust. And I cited far more than BRÅ. > skim wikipedia I'm saying you didn't do the first steps of checking the supporting resources on Wikipedia. I go to Google Scholar. And I pointed you towards some of them, so you know I'm not only skimming Wikipedia. What scholarly resources I can find substantially support the conclusions BRÅ reported, and include sources which are different from, and even predating that report. Point me to a actual scholarly paper which substantiates the substance of your argument. Scholars love to demonstrate how others are wrong. I see you mentioned "On Denmark's government website". You'll note we live in 2022, and you must surely know that Denmark changed their laws in the last few years to be more aligned with Sweden's, in part because of the Amnesty International report "Time for Change: Justice for Rape Survivors in the Nordic Countries". (I learned all this by reading papers found through Google Scholar, so it wasn't hard.) Before then, Danish law required the prosecutor to demonstrate the accused rapist used violence, threats, etc. Now, that's great - Danish law got better. And as as a result, your #1 has the note "A new concept of consent regarding rape is taking effect from 1st of January 2021 which has resulted in new ways for the police to register offences regarding rape. This has to be taken into account when comparing data over time." Which is why if you extend it back using "Get your own statistics in the Statbank about Reported criminal offences (STRAF11)" you'll see a clear trend upwards in 'Sexual offenses, total' starting in 2021. (Compare 6,320 in 2018 and 5,548 in 2019 to 8,788 in the last four quarters.) Which is what I would expect from broadening the definition of rape. So great, perhaps Sweden and Denmark have identical definitions and statistics now. But the baseless right-wing claims that Sweden is the rape capital of Europe, etc., came out in 2017, so you need to be talking about how they were then. And the resources I linked to - all of which you deride as outdated, biased, or otherwise nonsense - support the analysis in the BRÅ report.
- ALittleLight 4y ago
  You keep returning to the idea that I'm a conspiracy theorist because I "don't trust your sources". To be clear - there is one source that I don't trust, which is the Swedish Council on Crime Prevention (BRA). I don't trust them because there is a statistic that makes them look bad, to wit Sweden has the highest rape rate in Europe, and they have a convoluted explanation for why that stat isn't a problem. This seems like a pretty straightforward case of an organization spinning problematic stats to make themselves look better. When I say that I don't trust Snopes - I'm not alleging that Snopes is involved in a conspiracy with BRA to cover up rape stats. Instead, what I think, is that the freelance bloggers churning out Snopes articles on trending topics are motivated to quickly produce articles. The Snopes blogger googles "Sweden rape capital true" and gets BRA's explanation and then copies and pastes it plus some graphs. Now, I'm using "copies and pastes" a bit loosely, metaphorically, but I definitely see some of the same language in that Snopes article that I have seen and heard from Swedish government officials - it is very much the same argument and it is very much wrong for the same reasons. Likewise, when I say that I don't trust you when you repeat the same argument, I am not saying that I think you are in a conspiracy with the Swedish government - I am saying that you are repeating the same original argument from BRA which is wrong. Just consider the course of this argument - "Sweden has a higher rape rate because they count every individual rape whereas other countries aggregate multiple rapes into a single count." Which countries? "Denmark." Nope, they count offences. "Norway." Nope, they count offences. "This wikipedia article says an Amnesty International report says that a European Council says that in 1999 16 countries counted cases rather than offences." Okay, well that seems to be out of date - you can look at the government websites and Eurostat. "You are a racist conspiracy theorist." I am not saying that there is a conspiracy or that mainstream sources are wrong (they all agree completely with me), or that everyone is wrong but me. I'm saying that BRA spins the stats that make them look bad and you are uncritically repeating BRA. Rather than investigate what is true, you try and find ways that you might be right. The question of whether or not Denmark reports offences or cases is a good example. I want to know, so I go to Denmark's current website on criminal statistics and look at their reporting policy. I do this not because I'm a genius but because it is obvious if I want to know Denmark's crime reporting policy I should look at Denmark's crime reporting policy. By contrast, you find a 20+ year old Amnesty International document that cites someone who claims that Denmark reports cases not crimes. That's not a good way of investigating - unless, you are just trying to find some source that supports your current claims (and who cares if it's not current, not an official policy, not from the Danish government, and not connected to the figures we are currently debating). You write that perhaps Denmark changed their laws and/or their reporting practices and so they are perhaps they are up to date with Sweden now but then you say the important claim is whether they were up to date in 2017. First, this disagreement began when I claimed that Sweden is the regional leader for rape. That's a claim about the current year, not 2017. Second, in 2017 Sweden had the highest rape rate in Europe. We have data for 2021 and Sweden still has the highest rape rate in Europe. You seem to be saying that while Denmark and Sweden may have reporting parity now, the fact that they might not have had parity in 2017 means it's wrong to say Sweden is the regional leader for rape now. I suppose you think it's coincidence that Sweden topped the rape stats before and after definitional and reporting changes in Denmark? Finally, I am not "claiming" that your sources are outdated. I'm reading the dates on your sources, observing that they are decades old, and pointing you to the current, up to date sources. It's also not a claim that BRA is biased. They are the government entity charged with preventing crime in Sweden discussing the high rate of crime in Sweden - how could you possibly consider this source unbiased?

eesmith 4y ago

> If I don't trust you, when you repeat the nonsense from Sweden's government, why do you think I'd trust a random blogger? It really does seem like you're right-wing conspiracy theorist, given the diverse set of sources you don't trust. And I cited far more than BRÅ. > skim wikipedia I'm saying you didn't do the first steps of checking the supporting resources on Wikipedia. I go to Google Scholar. And I pointed you towards some of them, so you know I'm not only skimming Wikipedia. What scholarly resources I can find substantially support the conclusions BRÅ reported, and include sources which are different from, and even predating that report. Point me to a actual scholarly paper which substantiates the substance of your argument. Scholars love to demonstrate how others are wrong. I see you mentioned "On Denmark's government website". You'll note we live in 2022, and you must surely know that Denmark changed their laws in the last few years to be more aligned with Sweden's, in part because of the Amnesty International report "Time for Change: Justice for Rape Survivors in the Nordic Countries". (I learned all this by reading papers found through Google Scholar, so it wasn't hard.) Before then, Danish law required the prosecutor to demonstrate the accused rapist used violence, threats, etc. Now, that's great - Danish law got better. And as as a result, your #1 has the note "A new concept of consent regarding rape is taking effect from 1st of January 2021 which has resulted in new ways for the police to register offences regarding rape. This has to be taken into account when comparing data over time." Which is why if you extend it back using "Get your own statistics in the Statbank about Reported criminal offences (STRAF11)" you'll see a clear trend upwards in 'Sexual offenses, total' starting in 2021. (Compare 6,320 in 2018 and 5,548 in 2019 to 8,788 in the last four quarters.) Which is what I would expect from broadening the definition of rape. So great, perhaps Sweden and Denmark have identical definitions and statistics now. But the baseless right-wing claims that Sweden is the rape capital of Europe, etc., came out in 2017, so you need to be talking about how they were then. And the resources I linked to - all of which you deride as outdated, biased, or otherwise nonsense - support the analysis in the BRÅ report.

ALittleLight 4y ago
You keep returning to the idea that I'm a conspiracy theorist because I "don't trust your sources". To be clear - there is one source that I don't trust, which is the Swedish Council on Crime Prevention (BRA). I don't trust them because there is a statistic that makes them look bad, to wit Sweden has the highest rape rate in Europe, and they have a convoluted explanation for why that stat isn't a problem. This seems like a pretty straightforward case of an organization spinning problematic stats to make themselves look better. When I say that I don't trust Snopes - I'm not alleging that Snopes is involved in a conspiracy with BRA to cover up rape stats. Instead, what I think, is that the freelance bloggers churning out Snopes articles on trending topics are motivated to quickly produce articles. The Snopes blogger googles "Sweden rape capital true" and gets BRA's explanation and then copies and pastes it plus some graphs. Now, I'm using "copies and pastes" a bit loosely, metaphorically, but I definitely see some of the same language in that Snopes article that I have seen and heard from Swedish government officials - it is very much the same argument and it is very much wrong for the same reasons. Likewise, when I say that I don't trust you when you repeat the same argument, I am not saying that I think you are in a conspiracy with the Swedish government - I am saying that you are repeating the same original argument from BRA which is wrong. Just consider the course of this argument - "Sweden has a higher rape rate because they count every individual rape whereas other countries aggregate multiple rapes into a single count." Which countries? "Denmark." Nope, they count offences. "Norway." Nope, they count offences. "This wikipedia article says an Amnesty International report says that a European Council says that in 1999 16 countries counted cases rather than offences." Okay, well that seems to be out of date - you can look at the government websites and Eurostat. "You are a racist conspiracy theorist." I am not saying that there is a conspiracy or that mainstream sources are wrong (they all agree completely with me), or that everyone is wrong but me. I'm saying that BRA spins the stats that make them look bad and you are uncritically repeating BRA. Rather than investigate what is true, you try and find ways that you might be right. The question of whether or not Denmark reports offences or cases is a good example. I want to know, so I go to Denmark's current website on criminal statistics and look at their reporting policy. I do this not because I'm a genius but because it is obvious if I want to know Denmark's crime reporting policy I should look at Denmark's crime reporting policy. By contrast, you find a 20+ year old Amnesty International document that cites someone who claims that Denmark reports cases not crimes. That's not a good way of investigating - unless, you are just trying to find some source that supports your current claims (and who cares if it's not current, not an official policy, not from the Danish government, and not connected to the figures we are currently debating). You write that perhaps Denmark changed their laws and/or their reporting practices and so they are perhaps they are up to date with Sweden now but then you say the important claim is whether they were up to date in 2017. First, this disagreement began when I claimed that Sweden is the regional leader for rape. That's a claim about the current year, not 2017. Second, in 2017 Sweden had the highest rape rate in Europe. We have data for 2021 and Sweden still has the highest rape rate in Europe. You seem to be saying that while Denmark and Sweden may have reporting parity now, the fact that they might not have had parity in 2017 means it's wrong to say Sweden is the regional leader for rape now. I suppose you think it's coincidence that Sweden topped the rape stats before and after definitional and reporting changes in Denmark? Finally, I am not "claiming" that your sources are outdated. I'm reading the dates on your sources, observing that they are decades old, and pointing you to the current, up to date sources. It's also not a claim that BRA is biased. They are the government entity charged with preventing crime in Sweden discussing the high rate of crime in Sweden - how could you possibly consider this source unbiased?