Survey Summary

One in Ten Has Been Falsely Accused

A number of studies have looked at the percentage of abuse allegations that are false. But these studies don’t answer the broader question, what percentage of persons report to being falsely accused of child abuse, domestic violence, or sexual abuse?

To address this question, Stop Abusive and Violent Environments commissioned a national telephone survey, conducted in two rounds in May and September, 2011. These are the highlights:

Nearly one in 10 – 9.7% — of respondents said they themselves had been falsely accused of abuse.

One in six of the respondents personally knew someone who said he or she had been falsely accused of domestic violence, child abuse, or sexual assault.

About twice as many persons report being falsely accused of child abuse as domestic violence or sexual abuse.

Three-quarters of persons claiming to be falsely accused were male.

Nearly seven in 10 of the false-accusers were female.

In over a quarter of the cases, the accusation was made as part of a child custody dispute.

Additional information: