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Notes -
A lying "victim" using the legal system to harass their innocent alleged aggressor already at least partially achieved their goal however. Not securing a conviction is a negative consequence in the sense that the harassment wasn't as severe as it could have been, but just getting through the process without sanction is still a net positive for the harasser.
This is true, but it's a hard balance to strike. For example there's this case from 2009 in Washington state where a woman claimed to have been raped at knifepoint. The cops didn't believe her and threatened her with criminal charges for filing a false police report if she didn't retract her story. She retracted, and it wasn't until many years later that they caught the rapist in another state and found in his possession photos of the woman tied up in her apartment — exactly as she first reported it.
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