BAD TERMINOLOGY, BAD POLICING OR WHAT?

Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record carried the following front page headline "Unfounded" rate sparks police review". Oh my but this needs to be either clarified or fixed as in yesterday. Apparently 27 percent of local sex assault reports were not acted on. A Globe and Mail investigation showed that police investigators dismiss one out of every five sex assault claims as unfounded. The rates vary dramatically from city to city with Hamilton and London at 30 percent and Toronto at 7 percent. My first question is the use of the word "unfounded". Is that unfounded as in just plain outright false or is it intended to be closer to unsubstantiated by evidence? Also on the face of it if it means allegedly false then are we to believe that 7% of primarily female allegations in Toronto are lies whereas here in Waterloo Region as well as in Hamilton and London, female complainants lie more often ie. 27 and 30 % of the time? That really doesn't seem to make much sense on the face of it. The other glaring possibility is that some of our police forces are particularily bad at handling these cases. It would seem unlikely for example that Waterloo, Hamilton and London perpetrators are so much smarter than Toronto bad guys that they can hide or minimize evidence much better, making charges that much less likely. Last but not least does the word unfounded essentially mean no charges will be laid? If that is the case then no matter the reason for not laying charges, the terminology needs to drastically change.