False accusations should receive harsh punishments

False accusations should receive harsh punishments: If someone falsely accuses another person of a crime, like child abuse or sexual assault, then the false accuser needs to be punished harshly. Too often, false accusers are given just slaps on the wrist — and receive nowhere near the punishment someone actually guilty of the accused crime would receive. This diminishes the harm that false accusations do to the people they are lodged against, who are often branded in the media as some of the worst criminals imaginable: child abuser or rapist. Case in point: Taylier Tibbetts accused the father of her child of abusing the boy, and even went so far as to alter photos of her son to make him appear bruised. After she made the false accusation to police, she opened a GoFundMe account to raise money for herself and her son using the false claim.