Rape reporting
Statistics on incidents of rape are among the most unreliable for serious crimes. This is partly because of inconsistent definitions of "rape" in both legislation and academic studies. However, it is also because of underreporting and false reporting of the crime. In the United States rape is defined differently by separate states. In many legistatures in the world some non-consensual sexual acts are not defined as rape at all. They may be considered legal, or as other illegal forms of sexual assault.
These factors lead to wildly unreliable rape incidence statistics. In addition, male-female rape in particular is a highly politicized issue, leading to the polemical use of questionable statistics.1 According to USA Today reporter Kevin Johnson "no other major category of crime - not murder, assault or robbery - has generated a more serious challenge of the credibility of national crime statistics" than has rape.2
Table of contents
Underreporting
According to the 1999 United States National Crime Victimization Survey, only 39% of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to law enforcement officials. For male rape, less than 10% are believed to be reported. The most common reasons given by victims for not reporting rapes are the belief that it is a personal or private matter, and that they fear reprisal from the assailant.
Rape-related advocacy groups have suggested several tactics to encourage the reporting of sexual assaults, most of which aim at lessening the psychological trauma, often suffered by rape victims following their assault. Many police departments now assign female police officers to deal with rape cases. Advocacy groups also argue for the preservation of the victim's privacy during the legal process; it is standard practice among mainstream American news media not to divulge the names of alleged rape victims in news reports.
Psychologists who research female-male, and female-female rape suggest that significant under-reporting of these crimes is occurring. They suggest that the double standards in perception that exist between male and female rape, the taboo nature (see incest) of some female rapes, and the lack of rapist-gender reporting in many jurisdictions contribute to this alleged under reporting in the United States. Canadian researcher, Linda Halliday-Sumner suggests from the slowing emerging information about female sex crimes, that women commit about one third (or about 33%) of all sexual offenses. However, she notes that in Canada, just 19 of 4545 (or just 0.4%) of federal prisoners convicted of sex offenses were women in 1997.
False reporting or false allegations
A 1997 article in the Columbia Journalism Review dealing with the debate surrounding false reporting, noted that wildly different figures, from 2% to 50% of all rape reports, have been presented:3
"... one explanation for such a wide range in the statistics might simply be that they come from different studies of different populations... But there's also a strong political tilt to the debate. A low number would undercut a belief about rape as being as old as the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife: that some women, out of shame or vengeance ... claim that their consensual encounters or rebuffed advances were rapes. If the number is high, on the other hand, advocates for women who have been raped worry it may also taint the credibility of the genuine victims of sexual assault." 3
According to the World Book Encyclopedia only 2% of accused rapists are convicted succesfully. High acquittal rates are due to the fact that there are often no witnesses and that it is difficult to prove rape under most state laws. The Handbook of American Women's History states that historically sexist stereotypes as well as common law combined to make rape a criminal proceeding on which the victim and her behavior were tried rather than the defendant.
In her work, "The Legacy of the Prompt Complaint Requirement, Corroboration Requirement, and Cautionary Instructions on Campus Sexual Assault", Michelle J. Anderson of the Villanova University School of Law states: "As a scientific matter, the frequency of false rape complaints to police or other legal authorities remains unknown" 4. The FBI's 1996 Uniform Crime Report states that 8% of reports of forcible rape were determined to be unfounded upon investigation 5, but that percentage does not include cases where an accuser fails or refuses to cooperate in an investigation, or drops the charges.
In a study of false reporting in adolescents Mental health professionals reported a higher percentage of false allegations than law enforcement professionals. The law enforcement professionals reported a small percentage of cases as having been false. The results were found to correlate the percentage of false reports as being related to the sex of the interviewer, age of the child, and profession of the interviewer. (Kendall-Tackett, 1991)
In 1994, Dr. Eugene J. Kanin of Purdue University investigated the incidences, in one small urban community, of false rape allegations made to the police between 1978 and 1987. In Dr. Kanin's research, the complainants who made false allegations did so (by their own statements during recantation) for one or some combination of three major reasons:
* providing an alibi. Dr. Kanin's report describes a woman who got into a bar fight and, fearing that this might prevent her from regaining custody of her children, filed a rape complaint to account for her injuries.
* a means of gaining revenge. Dr. Kanin's report describes an 18 year old woman who engages in consexual sex with a boarder staying at her house. After he refuses to continue their relationship she accuses him of rape.
* a platform for seeking attention/sympathy. Dr. Kanin's report describes a woman who becomes attracted to her therapist and in an attempt to elicit sympathy from him fabricates a story of rape and is subsequently pressured by him to report it to the police.
What the numbers do not mean
Despite assertions by both feminists and anti-feminists, false reporting rates probably do not imply anything about the truthfulness of women in general. A high false report rate can result even if a tiny portion of the population may lie. For example, if 2% of women may lie about being raped; 2% of those lie once in a given year; 0.27% are raped; and 50% of those report the crime -- the false reporting rate would be 17.5%, even though 98% of women do not lie about rape.3
Statistics on sexual violence and reporting
How to report rape
References
1. ^ The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability, Laura Kipnis, 2006; False Rape Accusations May Be More Common Than Thought, May 2, 2006, Wendy McElroy
2. ^ Rape statistics not crystal clear November 19, 1998
3. ^ a b c The Elusive Numbers on False Rape November/December 1997
4. ^ The Legacy of the Prompt Complaint Requirement, Corroboration Requirement, and Cautionary Instructions on Campus Sexual Assault Forthcoming
5. ^ Crime Index Offenses Reported 1996
6. ^ Summary of Kanin's study
* Kendall-Tackett, K (1991) How Many Children Lie about Being Sexually Abused?: A Survey of Mental Health and Law Enforcement Professionals. New Hampshire Univ., Durham. Family Research Lab. Department of Justice, Washington, DC. National Inst. of Justice.National Inst. of Mental Health (DHHS), Bethesda, MD.American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.
* Kenworthy, J (2006). A Handyperson's Kit for Everyone on Rape and Sexual Assault. PsycCRITIQUES. ISSN: 1554-0138
* Macdonalds, J. (2007). Rape. In The World Book Encyclopedia. United States of America: World Book Inc.
* Rape (2007). In The New Encyclopædia Britannica (Vol. 9). Chicago, Il.: Britannica.
* Howard, Angela & Kavenik Francis. (2000). Handbook of American Women's History. CA: Sage Publications Inc.
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