ESTIMATES OF THE INCIDENCE, PREVALENCE, AND SERIOUSNESS OF RAPE
Nearly 80,000 girls and women across the country notified the police that they had been forcibly raped, or an attempt was made to do so, during 2013 (about 50 females for every 100,000 inhabitants), according to the UCR (FBI, 2014). Almost 175,000 persons (of whom a small percentage was males) disclosed to NCVS interviewers that they had been raped or sex- ually assaulted in some other way during 2013 (a rate of about 110 for every 100,000 residents) (Truman and Langton, 2014). In another government- sponsored survey, about 1.6 percent of female respondents revealed that they had been raped dur- ing 2011, and almost 20 percent said they had been raped at least once during their lifetimes; as for men, 1.7 percent disclosed ever having been sexually assaulted (Breiding, 2014).
Both victimologists and criminologists will agree with the maximalist assertion that official sta- tistics usually do not accurately indicate how many crimes actually are committed each year, mainly because so many people do not report completed and attempted rapes and other sexual assaults to the police. Therefore, UCR figures surely are an under- count. Similarly, respondents may also fail to dis- close their painful experiences to interviewers, undermining the accuracy of the NCVS. Surely, some girls and women are very reluctant to speak
openly and frankly about such incidents, especially in the presence of other family members. Some respondents might feel uncomfortable delving into such a sensitive subject with any stranger, especially a male interviewer, particularly if his age, class, or ethnicity differed from that of the respondent.
Furthermore, some incidents that could be legally classified as rapes might not be defined as crimes by the females who experienced them, especially if the aggres- sor was an acquaintance, and he issued threats but was not brutally violent. Before 1992, NCVS screening questions were worded in roundabout ways; the term sexual attack was used but was not spelled out sufficiently in graphic detail, and respondents were not given clear- cut examples. The survey’s working definition excluded marital rapes, acts of forcible sodomy to other parts of the body, and incidents in which the perpetrator took advantage of a person’s intoxicated state, mental illness, or mental retardation. Finally, series victimi- zations—repeated rapes, generally by an intimate or acquaintance—were not counted as separate incidents (Koss, 1992; and Bachman, 1998).
In 1992, the BJS redesigned the survey’s ques- tionnaire and changed the project’s name from the National Crime Survey to the National Crime Victimiza- tion Survey. The original set of questions never bluntly asked about rapes because the subject was considered too personal, delicate, and sensitive to address directly. Interviewers found out about these incidents only if the respondent volunteered the information while thinking about physical attacks and threatened assaults. In the redesigned questionnaire, the inter- viewer asks, “Has anyone attacked or threatened you in any of these ways: any rape, attempted rape, or other type of sexual assault?” The interviewer fol- lows up by saying, “Please mention it even if you are not certain it was a crime…. Incidents involving forced or unwanted sexual acts are often difficult to talk about. Have you been forced or coerced to engage in unwanted sexual activity by someone you didn’t know before, or a casual acquaintance, or someone you know well?” Once this battery of questions was implemented (used on half of the sam- ple), the NCVS estimate of the number of rapes and other sexual assaults suffered during 1992 jumped more than 150 percent (Kindermann et al., 1997).
338 CH APT ER 10
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To address some of the methodological criticisms leveled by researchers against the way the FBI’s UCR measured rape, its data collecting systems were chan- ged. In 1991, a National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) definition of rape replaced the nar- row UCR guideline of “carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.” The FBI’s NIBRS now counts sexual assaults directed against males and broadens the definition to keep track of incidents in which the person was not violated by force but was unable to give consent because of either a temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity (for example, alcohol-induced unconsciousness). In addi- tion, the NIBRS counts acts of “forcible sodomy” other than vaginal intercourse, sexual assaults carried out with an object, and forcible fondling. However, most police departments across the country have not switched to NIBRS yet, so the older way of recording rape incidents solely against females is still retained in annual UCRs under the heading “legacy definition.”
Despite well-intentioned efforts to persuade more victims to come forward for help, rape con- tinues to be underreported. Police detectives and emergency room personnel have received sensitiv- ity training, sexual assault nurse examiners have been certified, hotlines have been set up, crisis cen- ters have been established (including on college campuses), court advocates have been hired, and laws have been reformed—yet many victims still are reluctant to disclose the facts about sexual assaults they have endured.
Even if the official figures are routinely under- counts, what changes over time can be discerned? When annual estimates of rapes, as measured by the NCVS and the UCR, are plotted on the same set of axes, the trend lines on the graph diverge and become a source of confusing and contradictory impressions until the 1990s (see Figure 10.1). According to the UCR, reports of sexual violence unleashed by men against women reached a record high in 1992, but
F I G U R E 10.1 Trends in Rape Rates, United States, 1973–2013 NOTES: The UCR counts female victims only from 1973 to 2013 (legacy definition). NCVS rates were adjusted by the BJS for compatibility with the redesigned 1992 survey. SOURCES: FBI’s UCR, 1973–2013; BJS’s NCVS, 1973–2013.
V I C T IMS OF R AP E S AN D OT H E R S E XUAL AS S AULT S 339
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after that the rape rate steadily declined (as did the rate of all other index crimes, including murder, robbery, assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft). The num- ber of reported rapes in 2013 reached its lowest point since the late 1970s, according to UCR figures based on formal complaints to the police.
According to the NCVS, rape rates generally have trended downward since the late 1970s. But during the twenty-first century, NCVS rates remained roughly steady (and after hitting a record low in 2009 even crept back up from 2010 to 2012) and thus did not mirror the year-after-year decline indicated by UCR figures (compare the two lines in Figure 10.1). However, the take-away message from both government-run monitoring systems was the same: sexual violence was becoming less of a threat to girls and women.