Understanding national rape statistics

Abstract: 

Policy makers and those who serve sexual violence victims/survivors need accurate information about violence against women to document the extent of the problem and to develop effective public policy, criminal justice, public health, and prevention programming. Those who seek such information are often frustrated because they are confronted with a confusing and often conflicting array of sexual violence statistics that make it difficult to understand the extent of the problem and whether it is getting better, staying the same or getting worse. The primary purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of how estimates of sexual violence in the United States are produced, with particular emphasis on major sources of rape statistics at the national level. Although having good estimates of rape at the local and state levels would be particularly valuable for local and state programs, such information is generally lacking, so we will focus this review primarily on rape statistics at a national level. Also, we will focus primarily on the crime of rape as opposed to other types of sexual violence. We will address rape among women and female children, as these cases compose the majority of rapes and therefore constitute the large majority of national estimates. Information contained in this report is meant for educative purposes, to either stand alone or be incorporated into broader training and education programming, and may prove useful to an array of advocates in the arena of prevention of violence against women.