Before you finish reading this, another woman will be raped. (Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.)

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REPORTS

• The United States has the world's highest rape rate of the countries that publish such statistics. It's 4 times higher than Germany, 13 times higher than England, and 20 times higher than Japan.
   
• Only 16% of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police (Rape in America: A Report to the Nation. 1992)
   
• The rate of false reports of rape is approximately 2 - 3% which is no different than that for other crimes.
   
• One of every four rapes take place in a public area or in a parking garage.

• 68% of rapes occur between the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.
   
• In 29% of rapes, the offender used a weapon.
   
• 55% of the number of rape/sexual assault victimizations in which self-protective measures were employed by the victim resulted in helping the situation. Self-protective measures hurt the situation in 10.5% of victimizations. In 17.2% of the incidents the result neither helped nor hurt the situation, and in 7.7% of the incidents the situation was both helped and hurt.
   
• In cases where self-protective measures by the victim were helpful, 42.5% avoided injury or greater injury, 37.6% escaped, and 11.1% of the time the offender was scared off.

VICTIMS

• 1 out of every 3 American women will be sexually assulted in her lifetime.
   
• 1 in 7 women will be raped by her husband.
   
• 83% of rape cases are ages 24 or under.
   
• 1 in 4 college women have either been raped or suffered attempted rape.
   
• 18% of women who reported being raped before age 18 said they were also raped after age 18. (Violence Against Women Survey, 1998)
   
• 75% of female rape victims require medical care after the attack.
   
• 1 out of 5 victims of sexual assault is male
   
• 2 out of 5 victims of child sexual abuse are male
   
• Most male rape victims are heterosexual
   
• Approximately 68% of rape victims knew their assailant. [Violence against Women. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Justice, 1994]
   
• Approximately 28% of victims are raped by husbands or boyfriends, 35% by acquaintances, and 5% by other relatives. [Violence against Women. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Justice, 1994]
   
• According to the Justice Department, one in two rape victims is under age 18; one in six is under age 12. [Child Rape Victims, 1992. U.S. Department of Justice.]
   
• Teens 16 to 19 were three and one-half times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. [National Crime Victimization Survey. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, 1996.]

PERPETRATOR

• 6 out of 10 sexual assaults occur in the home of the victim or the home of a friend, neighbor or relative. (Greenfeld, 1997)
   
• At least 45% of rapists were under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
   
• Most perpetrators of male rape are heterosexual
   
• 71% of the rapists were under the influence of drugs (inc. alcohol).
   
• 15% reported taking drugs less than 15 minutes prior to the rape.
   
• 21% premeditated the rape. 27% committed the rape while committing another crime.
   
• 16% were impulsive/spontaneous, "the victim was simply an easy available 'innocent bystander'".
   
• 7% were committed after an argument with the victim. 6% after sexual foreplay with the victim.
   
• 89% of the rapists described the victims as not being provocative, "The victims did not verbally provoke nor were sexually attractive to the attacker". Patterns of Behavior in Adolescent Rape by Vinogradov et al. in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 58(2) April 1988 pp 179-87.
   
• In rapes/sexual assaults involving strangers, weapons were known to be used in 20.3% of the incidents. Of these, 8.8% used a firearm (hand gun) and 11.5% used a knife. In rapes/sexual assaults involving nonstrangers, weapons were known to be used in 15% of the incidents. Of these, 4.2% used a firearm (hand gun); 5.4% used a knife or sharp object, and 2% used some other weapon.
   
• Of those rape/sexual assault victimizations using physical force, the offender was the first to use force in 87.1% of incidents. The victim was first to use force only 7.1% of the time

IMPACT

• 25 - 45% of rape survivors suffer from non-genital trauma, 19 - 22% suffer from genital trauma, up to 40% obtain STDs and 1 - 5% become pregnant as a result of the rape. There are an estimated 32,000 rape related pregnancies in the United States annually. (Holmes, 1996) Sexual assault survivors' visits to their physicians increase by 18% the year of the assault, 56% the year after and 31% the second year after the assault. (Koss, 1993)
   
• Overall, rape has the highest annual victim cost of any crime. The annual victim costs are $127 billion (excluding child sex abuse cases). This is followed by assault at $93 billion per year, murder (excluding arson and drunk driving) at $61 billion and child abuse at $56 billion per year (Miller, 1996).
   
• Less than half of those arrested for rape are convicted, 54% of all rape prosecutions end in either dismissal or acquittal. The conviction rate for those arrested for murder is 69% and all other felons is 54%. (The Response to Rape: Detours on the Road to Equal Justice) 21% of convicted rapists are never sentenced to jail or prison time, and 24% receive time in local jail which means that they spend an average of less than 11 months behind bars (The Response to Rape: Detours on the Road to Equal Justice).
   
• Thirteen percent of all victimizations resulting in loss of time from work were from rape/sexual assault victimizations. However, 23.7% of Black victims reported losing time from work as compared to 9.9% of White victims. Over half (53.1%) of rape/sexual assault victims who lost time from work, lost 1-5 days.

For more information:

 Myths and facts women have to deal with...

Pictures of February 2007 Rape Prevention workshop...

 

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