Talk:Rape statistics

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[edit] False reporting

Given the sensitive nature of the subject, I think this article could do with a lot of work. For instance, the section on false reporting is composed mainly of a single study into false reporting, and one which looks to me to have a suspect methodology - might many rape victims withdraw allegations out of fear rather than because they are admitting that they made it up? I am not sure, but I do know that more care is needed in such a controversial issue. -gregorya-

It's true that true allegations might be withdrawn for various reasons (bribery, intimidation, fear of the court process, embarrassment), but the study tried to take that into account. It only listed those allegations that the women later stated to be false, not those that were simply withdrawn.[1] [2] If you have other studies with contrary information, or published critiques of the Kanin study, please include them. Paul B 15:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid I don't know of any other studies; the reason I came to this page was to find some discussion of the issue. I think the article should at least qualify Kanin's study with the disclaimer that the conclusions of a single study doesn't imply that we know anything to any great degree of certainty.
I also wonder if information should be added, either by modying this article, or as a distinct one, about rape convictions. I found this page looking for numbers on the topic after it came up in the news, and the figures were disputed by a times article here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2577435,00.html. It might be nice to see some discussion of how high/low rape convictions actually are, and what this implies. Again, I'm afraid that I'm not the person to do this; I know very little about the topic. User:gregorya 13:28 2 February 2007 (GMT)

[edit] Source Material Went Away

I pulled the sentence

Fisher found that:
"... many women do not characterize their sexual victimizations as a crime for a number of reasons (such as embarrassment, not clearly understanding the legal definition of rape, or not wanting to define someone they know who victimized them as a 'rapist') or because they blame themselves for their sexual assault."

because while trying to determine if, in fact, it says "women and men" as some IP editors have changed the wording to, I made a discovery: the link's to a 404 error. Obviously, the 404 error says nothing about the characterization of sexual victimizations by anybody. So, I moved it to here. Can an alternative source for the Fisher (is this someone with an article?) study be found, to check the quote? Can an alternative quote with the same intended meaning as Fisher be found? Is any quote needed? The Literate Engineer 14:52, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV Check rape reporting definitions, sources, statistics

I added the following quick and dirty content to raise POV issues about the how rape is reported that need to be shown here. These issues need to be addressed here in depth to make this article credible and NPOV. I don't have time to source and or cite all these statements now but I welcome other editors to weigh in. (drop in editor)

Content at issue:

Rape reporting are one of the most unreliable and politicized forms of crime reporting in the United States. States define rape in many different and contradictory ways. Some forms of rape are not defined as rape at all in some states while in others they are. This leads to wildly unreliable rape incidence statistics. In addition, male-female rape is a highly political issue so male-female rape statistics are often wildly exaggerated or falsified to fearmonger (see The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability, Laura Kipnis, 2006) for perjorative political purposes. Reverse sexism is rampant in rape reporting to the detriment of male victims of both male and female rapists. Female victims of female rapists especially girls are rarely reported at all. "Indeed, 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." [3] (drop in editor) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.111.95.210 (talk • contribs) 04:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Offensively Biased Political Statements

This page is written in the most offensively biased manner that I have witnessed in a long time.

The author makes a variety of inaccurate claims that are, at best, sexist, and at worst, deliberately misogynist.

The original author needs to give more references than a single book to support the assertion that rape statistics are exaggerated for political reasons. If anything rape statistics are usually based on reported rapes, which are known to be significantly under reported.

I would propose that this page be removed as it perpetuates a stereotype that revictimises rape survivors.

Datura Greenleaf 11:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Its unclear, but I think the opening paragraph refers not to statistics of rapes reported to police, but statistics gained from surveys that use very absurd definitions of rape (such as defining rape as feeling any pressure of any kind to have sex or as regretting it later). These statistics are often passed around college campuses or found on the internet and are used for political purposes to inflame people. The opening parapraph is definitely biased but the rest of the article seems fine. Qvkfgmjqy 14:26, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay - heated subject so let's go carefully. I agree the first paragraph needs a total rewrite, and far better ciation. I do not agree with Datura Greenleaf that the page needs removing. Indeed, I feel from the tone of that editors entry on this talk page she feels very emotive about the subject. Given this, it is surely better to have a strong, NPOV,article than to "dust it under the covers" by removing all content ???? Pedro1999a |  Talk  14:55, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I've tried to address the problem re the intro, and have removed the tag. Still, more references would be desirable. Paul B 16:38, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] section about the experiences of those falsely accused of rape

Would a section about the experiences of people falsely accused of rape be added to this article? Or should that be some other article? I know some people have compared being falsely accused of rape to the experience of actually being raped. Qvkfgmjqy 14:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this would be the right article, since it's about reporting statistics and motivations for either failing to report or making a false report. Paul B 16:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] other interpretations

I took out the other intrepations section. The article only states that in some studies a very high number of rapes reported to the police are recanted and were likely baseless. It says nothing about whether this says anything about all women any more than the rape article says anything about whether the fact that some men rape means something about all men. The fact that some people who recant may well have actually been raped is now talked about(and largely refuted) in the section on Kanin's reports. Qvkfgmjqy 01:36, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The statistics part of my paragraph can be interpreted independently of that first sentence. I don't see why it needs to be removed. Xiner (talk, email) 01:42, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
They werent statistics, they were hypothetical numbers used to illustrate a point, correct? Qvkfgmjqy 01:43, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
A point that is pertinent to the issue. Why do you think people argue over the false reporting rates? Xiner (talk, email) 01:47, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Noone is saying that all women are liars. Noone is saying that all women who accuse men of rape are liars. I dont understand why you feel the need to specifically refute either of those things. And you're hypothetical, totally out of no where numbers, assume that all women who are raped report it to the police. They also assume that each false accuser only makes one false accusation per year. So if you want to keep them, than you should account for those two things. Qvkfgmjqy 01:55, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Why do people argue over the false reporting rate? Xiner (talk, email) 01:59, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Noone knows the overall false reporting rate. Thats how people figure stuff out, they argue! Assuming that there was no funny business in the town and two universites that Kanin observed, and no funny business by Kanin than those figures form a reliable lower estimate of the false reports of completed forcible rapes in those two places at those two times. Other times, other places? Noone knows! Its unreasonable to assume that Kanin's numbers apply across the US or across the world. But it is reasonable to assume that a significant number of rapes reported in the US are false assuming that the town and two universities are not substantially different from the rest of the country in some way. Qvkfgmjqy 02:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
To argue that everyone argues over the false reporting rate without any ulterior motives is as believable as arguing that everyone argues over the prevalence of rape without any ulterior motives. Xiner (talk, email) 02:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I had a part about the intellectual and moral bankrupcty of modern feminism, and the stranglehold that that movement has over research into this area but I took it out because I thought that you might think that the feminists are only ones with moral and intellectual integrity and I didnt want to alienate you. Yes it is politicized. But just because something is politicized and just because people say totally different things doesnt mean that the truth isnt out there. Qvkfgmjqy 02:20, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
The other interpretations section is pure OR and special pleading. It has almost no relation to the text footnoted, and is a personal extrapolation. The issue here is reliability of rape reporting not a guestimate about how many women in the population overall would tell the truth if they were raped. Paul B 02:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree Qvkfgmjqy 02:25, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
If there's an article on Rape reporting, it should include relevant debates about the statistics. Otherwise it's just not complete. Why do you think we have pages like this? Xiner (talk, email) 15:55, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
What methodology did they use to get that number? My understanding is that the 2 to 3 percent number is just something that someone said in a book and has never providied any justification for. And, unfortunately, its become gospel and is the number used on rape crisis center pages and the like. Qvkfgmjqy 00:25, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the statistics of rape reporting not of the proportion of truthful women in the population. The page you refer to has no connection with what you wrote. Paul B 16:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

This isn't an encyclopedia article, this is an editorial piece. It's riddled with someone's personal opinion. The author has cherry-picked her research to support her predetermined conclusion, ignoring several widely cited and highly credible studies that reach the opposite conclusion. Quite frankly, I find it rather tempting to edit the whole thing down to just facts... but then there wouldn't be much of an article left, would there? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slurpophogus (talk • contribs) 20:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

If there are "widely cited and highly creditable studies" that are omitted, then say what they are and add them. "Editing it down" is of no value unless you are removing uncited, O.R. or irrelevant material. Adding more relevant material is useful. Paul B 20:24, 20 January 2007 (UT

[edit] Global statistics

I added today a mention of the The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2001 - 2002)[4] and User:Paul Barlow deleted it saying "no reason to mention one specific case". I believe an article on statistics that's tagged "globalize" needs the best available global statistics. So I'm reverting it (albeit with a correction). If anyone disagrees, please talk. --VSerrata 15:29, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, the deletion was a mistake because I accidentally accessed a non-current version of the article. I only intended to delete the reference to the case of Tracy Roberson. Paul B 15:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Individual rape cases

Material added by User:Johntex about an individual case in Texas has been deleted and replaced twice so far. My view is that there's nothing in the facts cited that's relevant to statistics. It could be different if this was an example cited in an academic paper about issues that have an impact on numbers reported/recorded - but it isn't. --VSerrata 15:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree (though of course you did unilaterally change the title of the article!). We can easily add emotive examples for any aspect of this issue. We don't want the article to turn into a war of stories designed to support one or another pov, with one story about a woman who has been intimdated into withdrawing testimony set up against another about a woman who has blatently lied. Paul B 15:45, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • While I would prefer to cite a more comprehensive study, it is better to cite an individual case than to include nothing of this type of information at all. Leaving it out would mean that the article has no coverage of incidents where the supposed victim (man or woman) falsely alleges rape in order to cover up their own sexual activity. Therefore the mention should stay in. I would go along with shortening it to a single sentence if you would prefer that. Johntex\talk 15:59, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
It's completely reasonable to link notable or representative examples (and we can always argue happily about where precisely they're relevant or not). This particular case is actually being reported as a "bizarre twist" (i.e. not representative of anything). If there isn't any secondary source (published opinion of some expert) making Johntex's point that this is more than a passing news story, then IMO it isn't encyclopedic material about rape. VSerrata 17:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
The "bizarre twist" being reported is not that she lied about the rape, but that she is being prosecuted for manslaughter even though she did not actually weild the weapon. That does not relate to its relevance here. It's relevance here is that it relates to a false report of rape, and a reason for it. I will shorten the text to exclude the mention of the killing, and we will see how you like that version. Johntex\talk 17:35, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
This shorter version isn't an obvious sore thumb now and there are loads of other things to fix with a bit of talking, so I'm ready to leave it for now. Thanks, Johntex. VSerrata 08:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for compromising with me. I will keep my eyes out for a more comprehensive survey or scholarly publication but I am not too optimistic on finding one. Best, Johntex\talk 14:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article Issues Tag

Currently, this article is an argument that rape statistics are unreliable, primarily reports of male-on-female rape. Consider the first sentence:

Statistics on rape are among the most unreliable for serious crimes

It does not belong in Wikipedia, and blatantly violates many policies, including WP:NPOV and WP:SOAP. If we don't fix it soon, I think it should be deleted. The current form is unacceptable.

It needs a complete rewrite. A proper article would describe the definitions, techniques, outcomes, leading scholars and agencies, etc. A balanced, NPOV section of criticism is important too, but only as one part, much smaller than the current content.

I'd do it myself, but lack the time and resources. Sorry. Guanxi 17:01, 12 August 2007 (UTC)


I see the Rape Statistics section of the Rape article is similar, though maybe slightly more balanced. I'm going to tag that too, but I suggest we cleanup this article first, then apply the results to the Rape article. Guanxi 17:05, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I take it back, it really just needs to be expanded. I just going to add a comment on its discussion page. Guanxi 17:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)


I put the tags back, removed a month ago. The article is still "an argument that rape statistics are unreliable"

  • That is topic is still 99% of the article, from the second sentence through the only two sections, "Over and under reporting" and "False reporting".
  • It still only presents one side of the argument, that they are unreliable.

I think all my statements above continue to apply. Guanxi (talk) 17:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)


Below I posted #What this page should look like, to show what we're missing. Guanxi (talk) 18:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Can it be redeemed?

I have edited some of this article to remove the bias. However it is still basicaly an article that examines the biased and problematic aspects of rape statistics, which is only one small part of what rape statistics constitute.

This entry desperatly needs expanding by someone vaguely familiar with rape statistics, their collection and the types of data involved, so that this article can acually be about rape statistics. Otherwise it should just be renamed "problems with rape statistics" or "bias in rape stats.."

Seth J. Frantzman 14:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

This article reads like a set-up for the Kanin report. Since the link is to his study, not to any second- or third-party review, its use as a source is highly questionable. Someone might want to find a peer-review or response to the study, that would be a much better source. But the Kanin material becomes even more questionable when underreporting has so little text (and is considered to be a far more significant issue) and false reporting comprises most of the article with only one source, Kanin's study. One study does not an article on "rape statistics" make. The article's title should be "Kanin's study on false reporting" which isn't all that notable. Suggest total rewrite or deletion. Any thoughts? Phyesalis 06:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
The article was called Rape reporting until someone changed the title. This might be a reason to change it back. If you have reliable sources on underreporting add them. Paul B 07:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I've deleted obvious OR in the False accusations section. I might have been a bit harsh in my previous post. The article isn't bad, but the Kanin material should go, it is fringe OR used to support an implied OR thesis. Suggest immediate deletion of Kanin material. Will add more material on underreporting in the coming week.Phyesalis 07:59, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean when you say Kanin is OR. Kanin is a legitimate researcher. OR is a rule that applies to editors, not to sources. Paul B 10:11, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
And rightly so, the Kanin material itself is not OR. I feel as if Kanin is a fringe minority view: he is one study claiming an astronomical percentage, sourced from www.sexcriminals.com (which I suspect is an edited copy of a edited crib on someone's personal website, font is the same and the same size on both sites, definitely not the original article itself) based on a sample size of 109?, versus multiple studies and organizations consistently claiming 2-3% of false accusation as part of an overall 8% of unfounded rapes (most of which have to do with issues of prosecution, not the veracty of the allegation) with sample sizes of hundreds of thousands. His study is given undue weight. The presence of such a minority view suggests an implied bit of OR, namely that any credible source suggests that false accusations of rape occur at a rate of 41? 45%? It's fringe and misleading.
I'm not trying to be difficult, but I really question the presence and excessive space given to one fringe study. There are things that would really help:
1.First and foremost, the article needs a reliable link to the article in the journal, or reprinted in some reliable source, or it needs to be cited as book with page numbers. Without this, I find the material and citation unacceptable per WP citation standards.
2. It would go a long way to arguing the material's inclusion if someone could find another study or paper which used Kanin's study, in order to help relate the study to the article's subject as a whole. This does not include random essays from journalists to journalists, which use Kanin's study as an example of how unreliable studies on false allegations are (re: CJR quote).
3. If 1 and 2 are met, the material would benefit from a little more summary. Thoughts?Phyesalis 08:58, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to give editors a couple days to recover from the turkey, but if there isn't a reliable source for the study, the kanin material should either go, or be summarized for the value of its fringe view. Phyesalis (talk) 04:37, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, having read Rumney's paper False Allegations of Rape, I think I can say that the repeated assertions that Kanin's report is in some sense "fringe" is completely false (not that any justification for this assertion has even been made). If anything it seems to be fairly mid-range in its conclusions, given Rumney's tabulation of studies. Jordan (2004), Gregory and Lees (1996) and Maclean (1979) all come up with similar results. Other studies give lower results, but several are still above 20%, giving quite a wide range. For this reason I can see no justification for the POV tag. Paul B (talk) 23:25, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Source on female sex offender statistics and gross underreporting

[5] This site has some taboo information on female sex offenders who prey on children. Please use whatever content that is credible there to bolster or to correct possible biases in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.111.96.155 (talk) 04:55, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wildly disparate OFFICIAL stats on Educator-Student sex abuse by SEX

Please search for the PDF file Educator Sexual Misconduct on the official USDE website for the official report on educator-student sex abuse (up to and including rape) from 2004. Notice one set of stats says that males commit 57% and females 43% of educator sex crimes while another says the ratio is a whopping 96% male to a mere 4% female. Talk about absurd statistics. However, common sense says that being no less human than men...women are likely to be just as loathsome as men are evil. Refreshingly, we are at least beginning to see some semblance of balance in rape research and reporting. However this kind of wildy disparate reporting makes one wonder about official rape/ sex abuse statistics in general, particularly where the sex of the offender is concerned. One would hope that murder and robbery reported by sex of the offender are far more reliable than rape stats are now. 128.111.96.155 (talk) 05:13, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Please note that statistics which include a broad range of abuses ("up to and including rape") cannot be extrapolated into stats on "rape". Please see WP:SYN. Phyesalis (talk) 17:32, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
No one is extrapolating rape from sexual abuse. However, the huge disparities in female sex offender stats in our schools suggests that female sex offenders who rape are also benefiting from reverse-sexism in rape research and rape reporting. Reverse sexism as well as other shameless abuses of scholarship in rape research directly affect rape reporting. This point needs to be included in any genuine article on rape statistics. 72.215.181.137 (talk) 23:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Break Overreporting and Underreporting up?

I think it would help to break up the overreporting and underreporting section into two separate sections. That could help provide more balance, especially if a lot of sources can be brought into the underreporting section. Annamcl (talk) 02:41, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] WHAT CAMPUS RAPE CRISIS? (LA Times 2/24/08)

Please bring in some content that reflects the realities pointed out in this recent LA TIMES opinion piece [6].

"If the one in four (25% of college coeds are raped) statistic is correct, campus rape represents a crime wave of unprecedented proportions. No felony, much less one as serious as rape, has a victimization rate remotely approaching 20% or 25%, even over many years. The 2006 violent crime rate in Detroit, one of the most violent cities in the U.S., was 2,400 murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assualts per 100,000 inhabitants---a rate of 2.4%."

As author Heather MacDonald notes there is a huge disparity between the point of view of "rape culture" researchers and the so-called 'victims' point of view. She also notes that this 1 in 4 lie has been repeated so often that it has become "proven beyond all reasonable doubt" in the minds of many activists. Phony rape research has created a phony campus rape epidemic she says. 72.215.181.137 (talk) 23:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What this page should look like

A simple outline of an encyclopedic, NPOV page on Rape Statistics. I don't have time to write it, and it doesn't need to follow this plan exactly, but the article should cover this information:

First, we should probably rename it, Sexual assault statistics. Rape statistics is too narrow and the definition varies too much (see my example, below). If you don't agree, you can substitute the term rape for sexual assault below.

  1. Intro: Sexual assualt statistics are the quantified measurement, often by government institutions, of the frequency of forms of sexual assault among a certain population during a certain time period. ...
  2. Definition of sexual assault: The definition of sexual assault varies in different statistical studies, often due to variations in law and cultural norms. In some places, sexual assault is defined as (insert here example of loosest definition). In others sexual assault is (insert narrowest example). See sexual assault for a more details ...
    1. Rape compared with Sexual Assault: Rape is usually sexual assault that includes penetration, but the definition varies widely. For example, in a prominent case, the defendants were accused of sexual assault but not rape, because the alleged penetration was with an object and not the defendants' genitalia. ...
  1. Sexual Assault statistics by country.
    1. Worldwide (UN stats?)
      1. Defintion
      2. Latest statistics
      3. Sources
    2. United States
      1. Defintion
      2. Latest statistics
      3. Sources
      4. By state?
    3. any other countries we have info on
      1. Defintion
      2. Latest statistics
      3. Sources
  1. Problems in measuring sexual assault: Insert various criticisms here.
  2. More information

Guanxi (talk) 18:07, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Non-one is stopping anyone from adding extra information. That does not make what is currently here "POV". I am getting rather fed up with editors adding tags because they don't like what they read but providing no useful content that would add to the article or contradict its current contents. Paul B (talk) 12:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree it would be better if I could add the content (I don't have the info or the time, sorry) and I agree that the lack of the content I listed above has little to do with POV. So there are two issues: It's POV because it presents one side of an argument -- that is, it fails the WP:NPOV standards. The problem I'm addressing in this section is that there far is too much content on one topic, the reliability of the stats, and almost none on anything else. Guanxi (talk) 13:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually looking through the "over reporting and under reporting" section (to which I have contributed nothing), it does seem biassed in favour of emphasis on the claim that there is over-reporting, and is also unclear what is meant by 'reporting' (ie when what is meant is reporting to the police, or when what is being discussed is reports of academic surveys concerning the extent of rape.) I have done my best to find academic literature on the topic of false reporting and to fairly characterise it. I don't see what is "one sided" about this. If you wish to read Rumney's "False Allegations of Rape" in the Cambridge Law Journal and to summarise its contents otherwise, it is available online. Paul B (talk) 17:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)