What We Know About Victims Of Sexual Assault In America

Among survey respondents who said they’d been victims of sexual assault or rape, the majority of incidents were reported by women and girls (84 percent), while 16 percent were reported by men and boys.

Most research on sexual violence focuses on male perpetrators and female victims, though the NCVS estimates that men were victims of over 51,000 incidents of rape or sexual assault last year. Some research suggests that men face a greater stigma in reporting rape and sexual assault than women, though men identified themselves as victims of predatory sexual behavior in several high-profile cases in 2017.

“I think men are victimized far more than we realize, because when they come forward, people question their masculinity and sexuality,” said Callie Rennison, a professor for the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver.

Sixty-six percent of the incidents of rape and sexual assault included in the NCVS survey were reported by non-Hispanic white respondents, 15 percent were reported by Hispanic respondents, and 13 percent were reported non-Hispanic black respondents.4We used the NCVS measure of race and Hispanic origin to capture victimization by both race and ethnicity. That tracks fairly closely with the racial and ethnic breakdown in the U.S., which is 62 percent non-Hispanic white, 17 percent Hispanic and 12 percent non-Hispanic black (according to the Census Bureau). However, much of the existing literature on sexual violence underrepresents racial and ethnic and minority groups. The current #MeToo movement has faced criticism for failing to include or highlight the voices of people of color.

“What’s largely left out of the conversation about the impact on victims is the impact on people of color and minority groups,” said Jennifer Long, CEO of AEquitas, a national organization that helps prosecutors improve how they approach cases involving domestic violence, stalking and human trafficking.

Because researchers typically treat victims of sexual assault as a cohesive group, according to Scott Berkowitz, founder of the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, there have been few attempts to understand how these crimes affect subgroups of the population.

Some 44 percent of victims who participated in the survey said their household income was less than $25,0005The Census Bureau set the federal poverty level at about $24,400 for a family of four in 2016. — while only 22 percent of households nationwide earn less than $25,000 a year, according to the Census Bureau. When you compare the lowest- and highest-income groups, the difference in victimization rates is stark: People with household incomes of less than $7,500 reported a victimization rate of 4.8 incidents per 1,000 persons age 12 or older, which is 12 times the rate reported by those with household incomes greater than $75,000 (0.4 per 1,000).

Research has shown an international link between poverty and sexual violence around the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists poverty and lack of jobs as community risk factors for sexual violence. And people with low incomes, who have less access to resources, are more vulnerable to sexual assault; research by advocacy groups suggests that perpetrators are more likely to target victims who are less likely to report what happened.

“In low-income communities, there’s a real risk of a cycle that reinforces itself,” Berkowitz said. “That means that those abusers in those areas are more likely to be able to continue without repercussions.”

Over half (59 percent) of the incidents that the NCVS logged in 2016 were reported by victims who lived in urban areas, while 28 percent were reported by victims who lived in suburban areas and 13 percent by victims living in rural areas. But while sparsely populated rural areas accounted for the lowest percentage of all reported incidents, people in rural areas reported the second-highest rate of rape and sexual assault among the three types of areas: People in urban areas reported 2.1 rapes and sexual assaults per 1,000 persons age 12 or older, compared with 1.1 such incidents per 1,000 people in rural areas. The rate was lowest in suburban areas, at 0.6 incidents per 1,000 people.6Using urban as the comparison group, the differences in rates are statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level.

Urban areas tend to have more total crime, in part because they simply have more people. But sexual violence against people in rural areas brings with it its own set of challenges. Reports from advocacy groups and independent researchers have found that victims in these areas can be physically isolated from resources, and that social norms can make it difficult for victims there to find help. Because people in small communities are more likely to know one another, it can be harder for victims who report crimes to the police to remain anonymous to their friends and neighbors, which can make victims more reluctant to come forward, said Berkowitz, in part because the police officer taking the victim’s report may know the victim, the perpetrator, or both.

In the majority of the rapes and sexual assaults reported to the NCVS, the victim knew their attacker. Last year, in 39 percent of reported attacks, the victims said the offender was a well-known or casual acquaintance, and in another 33 percent of attacks, the victim said the offender was someone they had an intimate relationship with, including a current or former spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend. Only 19 percent of incidents involved victims who said the person who assaulted them was a stranger.

Advocates have been working for years to dispel the myth that sexual assault is predominantly carried out by strangers, and research has confirmed that most victims of such crimes know their attackers. Similarly, it’s a myth that sexual violence typically involves a weapon; in fact, only 11 percent of the cases of rape and sexual assault reported in the NCVS involved a weapon.

“It’s still a perception that has to be overcome, not just by society, but starting with the victim,” said Long. “It’s constantly reinforced that it’s not real rape if it’s someone you know and you weren’t physically injured outside of the rape. The victim is left feeling very confused and looking to blame themselves.”

Only 23 percent of incidents of rape and sexual assault were reported to the police, according to the NCVS, which makes these crimes the least likely to be reported of any type of crime recorded in the survey.

Fear of not being believed, self-blame and concerns about how the justice system will handle the incident are among the reasons that sexual violence is generally underreported. In previous years of the survey, when victims gave a reason for not going to the police, they most commonly cited fear of reprisal or the fact that they considered the event a private matter as their reason for not reporting.7These findings are from data that cover 10 years of BJS survey results, from 2006 to 2015. The sample sizes on the annual numbers are so small that they should be looked at in aggregate, according to Grace Kena, a co-author of the BJS’s 2016 Criminal Victimization report, which summarizes some of the NCVS results. Because of the survey redesign, data for 2016 would not be comparable to data from previous years, so 2016 was not included in this aggregate.

Victims told the NCVS that they received assistance from a victim-services agency, which Bureau of Justice Statistics statisticians say is defined as any agency other than law enforcement that helps victims of sexual violence, after just 11 percent of incidents of rape or sexual assault.