Yes, It's "Rape" Rape
While Boston’s serious crime reports dropped by eight percent overall, rape reports spiked by 12 percent, according to police; the rise was especially dramatic in some lower-income sections of the city. So why is that good news? Well, no one believes more rapes occured—primarily because there was no increase in reported rapes by strangers, which are most likely to be reported but only make up an estimated 20 percent of all rapes. Nope, the good news was that Boston women decided to report it when acquaintances, boyfriends, dates, friends, and family members forced them to have sex. Public-health and criminal-justice statistics folks know that’s happening; according to the CDC’s recently released sexual violence survey, nearly one in five women is raped in her lifetime, and more than one million women are raped each year. Far fewer are reported to police. That’s why an increase in reporting of non-stranger rapes is good news: It means more reporting, not more rape. Eighty percent of rapes are by someone the victim knows—and those are the ones that women are most likely to be shamed for enduring. More reporting means more treatment and greater potential for useful social- and criminal-justice-system responses.
(Source: abbyjean)
