In 2023, there were 127,216 reported rape cases in the United States. This figure also includes attempts and assaults to commit rape, but unforced statutory rape and other sex offenses are excluded. Sexual assault in the U.S. What is particularly common when it comes to sexual assault, is that many victims know their assailant. A rapist being a stranger lurking in the shadows is less likely than people may like to think. Additionally, most cases of rape or sexual assault in the United States often report the fact that the assailant did not have a weapon on them. These are frightening thoughts for anyone, which has led the U.S. to take a deeper look at what exactly is happening.

metoo

Sexual assault, in any form, has been a long simmering problem in the U.S.; one which has only recently begun to be addressed in the public spotlight. The #metoo movement began to go viral in October 2017 in response to sexual assault allegations against movie producer Harvey Weinstein. The movement aims to show just how widespread sexual assault is, and over half of Americans support the movement.

In 2023, the rate of forcible rapes in the United States stood at 38 per 100,000 inhabitants. As the FBI revised the definition of rape in 2013, the 2023 rate is a slight decrease from 1990, when there were 41.2 forcible rapes per 100,000 inhabitants. What is forcible rape? According to the FBI, forcible rape is defined as “sexual penetration, no matter how slight, with a body part or object without the consent of the victim.” This definition changed in 2013 from the previous definition, which specified “carnal knowledge of a female victim forcibly and against her will.” Attempted rape was included in the previous definition, but statutory rape and other sexual offenses were excluded. The old definition was seen as problematic, as people of any gender can be raped. Since the revision of the definition of rape, reported rapes increased, although it is not clear if this is due to the revised definition or if the rate itself has increased. Rape in the United States While rape and sexual assault have been extensively talked about in the U.S. in recent years, especially since the start of the #metoo movement, there is still a large number of sexual offences committed each year. Sadly, the majority of sex offences in the U.S. are carried out against individuals age 20 and under. Astoundingly, the Anchorage, Alaska metropolitan area had the highest rape rate in the United States in 2023, followed by St Joseph in Missouri and Kansas. Since rape and sexual assault continue to be underreported in the United States, it is important to find a solution to this devastating problem.

In 2023, Texas had the highest number of forcible rape cases in the United States, with 15,097 reported rapes. Delaware had the lowest number of reported forcible rape cases at 194. Number vs. rate It is perhaps unsurprising that Texas and California reported the highest number of rapes, as these states have the highest population of states in the U.S. When looking at the rape rate, or the number of rapes per 100,000 of the population, a very different picture is painted: Alaska was the state with the highest rape rate in the country in 2023, with California ranking as 30th in the nation. The prevalence of rape Rape and sexual assault are notorious for being underreported crimes, which means that the prevalence of sex crimes is likely much higher than what is reported. Additionally, more than a third of women worry about being sexually assaulted, and most sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone the victim knew.

In the United States, significantly more women than men are sexually assaulted. In 2023, about ******* women were raped or sexually assaulted in the U.S. - a decrease from the previous year. In comparison, ******* men were raped or sexually assaulted in 2023, which was an increase compared to the year before.

Alaska saw the highest rape rate in the United States in 2023, with 118.4 rapes per 100,000 inhabitants. The lowest rate was found in New Jersey, with 17.9 rapes per 100,000 inhabitants. Sexual assault in Alaska Fighting sexual assault in Alaska is particularly difficult due to small, isolated, close-knit communities who can be wary of airing their dirty laundry to outsiders, as well as a low number of law enforcement employees in the state. In addition, Alaska’s low population is spread out over a large land area, meaning that in the event of an assault being reported to police, it can take law enforcement hours, or even days, to reach the most isolated communities. The victims of sexual assault There tends to be more reported female victims of sexual assault than male victims. However, since sexual assault is typically an underreported crime, especially among males, these figures could be, and probably are, much higher. In addition, many victims of sexual offenses tend to be young, although sexual assault can occur at any age.

This dataset includes all valid felony, misdemeanor, and violation crimes reported to the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for all complete quarters so far this year (2016). For additional details, please see the attached data dictionary in the ‘About’ section.

In 2023, 376,038 women were victims of rape or sexual assault in the United States, while the corresponding number of men who were raped or sexually assaulted in that year was 104,979.

All BPD data on Open Baltimore is preliminary data and subject to change. The information presented through Open Baltimore represents Part I victim based crime data. The data do not represent statistics submitted to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report (UCR); therefore any comparisons are strictly prohibited. For further clarification of UCR data, please visit http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr. Please note that this data is preliminary and subject to change. Prior month data is likely to show changes when it is refreshed on a monthly basis. All data is geocoded to the approximate latitude/longitude location of the incident and excludes those records for which an address could not be geocoded. Any attempt to match the approximate location of the incident to an exact address is strictly prohibited.

This study had four key goals. The first goal was to identify how many women in the United States and in college settings have ever been raped or sexually assaulted during their lifetime and within the past year. The next goal was to identify key case characteristics of drug-facilitated and forcible rapes. The third goal was to examine factors that affect the willingness of women to report rape to law enforcement or seek help from their support network. The last goal was to make comparisons between the different types of rape. Part 1 (General Population) data consisted of a national telephone household sample of 3,001 United States women, whereas Part 2 (College Population) data consisted of 2,000 college women selected from a reasonably representative national list of women attending four year colleges and universities. Both data parts contain the same 399 variables. Interviews were completed between January 23 and June 26, 2006. Respondents were asked questions regarding risk perception, fear of violence, and accommodation behavior. The women were also asked their opinions and attitudes about reporting rape to the authorities and disclosing rape to family members, peers, or other individuals. This includes questions about barriers to reporting and experiences that women have had being the recipient of a disclosure from a friend, relative, or other individual. The respondents were asked a series of questions about rape, including different types of forcible, drug- or alcohol-facilitated, and incapacitated rape. For women who endorsed one or more rape experiences, a wide range of rape characteristics were assessed including characteristics around the nature of the event, perpetrator-victim relationship, occurrence of injury, involvement of drugs or alcohol, receipt of medical care, and whether the rape was reported to the authorities. The respondents were also asked a series of questions regarding substance use, including prescription and illegal drugs and alcohol. Additionally, a series of questions related to post-traumatic stress disorder and depression were asked. Finally, the women were asked to provide basic demographic information such as age, race, ethnicity, and income.

Despite the fact that most states enacted rape reform legislation by the mid-1980s, empirical research on the effect of these laws was conducted in only four states and for a limited time span following the reform. The purpose of this study was to provide both increased breadth and depth of information about the effect of the rape law changes and the legal issues that surround them. Statistical data on all rape cases between 1970 and 1985 in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, were collected from court records. Monthly time-series analyses were used to assess the impact of the reforms on rape reporting, indictments, convictions, incarcerations, and sentences. The study also sought to determine if particular changes, or particular combinations of changes, affected the case processing and disposition of sexual assault cases and whether the effect of the reforms varied with the comprehensiveness of the changes. In each jurisdiction, data were collected on all forcible rape cases for which an indictment or information was filed. In addition to forcible rape, other felony sexual assaults that did not involve children were included. The names and definitions of these crimes varied from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. To compare the pattern of rape reports with general crime trends, reports of robbery and felony assaults during the same general time period were also obtained from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) from the Federal Bureau of Investigation when available. For the adjudicated case data (Parts 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11), variables include month and year of offense, indictment, disposition, four most serious offenses charged, total number of charges indicted, four most serious conviction charges, total number of conviction charges, type of disposition, type of sentence, and maximum jail or prison sentence. The time series data (Parts 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12) provide year and month of indictment, total indictments for rape only and for all sex offenses, total convictions and incarcerations for all rape cases in the month, for those on the original rape charge, for all sex offenses in the month, and for those on the original sex offense charge, percents for each indictment, conviction, and incarceration category, the average maximum sentence for each incarceration category, and total police reports of forcible rape in the month. Interviews were also conducted in each site with judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, and this information is presented in Part 13. These interviewees were asked to rate the importance of various types of evidence in sexual assault cases and to respond to a series of six hypothetical cases in which evidence of the victim's past sexual history was at issue. Respondents were also presented with a hypothetical case for which some factors were varied to create 12 different scenarios, and they were asked to make a set of judgments about each. Interview data also include respondent's title, sex, race, age, number of years in office, and whether the respondent was in office before and/or after the reform.

In 2023, Anchorage, Alaska had the highest rape rate in the United States with 144.6 offenses of rape per 100,000 inhabitants. The St. Joseph metropolitan statistical area, in Missouri and Kansas, had the second-highest rape rate in the country, at 141.4 offenses per 100,000 of the population.

The purpose of this study was to use data from the National Crime Survey (NCS) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to explore whether the likelihood of police notification by rape victims had increased between 1973-2000. To avoid the ambiguities that could arise in analyses across the two survey periods, the researchers analyzed the NCS (1973-1991) and NCVS data (1992-2000) separately. They focused on incidents that involved a female victim and one or more male offenders. The sample for 1973-1991 included 1,609 rapes and the corresponding sample for 1992-2000 contained 636 rapes. In their analyses, the researchers controlled for changes in forms of interviewing used in the NCS and NCVS. Logistic regression was used to estimate effects on the measures of police notification. The analyses incorporated the currently best available methods of accounting for design effects in the NCS and NCVS. Police notification served as the dependent variable in the study and was measured in two ways. First, the analysis included a polytomous dependent variable that contrasted victim reported incidents and third-party reported incidents, respectively, with nonreported incidents. Second, a binary dependent variable, police notified, also was included. The primary independent variables in the analysis were the year of occurrence of the incident reported by the victim and the relationship between the victim and the offender. The regression models estimated included several control variables, including measures of respondents' socioeconomic status, as well as other victim, offender, and incident characteristics that may be related both to the nature of rape and to the likelihood that victims notify the police.

This statistic shows the share of victims of rape in the United States who had a relationship with their attacker in 2013. In 2013, 16.6 percent of victims were raped by a member of their family.

This statistic shows the rate of rape/sexual assault victimization in the United States from 2008 to 2012 distinguished by poverty level. Between 2008 and 2012, the rate of rape and sexual assault in poor households stood at 2.2 per 1,000 persons which is the highest compared to households in other poverty levels.

Crime in the United States, by Region, Geographic Division, and State, 2015–2016

The FBI collects these data through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.

FBI link

Important note about rape data

In 2013, the FBI UCR Program initiated the collection of rape data under a revised definition and removed the term “forcible” from the offense name. The UCR Program now defines rape as follows:

Rape (revised definition): Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim. (This includes the offenses of rape, sodomy, and sexual assault with an object as converted from data submitted via the National Incident-Based Reporting System [NIBRS].)

Rape (legacy definition): The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.

General comments

• This table provides the estimated number of offenses and the rate (per 100,000 inhabitants) of crime in each region, geographic division, and state in 2015 and 2016, and the 2-year percent change in each.
• Violent crime includes the offenses of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape (revised definition), robbery, and aggravated assault. Property crime includes the offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft.
• The UCR Program does not have sufficient data to estimate for arson.

Caution against ranking

Any comparisons of crime among different locales should take into consideration relevant factors in addition to the area’s crime statistics. UCR Statistics: Their Proper Use provides more details concerning the proper use of UCR statistics.

Methodology

• The data used in creating this table were from all law enforcement agencies in the UCR Program (including those submitting less than 12 months of data).
• Crime statistics include estimated offense totals (except arson) for agencies submitting less than 12 months of offense reports for each year.
• The FBI derives state totals by estimating for nonreporting and partially reporting agencies within each state. The UCR Program aggregates a state total using the state’s individual agency estimates.

Offense estimation

These tables contain statistics for the entire United States. Because not all law enforcement agencies provide data for complete reporting periods, the FBI includes estimated crime numbers in these presentations. The FBI computes estimates for participating agencies not providing 12 months of complete data. For agencies supplying 3 to 11 months of data, the national UCR Program estimates for the missing data by following a standard estimation procedure using the data provided by the agency. If an agency has supplied less than 3 months of data, the FBI computes estimates by using the known crime figures of similar areas within a state and assigning the same proportion of crime volumes to nonreporting agencies. The estimation process considers the following: population size covered by the agency; type of jurisdiction, e.g., police department versus sheriff’s office; and geographic location.

In response to various circumstances, the FBI has estimated offense totals for some states. For example, problems at the state level (e.g., noncompliance with UCR guidelines, technological difficulties) have, at times, resulted in data that cannot be used for publication, and estimation was necessary. Also, efforts by an agency to convert to NIBRS have contributed to the need for unique estimation procedures.

A summary of state-specific and offense-specific estimation procedures is available in the “Estimation of state-level data” section of the Methodology.

Rape estimation

This table contains estimates based on both the legacy and revised definitions of rape. Agencies submit data based on only one of these definitions. Within each population group size, the proportion of female rape victims was calculated from all NIBRS reports of rape, sodomy, and sexual assault with an object. For agencies that reported using the revised definition, the actual number of reported rapes was decreased by the calculated proportion to arrive at an estimate for the number of rapes using the legacy definition. Conversely, for agencies that reported using the legacy definition, the actual number of reported rapes was increased by the inverse of the proportion to arrive at an estimate for the number of rapes using the revised definition.

Population estimation

For the 2016 population estimates used in this table, the FBI computed individual rates of growth from one year to the next for every city/town and county using 2010 decennial population counts and 2011 through 2015 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Each agency’s rates of growth were averaged; that average was then applied and added to its 2015 Census population estimate to derive the agency’s 2016 population estimate.

Abstract (en): The purpose of this study was to provide an in-depth look at rapes and attempted rapes in the United States. Part 1 of the collection offers data on rape victims and contains variables regarding the characteristics of the crime, such as the setting, the relationship between the victim and offender, the likelihood of injury, and the reasons why rape is not reported to police. Part 2 contains data on a control group of females who were victims of no crime or of crimes other than rape. The information contained is similar to that found in Part 1. All persons in the United States. A stratified multistage cluster sample. 2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable, and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to reflect these additions.2000-09-29 SPSS data definition statements were updated and SAS data definition statements were added to this collection. Also, the codebooks and data collection instrument are now available in two PDF files. Funding insitution(s): United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics. The codebooks and data collection instrument for this collection are provided by ICPSR as Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Website.This collection of rape cases was taken from the NATIONAL CRIME SURVEY: NATIONAL SAMPLE, 1973-1983 (ICPSR 7635). The definition of rape in the survey includes attempts that involve a verbal threat of rape only. The data in Part 1 were collected at the incident level. Part 2 data were collected at the person level, with information for up to four incidents per person.

This study was an evidence-based review of sexual assault preventive intervention (SAPI) programs. A total of 67 publications including articles, government reports, and book chapters (excluding dissertations) representing 59 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the data abstraction process. In order to be included in the review, the resource had to be an English-language publication, published between 1990 and June 2003, of a SAPI evaluation of a primary or secondary preventive intervention program that targeted people who were adolescent-age or older, and which included outcome measures and a pre-test/post-test or between-group differences design. The findings for the article reviews are presented in evidence tables, for the general population in Part 1 and the evidence tables for individuals with disabilities in Part 2.

In 2022, there were slightly more female victims of violent crime than male victims, with about 1,749,030 male victims and 1,762,840 female victims. These figures are a significant increase from the previous year, when there were 1,456,310 male victims and 1,278,390.

What counts as violent crime?

Violent crime in the United States includes murder, rape, sexual assault, robbery, and assault. While violent crime across all areas has been steadily falling over the past few decades, the rate of aggravated assault is still relatively high, at 284.4 cases per 100,000 of the population. In 2021, there were more property crimes committed in the U.S. than there were violent crimes.

Keep your enemies closer

It is usually said that most victims know their attacker, and the data backs this up. In 2021, very few murders were committed by strangers. The same goes for rape and sexual assault victims; the majority were perpetrated by acquaintances, intimate partners, or relatives.

Alaska crime data from 2000 to present from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. Information includes data on both violent and property crime.The UCR Program's primary objective is to generate reliable information for use in law enforcement administration, operation, and management; over the years, however, the data have become one of the country’s leading social indicators. The program has been the starting place for law enforcement executives, students of criminal justice, researchers, members of the media, and the public at large seeking information on crime in the nation. The program was conceived in 1929 by the International Association of Chiefs of Police to meet the need for reliable uniform crime statistics for the nation. In 1930, the FBI was tasked with collecting, publishing, and archiving those statistics.Source: US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)This data has been visualized in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) format and is provided as a service in the DCRA Information Portal by the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development Division of Community and Regional Affairs (SOA DCCED DCRA), Research and Analysis section. SOA DCCED DCRA Research and Analysis is not the authoritative source for this data. For more information and for questions about this data, see: FBI UCR ProgramOffenses Known to Law Enforcement, by State by City, 2017 The FBI collects these data through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. Important note about rape data In 2013, the FBI’s UCR Program initiated the collection of rape data under a revised definition within the Summary Based Reporting System. The term “forcible” was removed from the offense name, and the definition was changed to “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” In 2016, the FBI Director approved the recommendation to discontinue the reporting of rape data using the UCR legacy definition beginning in 2017. General comment This table provides the volume of violent crime (murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) and property crime (burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft) as reported by city and town law enforcement agencies (listed alphabetically by state) that contributed data to the UCR Program. (Note: Arson is not included in the property crime total in this table; however, if complete arson data were provided, it will appear in the arson column.) Caution against ranking Readers should take into consideration relevant factors in addition to an area’s crime statistics when making any valid comparisons of crime among different locales. UCR Statistics: Their Proper Use provides more details. Methodology The data used in creating this table were from all city and town law enforcement agencies submitting 12 months of complete offense data for 2017. Rape figures, and violent crime, which rape is a part, will not be published in this table for agencies submitting rape using the UCR legacy rape definition. The rape figures, and violent crime, which rape is a part, published in this table are from only those agencies using the UCR revised rape definition as well as converted data from agencies that reported data for rape, sodomy, and sexual assault with an object via NIBRS. The FBI does not publish arson data unless it receives data from either the agency or the state for all 12 months of the calendar year. When the FBI determines that an agency’s data collection methodology does not comply with national UCR guidelines, the figure(s) for that agency’s offense(s) will not be included in the table, and the discrepancy will be explained in a footnote. Population estimation For the 2017 population estimates used in this table, the FBI computed individual rates of growth from one year to the next for every city/town and county using 2010 decennial population counts and 2011 through 2016 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Each agency’s rates of growth were averaged; that average was then applied and added to its 2016 Census population estimate to derive the agency’s 2017 population estimate.

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), previously called the National Crime Survey (NCS), has been collecting data on personal and household victimization through an ongoing survey of a nationally-representative sample of residential addresses since 1973. The NCVS was designed with four primary objectives: (1) to develop detailed information about the victims and consequences of crime, (2) to estimate the number and types of crimes not reported to the police, (3) to provide uniform measures of selected types of crimes, and (4) to permit comparisons over time and types of areas. Beginning in 1992, the survey categorizes crimes as "personal" or "property." Personal crimes include rape and sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, and purse-snatching/pocket-picking, while property crimes include burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, and vandalism. Each respondent is asked a series of screen questions designed to determine whether she or he was victimized during the six-month period preceding the first day of the month of the interview. A "household respondent" is also asked to report on crimes against the household as a whole (e.g., burglary, motor vehicle theft). The data include type of crime, month, time, and location of the crime, relationship between victim and offender, characteristics of the offender, self-protective actions taken by the victim during the incident and results of those actions, consequences of the victimization, type of property lost, whether the crime was reported to police and reasons for reporting or not reporting, and offender use of weapons, drugs, and alcohol. Basic demographic information such as age, race, gender, and income is also collected, to enable analysis of crime by various subpopulations. This dataset represents the concatenated version of the NCVS on a collection year basis for 1992-2023. A collection year contains records from interviews conducted in the 12 months of the given year. Under the collection year format, victimizations are counted in the year the interview is conducted, regardless of the year when the crime incident occurred.For additional information on the dataset, please see the documentation for the data from the most current year of the NCVS, ICPSR Study 38962.