The Justice Department recently announced that the latest statistics from the National Crime Victimization Study — which uses random phone interviews to estimate levels of crime incidence — showed a staggering 15 percent decline in crime between 1999 and 2000. The decline in rapes measured by the NCVS was even more pronounced falling from 141,070 in 1999 to 92,440 in 2000. Such a large decline begs the question of whether or not this represents a real decline in rape or whether it is the result of a statistical fluke (though it should be added this is just the latest in a five year trend of declining crime rates). Regardless of what one thinks of the NCVS statistics, it was disappointing to see the folks at Feminism.Org relying on non-sequitirs and other questionable methods to attack the NCVS findings. Here’s what they wrote,

However, criminologists and women’s groups are skeptical of the findings, citing ambiguity in the survey’s definition of rape and flaws in data collection.

The survey was based on the testimony of women over 12 years of age. According to Lawrence Greenfeld, acting director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, nearly one-fourth of all rape victims are younger than 12. The survey is also conducted on the phone, even though the highest rape rates are reported among those in the lowest economic bracket who may not have telephone access. Discrepancies between separate long-term studies conducted by last week’s victimization survey and the FBI also raise doubts concerning the decrease in rape. According to Bonnie Campbell, former director of the Violence Against Women Office, “the failure to deal with the culture around rape and sexual assault has made these numbers somewhat irrelevant. Despite the reports, women should “have no doubts about the reality of rape in the United States.”

Lets look at these claims one-by-one.

1. However, criminologists and women’s groups are skeptical of the findings, citing ambiguity in the survey’s definition of rape and flaws in data collection.

Of course the hallmark of studies on rape is that nobody agrees on exactly how to properly define rape in surveys. Some feminists activists want extremely expansive definitions of rape, while others want argue for very narrow definitions. But, I’m not sure this problem is all that salient for the issue at hand. What we are interested most here is the overall trend in violent crime, and the important part about the NVCS is that it has maintained a consistent definition of rape. Obviously there were almost certainly significantly more rapes in 2000 than 92,440, but the overall downward trend is the important point.

2. The survey was based on the testimony of women over 12 years of age. According to Lawrence Greenfeld, acting director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, nearly one-fourth of all rape victims are younger than 12.

This is an odd objection since very few studies of rape, regardless of who conducts them, attempt to include measure incidence in children younger than 12 years of age. This claim seems to imply that a study of sexual violence that excludes young children is inherently biased or distorted, which I find unfathomable.

3. The survey is also conducted on the phone, even though the highest rape rates are reported among those in the lowest economic bracket who may not have telephone access.

First, although there are indeed some people without access to the telephone, telephone service is as close to universally available as any technology is likely to be. Second, whatever small effect there may be from the exclusion of people without telephone service is more than made up by the sheer size of the sample. The NCVS interviews more than 100,000 people who are members of about 49,000 households. Moreover it interviews everyone in the sample households every 6 months over a three year period.

Finally, almost all large scale studies of rape incidence are based on phone interviews. This seems like desperation and grasping for straws on the part of Feminism.Org rather than a real concern about the validity of the NCVS’ methodology.

4. Discrepancies between separate long-term studies conducted by last week’s victimization survey and the FBI also raise doubts concerning the decrease in rape.

Wow. For decades feminists have attacked the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, but now they’re championing them. What’s going on here?

The FBI collects data based on the number of crimes reported to police, and publishes those figures every year broken down by offense. The problem with the Uniform Crime Reports is obvious and it is a flaw that feminists repeatedly point out — not all crimes are reported to the police. This is especially true with rape, where some studies suggests that as many as two-thirds of rapes are never reported to police.

For this reason, telephone surveys and other study methodologies are thought by many to more accurately reflect the true incidence of rape. Until now, apparently. Preliminary figures from the 2000 Uniform Crime Reports show no statistically significant change in the reporting of violent crimes, including rape, to police over 1999. Now, according to Feminist.Org, it is the UCR reports that are more accurate than the NCVS statistics. While UCR reports are very valuable, however, they are more a measure of crime reporting moreso than crime victimization and suffer from methodological flaws much worse than the ones cited by Feminist.Org in its attempted refutation of the NCVS (for example, different jurisdictions have different classification systems for similar crimes and there is sometimes a political interest in underreporting certain crimes to the FBI.)

5. According to Bonnie Campbell, former director of the Violence Against Women Office, “the failure to deal with the culture around rape and sexual assault has made these numbers somewhat irrelevant.” Despite the reports, women should “have no doubts about the reality of rape in the United States

Anytime a study is published that doesn’t find a sufficiently high level of rape incidence, somebody always trots this non-sequitir out. The NCVS finding that rape incidence declined from 1999 to 2000 doesn’t question the “reality of rape” any more than the finding that aggravated assaults declined questions the “reality of aggravated assaults.” To argue, as Campbell does, that the numbers don’t matter is a clear attempt to substitute an ideological view of rape in place of a sound statistical analysis of rape incidence.

Source:

Experts Question Accuracy of New Rape Statistics. Feminist.Org, June 21, 2001.

The Is the Decline in Rape Real? by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

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