Sexual Assault

Information

Sexual assault is an act, verbal and/or physical, which can include several kinds of kinds of crimes such as rape, incest, fondling, sexual harassment, date and acquaintance rape, child molestation, marital rape, sexual exploitation of clients by professional, exposure, and voyeurism.  Sexual assaults are acts of violence which are motivated primarily out of anger and/or a need to feel powerful by controlling, dominating, or humiliating the victim.  Victims/survivors of sexual assault are forced, coerced, and/or manipulated to participate in unwanted sexual activity.  Victims/Survivors do not cause their assaults and are not to blame.  Offenders are responsible for the assaults.

Every minute in the United States, there are 1.3 forcible rapes of adult women;  78 women are forcibly raped each hour.  Every day 1,871 women are forcibly raped, equating to 56,916 forcible rapes each month.  (National Victim Center and Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center, 1992)

Approximately 1,555,600 adult American Women have been victims of one or more forcible rapes by their husbands.  (Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center, 1992)

Department of Justice estimates there were nearly one-half million sexual assaults in 1993. (Batian, 1994)

According to a 1995 Department of Defense survey, 4%of all female soldiers said they had been a victim of a completed or attempted rape or sexual assault during their military service. (High, 1997, from the National Victim Center Statistical Overview, 1998)

In 1995 for every 1,000 persons age 12 or older, there occurred 2 rapes or attempted rapes.  (Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victims Survey, 1995)

In 1994, the rape/sexual assault rate for females was 3.7 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older.  The rape/sexual assault rate for males was .2 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older (Bureau of Justice Statistics Criminal Victimization, 1997)

There were approximately 20,000 sexual assaults of males ages 12 and over in the United States in 1991. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1992)

The most recent National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) by the Federal Government, for 1994, counts a total of 167,530 completed rapes of those age 12 and over; 162,640 of women and 4,890 of men.  There were a total of 432,700 rapes, both completed and attempted, and sexual assaults of both genders, 35.8% were strangers and 64.2% were non-strangers.  (Maquire and Pastore, 1996)

In 1995 an estimated 72 of every 100,000 females in the country were reported rape victims.  (Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Report, 1995)

Results from the National Women's Study show that 26.6% of women suffering from bulimia nervosa were raped at some point in their lives while only 13.3% of women who do not have binge eating disorders or bulimia nervosa have been raped.  (Dansky, et al, 1997 from the National Victim Center Statistical Overview, 1998)

84% of rape survivors were less than 25 years old; nearly on-third (32%) were between the ages of 11 and 17; slightly more than one in five rapes (22%) occurred between the ages of 18 and 24.  (National Victim Center and Crime Victims Research, 1992)