New CDC Survey Confirms Years of Research on Prevalence of Sexual Assault

December 15, 2011 -

The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released a new study, 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey.  This survey found that "One percent, or approximately 1.3 million women, reported being raped by any perpetrator in the 12 months prior to taking the survey."  The New York Times article describing the new data quotes the survey director as saying “I don't think we've really known that it was this prevalent in the population.” 

The truth is that we have known.

A study conducted in 2006 by the most highly-regarded researchers in this field – Dr. Dean Kilpatrick and his team at the Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center at the Medical University of South Carolina – found that women over 18 were subjected to 800,000 forcible rapes, 300,000 drug-facilitated rapes, and 300,000 incapacitated rapes, meaning rapes perpetrated when the victim was unable to give consent because of voluntarily ingesting drugs or alcohol.  Some of the drug-facilitated and incapacitated rapes also involved force.  With respect to male victims there is no comparably detailed research, but a 2003 national victimization survey reported that in 2003 one of every ten adult rape victims was male.

It is critical that the public and our policy makers know these numbers in order to grasp the prevalence of sexual violence in this country and make every effort to prevent it, support victims and hold offenders accountable.  

One reason why so few realized the prevalence of this crime is likely because few victims are willing to report for reasons best demonstrated in a recent article by New York Times Science Columnist Jane Brody, "TheTwice-Victimized of Sexual Assault" (note that the CDC study was published after Ms. Brody’s article; the statistics cited in the article are inaccurate). The level of misconceptions about rape and victim blaming cannot be overstated.  This week, Legal Momentum received an email from a victim who wrote that her boyfriend blamed her for the sexual assault she suffered, and thought that the assault constituted cheating.

These myths and misconceptions about rape also extend to the justice system.  For more than thirty years, Legal Momentum’s National Judicial Education Program (NJEP) has developed educational materials and provided trainings to judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officers and others in the criminal justice system to minimize victim re-traumatization and help ensure public safety.  Despite NJEP’s award-winning efforts, sexual assault remains the most under-reported crime because, as Ms. Brody explained, "More often than not, women who bring charges of sexual assault are victims twice over, treated by the legal system and sometimes by the news media as lying until proved truthful."

The new CDC study corroborates what Legal Momentum and a number of sexual assault researchers have long known: that over one million women are subjected to rape each year.  Ms. Brody’s article demonstrates why so few are willing to report.  Legal Momentum hopes that the new CDC study and articles like Ms. Brody’s will, in conjunction with our work, promote public awareness of the vast prevalence of sexual violence in the United States, and what must be done to prevent and address it.