Acquaintance Rape
Acquaintance rape is defined as being a rape perpetrated by someone known to the victim, including friends, spouses, first dates, and relatives. Read more
facts
Safety Tips for Parents
As a parent, one of your primary concerns is your child's safety. While some dangers--a hot stove, traffic or an electrical outlet--seem easy to explain, dangers that involve violence may seem more difficult to talk about. Read more
Incest
While the prevalence and severity of child abuse in the United States has been given an increasing amount of attention -- attitudes, definitions and statistics continue to vary. The examination of incest may incite some of the greatest discrepancies, for it remains one of the most under-reported and least discussed crimes in our nation. Read more
Tips for Men and LGBTQ Community
Victimization of the LGBTQ community includes harassment, vandalism, robbery, assault, rape and murder, with the added component of the crimes being committed specifically because the victim identifies within the queer community. Read more
stats
Underreporting
A national DOJ study indicates that 60% of sexual assault crimes are not reported to the police. A Centers for Disease Control national survey on intimate partner and sexual violence found that over 18% of women reported having been raped in their lifetime (or approximately 785,000 NYC women) and 1.1% of women experienced rape in the last year. Therefore, our best estimate is that nearly 50,000 women are raped annually in New York City (this does not include other forms of sexual violence), yet only about 1,500 are reported to the police*. We conservatively estimate that the rape crisis centers see about 14,000 survivors a year in NYC.
DOJ. (2012). Victimizations Not Reported to the Police, 2006-2010. Washington DC: Lynn Langton, Marcus Berzofsky, Christopher Krebs, and Hope Smiley-McDonald.
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2011). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2010 Summary Report. Atlanta, GA: Black, M.C., Basile, K.C., Breiding, M.J., Smith, S.G., Walters, M.L., Merrick, M.T., Chen, J., & Stevens, M.R.
*NYS DOH released figures indicating that the RCPs assisted almost 7,000 survivors from July 2012-June 2013. However, the centers are funded by NYS DJCS and NYS OVS to serve survivors as well. We are working towards getting these agencies to report in a coordinated way, but have not yet been able to get this accomplished. So this is an estimate of the annual services provided.
Communities of Color
Young women of color experience sexual violence at a higher rate. For example, approximately 40% of Black Women report coercive contact of a sexual nature by age 18 and, nearly a fifth of Latina teens (19%) reported sexual dating violence in the last 12 months. Increased vulnerability to reoccurring sexual assault based on immigration status has also been found.
National Black Women’s Health Project. (2007). Retrieved from http://www.blackwomensblueprint.org/sexual-violence/.
US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] (n.d.) Youth risk behavior surveillance system (YBRSS). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/yrbs/index.htm
Decker M.R., Raj A., & Silerman J.G. (2007). Sexual Violence Against Adolescent Girls: Influences of Immigration and Acculturation. Violence Against Women, 13,498.
LGBTQ
In the U.S., women who identify as bisexual had the highest lifetime prevalence of rape (46%) as compared to their heterosexual (17.4%) and lesbian (13.1%) counterparts2. The NYS Office of Victim Services (2014) reports that an estimated 50% of transgender individuals (both male and female identified) are sexually assaulted at least once during their lifetime.
1 National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2011). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2010 Summary Report. Atlanta, GA: Black, M.C., Basile, K.C., Breiding, M.J., Smith, S.G., Walters, M.L., Merrick, M.T., Chen, J., & Stevens, M.R.
2 Office of Victim Services. (2014). Responding to Transgender Victims of Sexual Assault. http://www.ovc.gov/pubs/forge/sexual_numbers.html
CAMPUS
1 in 5 women on college campuses has been sexually assaulted during their time there. According to U.S. Census data, 11 million female students are enrolled in the nation’s colleges and universities. Extending the 1 in 5 statistics to the female student population, 2.2 million U.S. women are affected by sexual assault.
Krebs, C.P., Lindquist, C.H., Warner, T.D., Fisher, B.S., & Martin, S.L. (2007). The Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) Study. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Nearly 1 in 5 women (18.3%) and 1 in 71 men (1.4%) in the United States have been raped at some time in their lives.
1 in 71 men had been raped in their lifetime and that 28% had been raped before the age of 10 years old. One in 7 men have experienced other types of sexual violence.