Talk:Rape statistics

Under-reporting

I deleted a line that states "A 2007 government report says 'Estimates from research suggest that between 75 and 95 percent of rape crimes are never reported to the police.'" The cited government report is clearly an advocacy piece that supports changes in legislation, and the quote pulled from it does not discuss any research papers that were used to arrive at that estimate. Thus, the quoted statistic is completely unverifiable, and its source suffers from heavy bias. 24.63.85.142 (talk) 12:58, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

That's not even a good reason, can you tell that what kind of verification you are talking about? OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 06:35, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Any sort of quantitative data, or even anecdotal evidence to support those numbers. Nothing of the sort is given. There is absolutely nothing in the source to suggest it wasn't made up entirely. On that alone I would remove the citation, but it also happens to be an advocacy report written by prosecutors that would reap the most benefit from the changes in procedure it proposes. In short, its objectivity is doubtful, and the cited statistic is pulled out of thin air. I think that the lack of any quantitative data—or even anecdotal evidence—in the cited source is a very good reason to remove the citation. I do appreciate that you are actually engaging in discussion on the talk page instead of just reverting my edit, though. Thank you. 24.63.85.142 (talk) 07:06, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Related discussion here User_talk:Padenton#.22Disruptive.22_editing. I've changed the wording to make clearer that it is an estimate by the government, though it always said so. Are you happy now? ― Padenton|✉   17:39, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Of course not. The claim is pulled out of thin air. The source merely states that "research suggests" without anything more specific. Whose research? What was the methodology? What were the results that "suggest between 75 and 95 percent"? Add to that the vested interest the source has in claiming such crimes are going unprosecuted, and there is absolutely no justifiable reason to treat the cited statement as credible, notable, or neutral. This wouldn't fly in a middle school five paragraph essay. It is ridiculous to include quantitative claims that make no reference to a specific researcher, funding organization, method, or even RESULT. (A "suggested" range is a far cry from a mean with an error level.) You might as well add "Research suggests the moon is made of cheese," in the moon article; the credibility for both claims is the same. 108.203.162.123 (talk) 23:07, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I think that your refusal to accept any sort of compromise, and continued edit warring with several other editors over this one sentence -- which was first added in 2008 [1] -- have been unreasonable. Your claims that the Crown Prosecution Service is an "unreliable source" and suffers from "heavy bias" is quite frankly absurd and conspiratorialist. That being said, there have been a more recent study (reported on here by the Guardian), which gives a similar figure:

Females who had reported being victims of the most serious sexual offences in the last year were asked, regarding the most recent incident, whether or not they had reported the incident to the police. Only 15 per cent of victims of such offences said that they had done so. Frequently cited reasons for not reporting the crime were that it was ‘embarrassing’, they ‘didn't think the police could do much to help’, that the incident was ‘too trivial or not worth reporting’, or that they saw it as a ‘private/family matter and not police business’

Do you have any problems with this source? / Gavleson (talk) 18:40, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

It is not unreasonable to expect a statistical claim to be supported by actual data. The quote in question cannot be verified in any way whatsoever. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills since it's now unreasonable to remove completely unverifiable "statistics". The fact that I was the first person to (fail to) verify the citation since it was added some time ago is not any sort of justification for retaining it. Once again, there are no study dates, participants, methods, researchers, or reviewers associated with the contested content. If a source claims that "research suggests" something, it damn well better cite some of that research. Instead, we are not even told whose research "suggests", nor what they mean by "suggest". It is disheartening and rather terrifying that—apart from the specific issue of a completely anonymous and unverifiable statistic—it is apparently controversial to note that there might just be a conflict-of-interest and/or credibility issue in a scenario such as this one: i. e. a government department closely affiliated with the Crown Prosecution Service (formerly a direct sub-division of it, in fact) has written a report suggesting a plethora of budget-burning ways to increase conviction rates for rape, and they've also included alarming claims about detection and attrition rates that are either unsourced (like the line in question) or outrageously calculated. The palpable bias and shoddy methodology can't be missed by anyone who actually bothers to read the damn thing. I might as well summarize the more serious issues, since you seem committed to simply treating the report as gospel, conflict of interest and critical analysis be damned:

Detection and attrition rates are necessarily based on incidence rates, but how are incidence rates determined? Simple: all reports to the police are assumed legitimate, though the report authors are clever enough to phrase this procedure in a slightly less absurd way:

Under the NCRS and HOCR, all incidents that come to the attention of the police and appear to be crimes should be recorded as such, unless there is credible evidence to the contrary. In deciding whether or not a crime should be recorded, the test to be applied is the balance of probabilities. In other words, is the incident more likely than not the result of a criminal act? In most cases, the belief by the victim (or person reasonably assumed to be acting on behalf of the victim) that a crime has occurred is sufficient to justify its recording.

In no uncertain words, the report states that any accusation that is not demonstrably false should be counted towards the incidence of rape. Anyone at all familiar with domestic and/or intimate crime (>85% of defendants being known to the accuser according to HMCPSI's own numbers) knows that even basing your estimates just on alleged victims making formal allegations is a wildly inaccurate, let alone assuming any and all accusations are legitimate since both under-reporting and chronic false accusations are extremely common in domestic violence areas. (This is what censuses are for, with conviction rates a distant second in credibility.) Acquittals, dropped charges due to lack of evidence, and dismissals by a judge are all still counted towards incidence estimates in this report. Throughout, accused persons are referred to as "offenders" and, despite there being no suggestions nor references to procedures for assessing the veracity of accusations, the police assessment of "no crime" due to a lack of evidence is derided as a breach of procedure:

-In 21 cases, the victim either declined to complete the initial process (that is, to make an official complaint, provide a statement, undergo a medical examination or respond to early police efforts to make contact) or withdrew support for the investigation or prosecution.

-In six cases, the report was ‘no crimed’ on the basis that there was insufficient evidence that a crime had taken place (for example, where the only issue was consent), although, in each, there was no verifiable information that it had not taken place. [emphasis in original]

-In two cases, the reports were ‘no crimed’ following CPS advice to take no further action.

-In 10 cases, the grounds were not provided in the report and there was no apparent reason for ‘no criming’.

-In 18 cases, the allegation was treated as false, primarily as a result of the victim’s credibility being called into question (for example, due to inconsistencies or discrepancies in their account or factors such as their alcohol consumption or behaviour). There was a small number, however, where the victim had retracted the allegation, but in circumstances where there was good reason to doubt the retraction (for example, domestic violence).

All non-compliant ‘no crimes’ within the review samples should have remained as recorded crimes.

Note the emphasis demanding "verifiable information"—the report gives CCTV footage is given as an example—in order to record a report as "no crime". Otherwise, "no crime" will only be assessed if the accuser "retracts" their accusation by officially, on-record saying "I lied, nothing happened"; merely withdrawing support for the investigation/prosecution still contributes to their incidence rate estimation. The report frequently notes that it can be difficult to ascertain the truth in rape cases, but rather than stress the importance of assiduous detective work, the authors make their priorities crystal clear:

As already highlighted, with crimes of rape the victim and suspect are known to one another in the majority of cases. This means that in a large number of cases the main evidential issue is one of consent as opposed to identification. In examining the investigation process, it was found that there is a need for ‘consent’ defences to be challenged more rigorously and greater consideration to be given to the use of ‘bad character’ evidence. Interviews with suspects need to be better planned and interviewers must be properly trained. The ACPO guidance stipulates that interviewers should be trained to ‘Tier 3’ (specialist level)

The main thrust of the report could not be more clear (if you read the entire thing): rape incidence is rising along with attrition, which demonstrates a clear need for more aggressive, specialized prosecution and investigation tactics. The fact that the procedural changes assessed in the report (which assume a crime has occurred from the outset and push forward accordingly) are almost certainly the cause of the (very shoddily) measured increase in incidence rates is completely ignored, despite the obvious positive feedback loop being engineered. The report is allergic to veracity in a criminal investigation as much as it is in its own statistical estimates.

All of the above is a summary of the virulent bias of the report, with examples of how slanted and ridiculous the assumptions underlying their statistics are. In reality, I'm just spelling out why it would be outrageous to take anything in the report at face value, even if it is properly cited and ostensibly verifiable. But the line stating that "estimates from research suggest that..." isn't shoddy or biased, it's just made up. The revised version you inserted that states "a British government report estimates that..." is completely inaccurate and misleading: the report itself does not make that estimate. Instead, they quote anonymous "estimates from research" whose veracity they're not responsible for. This is a very popular tactic that got lots of play during the senate global warming debates, but it is academically worthless and has no place in an encyclopedia. It can't be verified or reproduced since it isn't even real data. I'm really struggling to find a clearer way of explaining that a "statistic" without any data behind it is meaningless and should never be presented as fact or evidence.

If you want to quote something from the Ministry of Justice report, that's an entirely separate issue. Just because data therein is in line with the anonymous HMCPSI statistic doesn't mean it has been validated. Each source should withstand scrutiny on its own, otherwise any bunch of questionable sources could be cited so long as they agree with each other. As to whether I have issues with that source, yes, I do have two serious issues with it: first, the summaries provided are extremely vague and cursory (probably because they're combining data collected over several years) so it's unclear whether those 15% of victims of "most serious" offenses includes victims of attempted rape and/or assault by penetration or whether it excludes them. Given that they specifically state "too trivial or not worth reporting" was one of the most frequently cited reasons for not reporting, I'd say it's extremely likely that they're once again grouping victims and "attempted victims" together. Second, the "most serious" offenses category groups "normal" rape with forced penetration, so it is not a proper rape reporting rate; the reporting rates of forced penetration and rape might differ enormously, and they're probably mixed in with attempted cases anyway. If you can find a source that parses the same data in a not-retarded way, feel free to cite it. 6-12 month retrospective census data is about as good as it gets for tracking this sort of thing so long as you have someone to competently compile the results. 108.203.162.123 (talk) 15:04, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Why is Steven Pinker's non-notable book quoted from?

How is this person or his book notable enough to be in a blockquote? That seems like undue weight to me. Dream Focus 03:10, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

1. No, I have not edited Wikipedia from a different name previously (as you accused me of). 2. I mainly undid your revision because I felt like it was based off personal bias (quoting your reason for the edit here, "rape by use of alcohol is a crime. The fact a few random idiots don't consider it rape, isn't relevant here". I feel like that revision was based off personal bias and while I myself do think that rape is a horrible and extremely cowardly thing to do, I felt like your reason to delete the other person's work wasn't justified. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anipad68 (talk • contribs) 18:32, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

You reverted me based on my edit summary, not based on the content that I removed from the article? Kindly read the information and tell me if you still think it belongs there. I'd like some other opinions as well. Dream Focus 06:51, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

• Lets discuss the two things [2] separately for clarity. The article currently reads:

According to the psychologist Steven Pinker,

Junk statistics from advocacy groups are slung around and become common knowledge, such as the incredible factoid that one in four university students has been raped. (The claim was based on a commodious definition of rape that the alleged victims themselves never accepted; it included, for example, any incident in which a woman consented to sex after having had too much to drink and regretted it afterward.) Pinker, Steven (2011). The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. Viking Penguin. p. 401.

• How is this person's book important enough to publish his personal opinion in this article? Dream Focus 06:57, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm afraid you've missed the point and then some. The issue with the CDC definition of rape is that it is hopelessly incoherent and hinges on the implicit notion that only women have the privilege of being raped during heterosexual sex. This fits nicely into a dim bulb's poorly-reasoned gender bias so long as they (ze?) assume all the respondents were straight, and no pesky critical thought is spent pondering why only the women (womyn?) were asked if they had ever had sex while inebriated. What if, while a man was helplessly drunk (or intentionally drugged), some woman were to take advantage of him (bearing in mind that men (mansplainers?) can become erect even while unconscious)? Surely this gross violation of bodily autonomy, personal space, and sexual privacy would constitute rape, or at least some lower, cruder, less tragic he-man-rape, yes? Easy enough, but what happens when Ms. Doe has a glass of wine at dinner, and Mr. Doe has the rest of the bottle, and then they go for a romp in the hay? And when they've split the bottle 50/50? The plot thickens, and now it's not so clear who's raping whom! And this is why some very, very bad people find fault with the "vodka" + "vagina" = "victim" formula of sexual politics(/victimhood). They seem to think the fact that lesbians don't nurse their hangovers by venting their violated vulvas at the nearest police station in a game of Double Rapery means that women are just as capable as men of mixing drink or drug into sex, for better or for worse. After all, if men and women were equal, they'd be equally capable of giving and receiving consent while intoxicated, so it wouldn't make sense to transfer all culpability and responsibility from one group to another (as if from a child to a father...) the moment a catalyst for bad decisions and regret were thrown into the mix, now would it? Which is why certain people find fault with that particular study's methodology, given that they don't ask about the state of the girl's partner, and generally treat male and female respondents completely differently within a rather chauvinist/feminist (irony!) framework. 108.203.162.123 (talk) 14:12, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Rape by use of alcohol bit

• The article currently reads:

However, some have criticized these statistics for using definitions of rape that they consider to be overly broad, specifically for counting sex under the influence of alcohol as rape. Connell, Katherine (January 24, 2014). "Twisting Sexual-Assault Statistics". National Review. Hoff Sommers, Christina (January 27, 2012). "How the CDC is overstating sexual violence in the U.S." The Washington Post.

• The opinions section of the Washington Post has a person criticizing what the Center for Disease Control calls rape. They state "A sample of 9,086 women was asked, for example, “When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people ever had vaginal sex with you?” A majority of the 1.3 million women (61.5 percent) the CDC projected as rape victims in 2010 experienced this sort of “alcohol or drug facilitated penetration.” They then state their personal opinion that being too drunk to consent that not mean automatically that is rape. Should this person's opinion piece be referenced in this article? Or are we giving WP:UNDUE weight to their opinion? Dream Focus 07:05, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

See the above response in the Steven Pinker section of the Talk, bearing in mind that the questionnaire asks nothing of the state of the women's partners nor of the level of inebriation of the women, but instead lumps any degree of intoxication in with "passed out". 108.203.162.123 (talk) 14:39, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I think this editor is questioning the weight given to this particular individual's perspective. Sommers is not a researcher, she's a pundit with a long history of espousing a contrarian viewpoint when it comes to estimates of rape. Its worth asking whether or not her minority view should be accorded as much prevalence as the quote seems to give it. Aside from the weight issue: the CDC really doesn't view all intoxicated sex as rape -- the "and unable to consent" clause is supposed to apply to each of the preceding terms. Sommers is arguing that the wording is ambiguous and could potentially be interpreted that way by respondents, but the CDC says that "consent" is the crucial determinant. Nblund (talk) 01:16, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

The same or similar criticisms Sommers made of the CDC report have been made by many others, and the report itself is a self-published primary resource that has not been formally peer-reviewed. With that in mind, I can't imagine how the report results can be called the "majority view", as the only external analysis of the report comes from people such as Sommers.

the CDC really doesn't view all intoxicated sex as rape -- the "and unable to consent" clause is supposed to apply to each of the preceding terms

The source you cited states "A CDC spokesperson clarified that being unable to consent is key to the CDC's definition of rape", but this is another case of the CDC using ambiguous language: the CDC could well believe that anyone who is intoxicated is unable to consent without contradicting their clarification. In any case, what the CDC intended to capture in their report and what they actually captured are not equivalent, and the fact that the majority of instances that they observed were the result of that question should cast doubt on the survey's results. The other issue that Sommers brings up is the fact that the CDC's qualifications for rape are untenable: the scenario of two people who are both "too intoxicated to consent" is counted as two separate rapes, with each person a rapist and rape victim simultaneously. Hopefully the absurdity of this framework speaks for itself. 108.203.162.123 (talk) 08:51, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Differing National Laws

I agree that the differing definitions of 'rape' (or 'sexual assault') are important to include here so that the numbers for those countries can be understood in context, but right now they take up the vast majority of the article. Could we maybe do some cleanup? I've moved all the countries into a new heading so that people can see the rest of the article, but it does seem to require a bit more work over time. ― Padenton |☎  16:54, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Auto-archiving

So this talk page has 61 sections, and it's current page length is 150,746 bytes. So, I've started the auto-archiving bot (I think I did it correctly, check if you care to). Since most of the discussions seem to be years old, and I didn't think it would be good to cut it down to only a couple discussions, I started the bot with archiving discussions that are 180 days old. This is a bit larger than what I think the norm is (30?) but looking at the history, that would leave only 2 discussions, one of which I added to today, and one in which I am the sole participant. Let's see how well 180 days does for us and reduce it if the talk becomes more active.― Padenton|✉   18:05, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

It would've taken about 180 days. I have just manually archived most of the discussions that were no longer active. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 18:13, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

RfC: We should mention this unreported rape statistic?

In the light of recent edit war over the unreported rape statistics that have been carefully objected by an IP. I am starting this RfC to know what others have to say about it. Previous discussion can be read above.

Here is the major edit[3], I would like to know how whether we should keep the following sentence on lead, or not.

A 2007 British government report estimates that "between 75 and 95 percent of rape crimes are never reported."

Thank you. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 16:51, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I can see no reason why it should not be mentioned. Of course it is almost impssible to accurately estimately unreported crimes (not just rape). But that soes not mean that attempts to do so should be excluded. Paul B (talk) 16:36, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Did you read through the report? To say that "A 2007 British government report estimates that 'between 75 and 95 percent of rape crimes are never reported'" is more than bending the truth. The report itself presents data and statistics, but it contains zero data on unreported crimes. The literal, exact quote from the report is

Estimates from research suggest that between 75 and 95 per cent of rape crimes are never reported to the police.

Whose research? Who knows. (Not theirs.) There is no footnote, reference, or source given to verify that number, and it is in fact the only reference to the rate of unreported cases in the ~200 page report. Simply put, there is no data to support that claim, as the report within which it was made deals with completely different data, leaving this statement wholly unsupported and unsourced. This isn't even a "secondary source" statistic—it's straight up rumor. I don't know how this citation snuck by the first time around, but I'm agape at the fact that I actually have to defend the removal of completely unsubstantiated statistics. Seriously? 108.203.162.123 (talk) 15:46, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps this helps: An Overview of Sexual Offending in England and Wales . From page 16 "Further questions, related to the most recent incident, were asked of victims of offences in the most serious sexual offence category. Around a quarter (28 per cent, Table 2.5) of females had not told anyone about the incident. One in seven had told the police about the incident (15 per cent), and all of these respondents had had also told somebody else. " The stat isn't well sourced in the report, but its not really out of line with estimates produced elsewhere. This seems like a simple matter of finding a better citation.Nblund (talk) 00:28, 13 April 2015 (UTC)