One in four rape statistic

[MilgramsLittleHelper]

Good morning,

I'm interested in finding a (non fee paying) Statistical Analysis that gives some insight into the proportion of women who've experienced Rape in the UK.Looking at Koss's research in 1985 it looks like the methodology is highly criticised, thus the one in four claim lacks validity (in my opinion) so something more robust and recent would be par for the course.

Thanks for your help.

Try an advanced search on rape statistics in this forum, it will almost certainly bring up a lot of links more recent than 1985.

Thanks Doctrine.

The Fawcett Society website has some helpful stats on it.

Female population in 2009 of 31.4 million, divided by 69,000 female rape victims in 2009/10, gives a figure of 1 in 455 per year. But that doesn't include attempted rapes, or other sexual assaults. Plus it seems quite low to me, perhaps I've missed some factor.

For a lifetime risk, from the article it says that "4.6% of females - or approximately one in 20 - said they had been the victim of rape or attempted rape since the age of 16, falling slightly to 3.8% when attempted rape is excluded."

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/an-overview-of-sexual-offending-in-england---wales/december-2012/index.html

Those are the sources for the Guardian article I linked to above, their official summary says "Around one in twenty females (aged 16 to 59) reported being a victim of a most serious sexual offence since the age of 16. Extending this to include other sexual offences such as sexual threats, unwanted touching or indecent exposure, this increased to one in five females reporting being a victim since the age of 16."

Thank you Eccles and McMoon these are interesting.

Eccles - I think you have used the rape conviction figures there.
There is huge dispute over the meaning of these. Most people don't even report rape never mind get a conviction etc.

No, the 69,000 figure is an estimate of total female victims in a year, including unreported rapes. For men and women, the estimate is 78,000.

The conviction figure was 1,070. The police-recorded number of rapes was 15,760.

I think the 1 in 4 / 1 in 5 figure is over a lifetime, and is rape and sexual assault - not just rape. Eccles figures are in just a year.

Yes, a yearly average around 2009-12.

This is my take on the figures:

The female population of England and Wales in 2009/10 was approximately 27.9 million.

(31.4 million was an estimate for the entire UK).

Estimate of rapes in England and Wales in 2009/10 = 69,000

Estimated female population of England and Wales in 2009/10 = 27,900,000 (the arithmetic mean of the 2009 and 2010 estimates).

Chance of a girl or woman in England and Wales being raped in any single year = 69,000/27,900,000 = 1 in 404 = the annual rape risk.

Lifespan is often taken by statisticians as 100 years.

Lifetime risk is the sum of annual risks for the whole lifespan.

Chance of a girl or woman in England and Wales being raped during her lifetime = lifespan multiplied by annual rape risk = 100 x 1/404 = 1 in 4 (approximately) = the lifetime rape risk.

I think the annual rape risk is the more reliable statistic. It's using data that have been collected about past events. It compares a number of rapes to the number of potential rape victims.

Lifetime rape risk is a more theoretical concept that makes many more assumptions and it's more about trying to predict the future, which makes it less reliable and less useful.

I think the most significant thing about both of these rape risk statistics is that the rape risk is not zero.

I hope people will take the view that "a 1 in 404 chance of being raped this year in England or Wales" is completely unacceptable. Unfortunately, I fear that too many people will support and be supported by patriarchy's rape culture, to think "1 in 404 doesn't sound so bad".

I want society to adopt the goal of zero risk of rape. If rapists stopped raping, the annual rape risk and the lifetime rape risk would become zero.

While the annual rape risk is not zero, the risk of rape is too high.

Thank you Ves.