MEN INCLUDED IN THE DEFINITION OF RAPE

The FBI has announced that it will now count rapes of men and statutory rape in its official statistics.  ”Having more accurate data on abuse is an important step in the right direction to increasing awareness and stopping all abuse”, States Andrew Willis, CEO of Stop Abuse Campaign.

After decades of lobbying, and nearly a century of stasis, the FBI announced this month that it will change the way it counts rape. For the first time, rapes of men and statutory rape will be included in the official statistics that the FBI collects for the annual Uniform Crime Reports (UCR).

The FBI’s change does not affect any criminal laws; it adjusts the definition only for statistical purposes, so that crimes under existing state laws will now be acknowledged, and counted by, the federal government. Up to now, only the “carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will” has been counted in UCR stats. In addition to counting crimes against men, the new definition will include rapes in which the attacker uses threats of violence, as well as all rapes in which the victim is a child and thus unable to consent.

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