The National Research Council says differences in how sexual assaults are counted lead to confusion and lack of help for victims.


NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Sexual assault incidents are badly underreported and poorly counted, according to an exhaustive national study published Tuesday, which found that law enforcement and support service agencies are often unable to give survivors the help they need.

The study by the National Research Council recommends ways the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics can improve its surveying of sexual assault cases. It also examines how a half-dozen other methods of counting sexual assaults compare.

"The end result is that they provide different estimates of the extent of rape and sexual assault. This in turn creates confusion for the public, for law enforcement, for policymakers, for researchers and for victim advocacy groups," researchers wrote in the 265-page report.


The survey method, which includes interviews in households, is cited as a major reason for numbers that may be off. In part, the council wants sexual assault described in health terms, not just criminal terms.

The report says that while the survey is generally considered the best source of information on crime, it likely has undercounted sexual assaults for years and falls short of capturing statistics that can be compared from year to year.

In the past two years, some experts have seen an increase in attention on sexual assault, which may affect the number of incidents reported.

The Nashville Sexual Assault Center, for example, reported an increase in the number of people stepping forward to report sexual abuse, attributed in part to intense coverage of former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse involving 10 boys.



In counseling assault survivors, Stevenson meets some who have gone to police and others who haven't.

"In most cases there's not physical evidence, so the response from law enforcement may not be positive," she said. "There's a perception that if in any way the victim can be responsible for the assault, there seems to be a different response from law enforcement."

This summer, the rape of a student at Vanderbilt University and subsequent arrests of former football players ignited more local attention on the subject, including questions about how universities respond to and report assaults. A group of current and former female Vanderbilt students filed a federal complaint last week charging mishandling of victims and reports.

Stevenson said media attention tends to encourage others to come forward to begin a healing process that can benefit some victims by talking about what happened.

She said the center's program of connecting volunteers to accompany victims to the hospital is another method of increasing reports.

"Our goal is not that they report, but to empower them to whatever choice is for them," she said.

Researchers found that states' sex-crime laws vary in how they address force and consent, and that some don't account for incapacitated victims who cannot consent.

Law enforcement in some states is geared toward an outdated perception of rape involving strangers, the report found. That perception doesn't reflect that most sexual assaults take place between people who know each other, that most do not involve physical force or weapons, and that most do not result in serious injuries other than the rape itself.

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