U. S. Sen. Arlen Specter (D) last week urged the FBI to revisit its longstanding definition of rape, expanding it to include, among other stipulations, attacks against males.
Specter sent a letter to FBI director Robert Mueller Sept. 15, detailing criticisms of the FBI’s handling of rape cases that arose during a Senate Judiciary Crime Subcommittee hearing last week — which sought to examine underreporting and mishandling of rape cases in the country.
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, which compiles crime data from around the country, currently defines rape as “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will.”
The 2009 UCR statistics were released last week and found a 2.6-percent decline in the number of forcible rapes from the previous year, although testimony witnesses doubted the credibility of those numbers because of how the FBI characterizes rape.
Specter wrote that “there was a broad consensus among the witnesses that [the UCR definition] fails to capture rape committed against the victims’ will without force, statutory rape, rape of males, oral or anal penetration or penetration with a foreign object.”
Along with his letter to Mueller, Specter included a letter written to the FBI in 2001 by Carol E. Tracy, executive director of the Women’s Law Project, which is headquartered in Philadelphia, on this issue. The letter, which was supported by more than 90 organizations, provided extensive statistics to support updating the definition of rape in the UCR, although Tracy said she never received a response from the FBI.
“When we first wrote this 10 years ago, it was an outgrowth of our work with the Philly police to improve how they handled sex crimes, and that’s when we learned just how narrow the definition in the UCR really is,” Tracy said.
The documents detail that the UCR definition of rape, created in 1929, is misleading to the public and to law enforcement, as it excludes other serious sex crimes.
The wording proposed in the original 2001 documents recommends the UCR rape definition be amended to read: “vaginal, oral or anal intercourse or vaginal or anal penetration by a perpetrator using an object or body part without freely and affirmatively given consent.”
Tracy noted that in addition to the many ways a person can be sexually violated that are rejected by the UCR wording, the crime’s limitation by gender is “archaic, outdated and offensive.”
“Looking at this only as a crime against women harkens back to how the crimes of rape first evolved,” she said. “It was a crime against property, not against a person. It was related to patriarchal inheritance rights and the chastity of women, who were essentially sold from a father to the man who was going to become her husband.”
According to the National Center for Victims of Crime, about one in 10 rape victims is male, and the majority of male rape victims experienced the attack prior to age 18. While studies have found that only about 1 in 50 women reported a rape to police, men are believed to report the attacks even less frequently.
“People perceive the UCR definition to be the only ‘real rape,’” Tracy said. “A lot of people think that anything else is a lesser offense, because the FBI basically considers it a lesser offense. But it’s not a lesser offense.”
Tracy testified during last week’s hearing, as did Villanova University School of Law associate professor Michelle Madden Dempsey.
Madden Dempsey noted that the UCR definition precludes states like Pennsylvania, which has a gender-neutral definition of rape, from properly reporting its rape statistics to the FBI, since it must report crimes within the UCR guidelines.
“Even if an incident were to qualify as rape under the state’s more progressive laws, local law enforcement are technically required under the UCR program to record these cases as ‘unfounded’ unless they meet the narrow, anachronistic definition of rape adopted in the UCR,” Madden Dempsey testified.
Madden Dempsey also noted that everyone from the courts to police officers needs to more aggressively pursue rape cases, as indifference toward such crimes has a trickle-down effect that can prevent victims from coming forward to report a rape.
Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey testified during last week’s hearing and also announced that the Police Executive Research Foundation, of which he is head, would host a special session next year with police and advocacy groups to address the issue of sexual-assault reporting.
Specter wrote in his letter that he anticipates a “prompt response” from Mueller.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].