Redefining Rape
The number of sexual assaults has risen according to new statistics from the El Paso Police Department.
A police spokesman says the reason the number of rapes has increased is because of a change in what gets reported.
The federal definition of rape used for Uniform Crime Reporting until 2014 was “the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.”
This meant that for reporting purposes to the federal government the cases that most people would consider to be rape were left out.
This is the reason Sgt. Chris Mears says the total number of rapes in El Paso from Jan. 1 until Feb. 22 grew from 19 in 2013, to 42 in 2014.
“Based on those numbers that you’re seeing there, a significant percentage of our sexual assaults don’t involve the vaginal penetration of a female,” Mears said. “If a female was anally sexually assaulted it wouldn’t have been reported for UCR purposed, yet we would have treated it as a sexual assault.”
Mears says that because of the new federal definition of rape (“Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without consent of the victim.”) he expects the number of rapes to increase in cities across the country.
