Sunday, December 18, 2011

Domestic violence scare statistics

The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) from the US CDC has gotten a lot of publicity. It says:
On average, 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States, based on a survey conducted in 2010. Over the course of a year, that equals more than 12 million women and men. Those numbers only tell part of the story—more than 1 million women are raped in a year and over 6 million women and men are victims of stalking in a year. These findings emphasize that sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence are important and widespread public health problems in the United States.
These numbers keep going up, mainly because of expanding definitions. It was recently announced:
The FBI’s definition of “rape” is about to get a long-awaited update, for the first time since 1929.

The revamped description will be broader, pleasing activists who say the current definition leads to the low-balling of sexual assault cases, and also discourages victims to come forward. ...

The new definition, which will more closely match the ones that police departments around the country already use, will remove the word “forcible,” along with several other amendments.

Rape will now include sex attacks by relatives, and include non-traditional penetration.

According to the FBI’s website, the proposed new definition is “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 the consent of the victim.”

These changes are crucial, according to women’s rights advocates.
The CDC study defined sexual violence to include "non-contact unwanted sexual experiences" and "stalking, including the use of newer technologies such as text messages". So I guess many women have gotten unwanted suggestions or text messages. Hasn't everyone? Soon these surveys will be reporting incidence rates of 100%. But as reported before, the actual violence rates have been going down for 40 years.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"Torture statistics long and hard enough, and you can get them to admit to whatever you want them to."