The G E Mound Case
2 months ago
Monday, January 9, 2012
FBI revises definition of rape established in 1929
The FBI's more than eight-decade-old definition of rape has been revised to count men as victims for the first time and to drop the requirement that victims must have physically resisted their attackers. The new definition will increase the number of people counted as rape victims in FBI statistics, but will not change federal or state laws nor alter charges or prosecutions, according to the Associated Press.
Since 1929, the FBI has defined rape as the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will.
The revised FBI definition says that rape is "the penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object," without the consent of the victim. Also constituting rape under the new definition is "oral penetration by a sex organ of another person" without consent.
The issue got top-level White House attention starting last July, when Vice President Joe Biden raised it at a Cabinet meeting. According to the Associated Press, Biden said the new definition is a victory for women and men "whose suffering has gone unaccounted for over 80 years." Calling rape a "devastating crime," the vice president said "we can't solve it unless we know the full extent of it."
Using the old definition, a total of 84,767 rapes were reported nationwide in 2010, according to the FBI's uniform crime report based on data from 18,000 law enforcement agencies, reported the Associated Press. Nearly 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men in the U.S. have been raped at some time in their lives, according to a 2010 survey by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which used a broader definition.
To read more: http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2012/jan/07/fbi-revises-definition-rape-1929-20120107/?news-national
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2 comments:
It's about time. They can be victims as well as women. Any source of human violation no matter what gender is valid.
The "1 in 71 men have been raped" stat from the CDC survey doesn’t tell the whole story. It defines "rape" as the attacker penetrating the victim, which excludes women who use their vagina to rape a man (rape by envelopment) which is counted as “made to penetrate”. The very same survey says “1 in 21 men (4.8%) reported that they were made to penetrate someone else,” which is far more than 1 in 71. Also, the study says that 79.2% of male victims of “made to penetrate” reported only female perpetrators, meaning they were raped by a woman.
The above, lifetime stats do show a lower percentage of male victims (up to 1.4% rape by penetration + 4.8% made to penetrate = 6.2%) than female victims (18.3%) although it is far more than commonly believed. However, if you look at the report’s stats for the past 12 months, just as many number of men were “forced to penetrate” as women were raped, meaning that if you properly define “made to penetrate” as rape, men were raped as often as women.
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