A Crime Gone Unreported

There are a large number of unreported rapes in the United States. “63% of completed rapes, 65% of attempted rapes, and 74% of completed and attempted sexual assaults against females were not reported to the police” between 1992 and 2000 (Rennison, 2002). The fear of retaliation, the fear of embarrassment, and the thought that telling anyone would not help are the most prevalent reasons why victims do not reach out. Rape is the act of sexual intercourse with another individual without their consent, with force or the threat of some kind of harm. Rape, which is also known as sexual assault in some jurisdictions, is underreported and under prosecuted. According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) which uses statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey, ”every 2 minutes someone in the United States is sexually assaulted and each year there are about 213,000 victims of sexual assault” ("How often does," 2009). As previously stated, 63% of completed rapes against females were not reported to the police. The reasons differ for every man or woman that has been faced with this situation, but what I see to be the most reoccurring reasons are personal reasons and those that include embarrassment, the fear of retaliation, and the thought that if they did report the crime they would have to endure the courts and police procedures. In other countries, a women who is raped can be exiled out of their family or to another extreme be killed (or become a victim of suicide) because they have dishonored their family by being raped. Salman Rushdie, a contributor to the NY Times, discussed in an article about honor rapes and the “shaming” of women that dishonors men. The reasons why a woman does not report being raped is vast, and this is the face of a victim’s turmoil in other countries and other