Utah rape stats

[_LifeOnaPlate]

What do you mean, charity? maze ministry is always reliable!

[_Who Knows]

So much gullibility here. You just all accepted beastie's stats. You didn't even ask if they were accurate or not. Shame on you all.

Are you saying beastie's stats were wrong?

[_charity]

Did you read and compare? What do you think?

[_Moniker]

Recent stats:

How Does Utah Compare With the U.S.?
2005 Female Rape Incidence
Utah - 930 reported rapes; 74.21 per 100,000 females
U.S. - 94,347 reported rapes; 62.68 per 100,000 females

2006 Female Rape Incidence
Utah - 862 reported rapes; 67.42 per 100,000 females
U.S. - 92,455 reported rapes; 60.87 per 100,000 females

Why Is This Important?
The 2005 Rape in Utah Report from the Utah Commision on Criminal and Juvenile Justice identified that Utah violent crime rates were lower than national rates for homicides, robberies, and aggravated assaults. Despite the low rates of violent crimes as a total, since 1991 the rape rate in Utah has been consistently higher than the national rate. Furthermore, in 2005, according to the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, 7.1% of Utah high school students reported being physically forced to have sexual intercourse. Rape devastates families and changes lives forever. It is a violent act that impacts everyone, including men, women, and children of all ages, races, religions, and income levels. Rape victims often suffer long-term emotional consequences of the rape incident. According to the report, women who have been sexually victimized were much more likely to meet the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Furthermore, the impact of sexual violence on the community is costly and has far-reaching health implications. At $127 billion per year, rape has the highest annual victim costs of any crime. According to one study, each rape is estimated to cost $86,500, which includes medical expenses, lost wages, quality of life losses, and pain and suffering.

How Are We Doing?
The rape rate in Utah has been consistently higher than the U.S. rate. It is important to note that the rapes represented in the graph account only for those that were reported to law enforcement agencies. According to the Rape in America Study, 683,000 adult American women were raped during a 12-month period, and 84% did not report their rapes to police. This clearly indicates that sexual violence rates are underestimated. Because we know that rape is underreported, it is difficult to gauge the magnitude of the problem using federal and state crime reports.

http://ibis.health.utah.gov/indicator/i ... /Rape.html

Please note these statistics come from the Utah government's health website.

[_Who Knows]

Did you read and compare? What do you think?

Yes. They both look valid. They refer to different years.

So again, tell me, are you saying beastie's stats are wrong?

[_MishMagnet]

All the responses before yours were jokes, Charity. Except Dr. Stuess which was a commentary on the subject.

[_Moniker]

http://www.justice.utah.gov/Research/Se ... InUtah.pdf

In part, this survey was commissioned to investigate published estimates from a
national study that indicated one in five women in Utah will be raped during their
lifetime. This 20% figure only addressed female victims, and spoke directly towards
rape, or forced sexual intercourse, not any other form of sexual assault. The one in
five figure was estimated for Utah using a mixture of findings from a national survey
and demographic characteristics of Utah’s population.

Summary of Findings
Rape is the only category of violent crime in which Utah’s rate exceeds the nation’s average.

Of all respondents, 12.7% reported being raped during their lifetime.

Survey findings indicate that nearly one in three Utah women will experience some form of sexual violence during their lives.

Child molestation was the most common form of sexual violence reported, followed closely by rape.

Very few incidences of sexual assault were reported as having occurred during the prior year.

More than half of the women (51.2%) who reported being sexually assaulted in any manner were victimized by only one individual.

Almost ninety percent of victims, 86.2%, experienced their first sexual assault before their 18th birthday.

[_beastie]

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/utcrime.htm

This site contains stats from the FBI on various crimes, including rape. It includes this sentence concerning the year 2000:

Utah’s 38.6 reported Forced Rapes per 100,000 people, ranked the state 14th highest.

14th highest means it is well above the average.

[_asbestosman]

I'm playing with my spreadsheet since I noticed that the sample population for Utah is smaller than for the US (Utah being a proper subset). Therefore Utah's reported rate will have a higher standard variation. That means that the rape estimate is likely to be less accurate than for the US as a whole. So quickly I calcualted the following standard devaitions:

Utah 2005: 2.43 per 100,000
US 2005: 0.20 per 100,000

Utah 2006: 2.296 per 100,000
US 2006: 0.20 per 100,000

Using the 2006 rates:
Utah 67.42 - 2.296 * 3 = 60.53 (the 99.7% confidence interval = 3 standard deviations)

In other words the difference is concevably due in part to random variation--at least it would be if this were the only sample. When combined with previous years, this is less plausible. Furthermore my calculations aren't particularly valid when we consider how underreported rape is in the general population. That it is underreported would actually increase the standard devation--except that we do not know if the national estimate of underreported rapes (84%) is about equal to the Utah average. If Utah is more likely to report rapes, then that would explain part of the discrepancy. If Utah is less likely to report rapes, then we end up with a higher rape rate and thus a higher standard devaition, but not enough to make up for the higher rate itself.

Assuming Utah underreports at the national estimate, the Utah 2006 standard deviation is 5.729 per 100,000 while the rate itself is 421.38 per 100,000. The US 2006 SD estimate becomes 0.4995 per 100,000 wile the rate itself would be 380.44 per 100,000.

[_Maxrep]

So much gullibility here. You just all accepted beastie's stats. You didn't even ask if they were accurate or not. Shame on you all.

For years Utah has lead the nation in bankruptcy rates as well as the use of anti depression medication. It just didn't strike me as surprising that Utah might be a high ranking state for yet another unfortunate statistic.