Chair Feliz on rape statistics and expanded definition impact
Feliz asks about rape increases (up 3.2%) and the impact of the expanded definition. Gerber explains that combining rape and criminal sexual act numbers shows essentially flat trends from 2019, with about 25% of this year's reported rapes occurring in prior years, and credits increased reporting from survivor outreach.
We haven't talked much about the rapes.
They're up by 3.2% this year.
I know it has been mentioned before that the definition was expanded so more incidents are covered.
How much of this increase would you say is due to the expanded definition?
So if you're looking at a larger time, we talked a number of times about going back to 2019, right?
Sort of pre-pandemic.
If you look at the 2019 numbers and look at the numbers, say, for, you know, 2026, right?
Almost all of...
The definition of rape expanded, as you know.
Things that previously would have been charged.
as criminal sexual act now get charged as rape.
And so if you take the aggregate of the rape numbers and the criminal sexual act numbers, right, that will account for sort of how that gets reallocated in light of the change in the law.
It's really flat.
There has not really been
comparing, looking at it in that light and taking into account the change in the law, and so the reallocation of charges between rape and criminal sexual act, you don't really see
any material change, certainly no increase really from 2019 to now.
Now, you know, year over year, we do see a small, there's a small increase in rapes, reported rapes this year.
The last two months were both down, actually, but rapes are slightly up.
I think about 25% of that, roughly, is from prior years, right?
It's a 25% number, I think.
It's a substantial portion of that.
The rape's reported this year, but the rape happened actually last year.
And, you know, this is a crime where there is a longstanding concern about underreporting.
Right?
And the department has really made a priority to do everything in our power so that survivors will be comfortable coming forward and telling their stories.
and making that as easy as possible.
And the inspector spoke about this earlier.
So to the extent you have, so if we're doing that the right way, what you would expect to see is some increase in reporting.
Not that the number of rapes necessarily has actually increased, but rapes that were not being reported before now are being reported.
And so, you know, that I think is at least part of the story here and why you see the slight uptick.
It's because we're really, we're doing everything we can to enable and help survivors to come forward.