• Report Summaries
• Annotations

• Report Summaries
• Annotations

• Report Summaries
• Annotations

Content Summary
“Rape in Rhode Island: A Report to the State,” is a clearly written, albeit dense report geared towards policy makers which deals with the prevalence of rape in Rhode Island. The authors highlight the importance of collecting and analyzing state-level data, in order for policy makers to be able to accurately assess the magnitude and nature of the rape problem in their state and subsequently be able to create prevention plans and provide services for victims and survivors. At the beginning of the report, the authors clearly define what they deem “forcible rape,” and specify that their study only encompasses “forcible rapes” of females, excluding attempted rapes, “incapacitated rapes” (when the rape is drug or alcohol facilitated), statutory rapes, and all rapes of male victims.
The report provides information addressing four goals: (1) to identify national sources of information about rape and use the best sources of information to estimate rape prevalence in Rhode Island; (2) to produce an estimate of the number and percentage of adult women in Rhode Island who have ever been raped; (3) to compare the magnitude of the rape problem in Rhode Island with that in the nation at large; (4) to provide guidance as to how better estimates of Rhode Island’s rape problem can be obtained.
Major Findings
The authors of the report developed a method, which they describe at length, for estimating the prevalence of rape in Rhode Island using information collected in two national studies concerning the prevalence of rape and the risk factors for having been raped: The National Women’s Study (NWS) and the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS). These studies indicate that approximately 13.4% of adult women in the United States have been raped at some point in their lifetimes. These studies also found that the risk of having been raped was related to a woman’s age, her race/ethnicity, and the region of the nation she currently lives in. The Authors of “Rape in Rhode Island” used these two studies and the 2000 Census data to estimate rape statistics in Rhode Island, and found that approximately 13.2%, of adult women in Rhode Island, over 56,000 women, have been victims of one or more completed forcible rapes during their lifetime. This indicates that Rhode Island has a substantial rape problem.
The report includes charts which illustrate rape prevalence as a function of current age, as a function of race/ethnicity, and as a function of current household income. Despite this, there is little discussion of this data. Most of the report is devoted to discussing how conservative this estimate is, due to shortcomings with the estimation and data-collection methodologies. The authors of the report are adamant in their opinion that the best way to obtain accurate estimates of rape prevalence is to conduct a well-designed and carefully performed victimization survey, such as the NWS and the NVAWS, which would involve obtaining a representative sample of the various groups that are to be studied and asking them a series of questions that inquire about rape experiences that they may have had within specific time frames. The one existing state-level victimization survey, carried out in Washington State, yielded numbers significantly higher than national and other state-level estimates; the authors cite this survey as “the gold standard,” and conclude their report with a set of suggestions to policy makers interested in conducting a victimization survey.

Unaddressed issues and/or concerns
While this report is a helpful resource and a jarring reality check, it does not include enough information regarding how the race/ethnicity of rape victims may factor in to be of help in this Minority Disparities Project. The report provides a list of resources concerning national rape statistics and methodologies for collecting data concerning sexual violence. Also included are background and contact information for the Sexual Assault & Trauma Resource Center of Rhode Island, which the report cites as the only agency in Rhode Island that deals specifically with issues of sexual assault as a larger community concern, and which runs a Rape Prevention Education Program in partnership with the Rhode Island Department of Health. Moreover while this report does note that race/ethnicity is a risk factor for rape, this critical implication is not detailed enough. More research needs to be conducted that answer the question of why race and culture is a significant component of a rape victim. Moreover, do factors such as machismo, familism, and personal values of different ethnicities contribute to the execution of rape? Anne Ferrari’s discussion in The Impact of Culture Upon Child Rearing Practices and Definitions of Maltreatment of the impact of culture upon child rearing practices as a method of looking at childhood abuse serves as a critical starting point for delving into these issues.

Reference List
Ferrari, Anne M. “The Impact of Culture Upon Child Rearing Practices and Definitions of Maltreatment.” Child Abuse and Neglect 26.8 (2002): 793-813

How to Access Report
www.healthri.gov/disease/saferi/women.htm