FBI UCR Rape Statistics

Year     Rapes

1994    102,216

1995    97,470

1996    96,252

1997    96,153

1998    93,144

1999    89,411

2000    90,178

2001    90,863

2002    95,235

2003    93,883

2004    94,635

2005    93,934

2006    92,455

2007    90,427

2008    89,000

2009    88,097

2010    84,767

2011    83,425

2012    84,376

2013    79,770

2014    84,041

2015    90,185

2016    95,730

2017    NA

2018    NA
 

 
 

A Note About The FBI UCR Statistics

There is one thing that many people do not take into account when they publish statistics from the FBI regarding rape - the simple fact that the numbers that are estimated for a particular year are just that, estimates. If you look at the FBI data from year to year, you will always find that the previous year's data has a finalized number that is actually higher than the original published estimate.

Oftentimes many organizations will grab just the preliminary number (the estimate), when the actual number in the end is always significantly greater. The only time this did not happen was in 2000, when the number actually became smaller.

In the statistics at left, this fluctuation has been accounted for from 1994 through 2003. For those years it was easy to get the adjusted number, so the numbers presented at left from 94-03 are accurate final numbers.

For some reason, the FBI has made it more difficult to find the adjusted finalized numbers from 2004 through 2016. The numbers at left for those years are the estimated numbers.

This website will make every effort to get the finalized numbers published as soon as they become available.


FBI NOTE

In 2013, the FBI’s UCR Program initiated the collection of rape data under a revised definition within the Summary Based Reporting System.

The term “forcible” was removed from the offense name, and the definition was changed to “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”

In 2016, the FBI Director approved the recommendation to discontinue the reporting of rape data using the UCR legacy definition beginning in 2017.

Therefore, the rape data reported by those agencies using the UCR legacy definition are not included in this Report.

More information about this subject is presented in footnotes and data declarations for each table.


New Rape Definition (pdf)
New Rape Definition Frequently Asked Questions (pdf)
New Rape Fact Sheet (pdf)
 
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s