Scope of the Problem

National Statistics

  • Nearly 90% of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim, including ex-husbands, boyfriends, other relatives, or acquaintances (2000)1.
  • Girls who have been raped are about three times more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders and over four times more likely to suffer from drug and alcohol abuse in adulthood (2000)2. 
  • About one in every 20 female college students is raped each year, and more than 72% of those women are raped while they are too intoxicated to give consent (2004)3.
  • The US Public Health Service Office on Women’s Health reported that 50-75% of women in substance abuse treatment programs are survivors of sexual violence4.
  • Nearly 25% of women have been raped and/or physically assaulted by an intimate partner at some point in their lives, and more than 40% of the women who experience partner rapes and physical assaults sustain a physical injury5.

Maryland Statistics

  • One out of every eight adult women, or about 260,000 adult women in Maryland, has been the victim of forcible rape sometime in her lifetime (2003)6.
  • During 2005, 1,266 forcible rapes were reported in the state of Maryland in which 1,118 were categorized as ‘forced’ and 148 were categorized as ‘attempted’7.
One in Eight Report

Uniform Crime Report

UCR by State

Sexual Assault Needs Assessment Project (SNAP) Executive Summary

References

1-Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000.
2-Kendler, Kenneth S., et al. Archives of General Psychiatry. Medical College of Virginia Commonwealth University, 2000.
3-Mohler-Kuo et al. Correlates of Rape while Intoxicated in a National Sample of College Women. Journal of Studies on Alcohol. 2004; 65 (1): 37-45.
4-U.S. Public Health Service Office on Women’s Health.
5-Tjaden P, Thoennes N. Full report of the prevalence, incidence, and consequences of violence against women: findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey. Washington (DC): U.S. Department of Justice; 2000b. Publication No. NCJ183781.
6-Ruggiero, K.J., & Kilpatrick, D.G.  Rape in Maryland: A Report to the State.  Charleston, SC: National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center, Medical University of South Carolina 2003.
7-Crime in Maryland-2005 Uniform Crime Report.