Typical Rape Victim Called Poor, Young

The woman is likely to be unmarried, under 25, from a low-income family and away from her home. The attack will probably take place between 6 p.m. and midnight. The rapist is likely to be a stranger, unarmed and of the same race as the victim.

This profile of a typical rape emerged Sunday from an examination by the Bureau of Justice Statistics of rapes and rape attempts between 1973 and 1982. In that time, about 1.5 million females and an estimated 123,000 males were victims of such crimes.

“Rape is a brutal and terrifying crime, and both its prevalence and its consequences have been hidden from public view too long,” said Steven R. Schlesinger, director of the bureau, a unit of the Justice Department.

Only Half of Rapes Reported

Only about half of the rapes and attempted rapes were reported to police, the report said, basing the estimate on a semiannual survey that has been conducted for the bureau since 1973.

Victims who did not make reports said most commonly that it was too private or personal a matter, that they feared reprisals or that they did not believe anything could be done about it, according to the survey.

Lois Haight Herrington, an assistant attorney general who has led the Justice Department’s victims’ rights efforts, said the study showed that, “over a 10-year period, hundreds of thousands of rapes were not reported to the police . . . . Sexual assault victims would be more likely to report the crime if they did not fear becoming entangled in the morass of an insensitive criminal justice system.”

Although 81% of all victims were white, black women were significantly more likely to be attacked than whites, given their lower numbers in the population, the survey found.

‘Relatively Rare Crimes’

Schlesinger noted that, “for all their fearsome and brutal aspects,” rape and attempted rape “are relatively rare crimes compared with other violent crimes, such as robbery or assault.” Rapes acount for about 3% of all violent crimes.

Women in the 16-24 age group are the most likely victims of rape or attempted rape, the survey found. Women of that age group are two to three times more likely to become victims than all other women, it showed.

Rape by a stranger is twice as likely as rape by an acquaintance, the statistics bureau said. Less than 20% of the rapists were younger than 21, but about 75% of the younger attackers chose as victims females between 12 and 19, the survey found.

The report said it is “almost certain” that the national estimate of 1.5 million rapes and attempted rapes for 1973-1982 understates the total number. “Just as some women are reluctant to report rape to the police, others are reluctant to report the event to a survey interviewer,” the bureau said.