Skeptical of Statistics

Hotline phones keep ringing at the Rape Treatment Center in Santa Monica. Counseling sessions for rape survivors fill up quickly. Traumatized women, many just hours after being sexually violated, continue showing up at the hospital emergency room just down the corridor from the center.

Recently released FBI crime statistics indicate that the number of forcible rapes nationally and locally has declined along with homicides and robberies. Rapes in Los Angeles alone were down in 1996, almost 8% from the year before.

But here at Los Angeles County’s largest rape treatment center--as at many levels of everyday life in Southern California--there is considerable skepticism that declining statistics reflect a safer world.

“I don’t think anyone who works as a rape victim service provider is seeing or reporting a significant decrease in the volume of cases,” said Gail Abarbanel, the founder and director of the Santa Monica center.

“The statistics are not an accurate reflection of the rape and other forms of sexual assault that are happening every day in our community.”

As authorities around Los Angeles and the rest of the country rejoice at the latest FBI findings, including an 11.6% decrease in overall serious crimes in 1996, Abarbanel has a message: Hold off on the celebrating.

*

Rape statistics have never been very reliable because the vast majority of victims never report the crime, Abarbanel said. What’s more, the rapes that are reported are overwhelmingly committed by strangers, which studies show account for only 20% of all rapes. While “acquaintance rape” is far more prevalent, it accounts for only 30% to 40% of the cases reported.

So work at this center, where many rape victims first turn for help, proceeds apace.

Every year, the center’s hotline receives 1,000 new calls. In between, the center’s 25 staffers design and teach prevention lessons for high schools and awareness programs for college campuses, offer training courses for law enforcement professionals and churn out publications.

The workday is long, often stretching beyond 12 hours. The center, at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, is staffed 24 hours a day for calls, emergency medical help and other types of assistance.

“It never seems to stop,” Abarbanel said.

Since Monday, the day the FBI crime statistics were released, the center has had at least one emergency room patient each day.

Also this week, during a program at a San Fernando Valley high school, 22 teenagers out of 112 participating 10th-graders asked the center instructors for individual counseling.

Abarbanel soberly monitors the daily requests for help. When she’s not attending to those in crisis, she tries to look ahead. One day’s tasks were as follows: Conduct a production meeting for a video for high school students, gear up for this month’s police and prosecutor training sessions, work on the annual fall fund-raiser, design a TV public service announcement and go over a flier campaign alerting college women to the dangers of the so-called rape drugs, Rohypnol and GHB.

The idea for the fliers--catchy, bright and glossy, one in cartoon form--came after the center began logging seven or eight calls each month from women who thought they had been drugged and then sexually assaulted.

“Rapists have a new weapon,” the fliers read. “Dosing drinks with drugs like Ruffies or GHB. Which can take away your ability to fight back. And your memory of what was done to you. Watch your drink. It’s your best defense.”

According to the FBI statistics, the number of reported rapes for Los Angeles County cities with at least 100,000 residents is down overall 5.5% from 1995. However, West Covina and Palmdale had no change in their number, and in Downey, El Monte, Lancaster, Norwalk and Torrance the number of reported rapes went up.

Abarbanel wondered aloud whether those numbers matter.

*

Back in the 1970s and ‘80s, rape crisis workers had to convince cities and college campuses that an increase in the number of reported rapes was a positive sign. Rather than indicating an increase in rapes, higher numbers probably meant that victims felt comfortable enough to come forward, they said.

Some recent high-profile rape cases that have ended in acquittal of the defendants and critical examination of their accusers--such as the William Kennedy Smith case in Florida--might have dissuaded some women from reporting, Abarbanel suggested.

She acknowledged that rapes by strangers probably have declined along with other violent crimes. More women than ever report this type of rape, and prosecutors are most likely to pursue charges in these cases, she said. Once convicted, she added, the rapists face longer sentences.

But acquaintance rape remains such a sensitive subject that there is no way to tell whether there has been a significant decline, Abarbanel said.

And women, like potential victims of other crimes, are not feeling safer--often because of reasons not reflected in declining crime rates, she said.

She sees signs of hope: A majority of bigger cities now have treatment centers. Most hospitals have humane and helpful guidelines for treating rape victims, most police departments have special sexual assault units, and most prosecutors are trained to better prosecute the crime.

Most important, rape victims are treated better, she said.

But those improvements have more to do with what happens after a rape is committed than in bringing down the number of rapes.

“It’s good news if the crime rate is going down in general,” Abarbanel said. “But it’s a national shame that rape is still so prevalent.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Forcible Rape

The number of forcible rapes declined last year in Los Angeles but increased in some other L.A. County cities with populations of at least 100,000, according to FBI statistics.

*--*

City 1995 1996 Burbank 20 19 Downey 19 33 El Monte 33 43 Glendale 22 16 Inglewood 60 61 Lancaster 49 58 Long Beach 171 158 Los Angeles 1,590 1,463 Norwalk 23 26 Palmdale 38 38 Pasadena 53 40 Pomona 59 47 Santa Clarita 28 19 Torrance 10 31 West Covina 24 24

*--*