SEX CRIMES IN NEW MEXICO

THE NEW MEXICO INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE DATA CENTRAL REPOSITORY AND THE SURVEY OF VIOLENCE VICTIMIZATION IN NEW MEXICO 2005

• The survey identified 8,027 victims of rape or attempted rape in 2005 of which 5,320 were victims of completed rapes. In the same time period, only 1400 incidents of rape were reported to law enforcement throughout the state. (17%)
• The most startling revelation was the prevalence of incapacitated rape (unwanted, non-consensual sex when a person is very high, drunk or passed out). 43% of rape victims experienced an incapacitated rape in their lifetime.
• Only 6% of male rape victims reported their rapes to police. Six times more males than females report that they want the police to take their complaint more seriously, believe them and not laugh at them. To make matters worse, male victims of rape are only half as likely as female victims to be referred to services.
• Most female rape victims who do not report to police say it is because they were too young/a child; feared the offender/afraid offender would get even; and felt shame/embarrassment or thought it was their fault.
• Determining the rates of these crimes that were never reported to law enforcement was not possible.
• Males are the offenders in approximately 85% of sexual assaults. This is true even when the victim is male.
• Male and female victims of sexual assault are two times more likely to suffer from a serious disabling injury and approximately six times more likely to suffer from one or more chronic mental health conditions in their lifetime than those who are not victimized. This was the first glance at health outcomes associated with sexual assault.
• 88% convicted/guilty. Sentenced to Prison/Jail
• Average length sentence for rape conviction-62.5 months
• Over half (54%) of male rape victims were raped as children (ages <13) compared to 44% of females who were raped as children
  

Implications for Prevention

• There needs to be a concerted effort to better identify rape victims by focusing on why they do not report. Most males in the statewide survey did not report because they considered the rape to be too minor or not a crime, while females feared their offender or felt shame.
• Interventions focused on preventing incapacitated rape should be a primary goal among statewide prevention programs. Female victims experienced incapacitated rapes most as adolescents (39%) and children (31%). Adult females experienced 29% of the incapacitated rapes. Males experienced incapacitated rapes as adults (43%) and adolescents (40%).
• Until more prevention programs target males as the focus of their interventions, little will be accomplished to reduce the incidence of rape and sex crimes, overall.
• Offenders are overwhelmingly adults; therefore, more prevention should be focused on working with adults, and especially male adults, to stop sexual assault and abuse.
• What is it that makes male Hispanic children (68%) dramatically more susceptible to rape compared to male children of other races/ethnicities? The prevention implication is unclear but the need to study this issue is most evident.
• The primary perpetrators of the sexual abuse of children are chiefly father, step-fathers, uncles, cousins and brothers.
• Prevention programs should be two-fold:
  1. Prevention aimed at helping a child guard against family members as perpetrators and what to do in the event of sexual abuse by a family member

  2. Prevention aimed at helping the family members examine their own sexual behaviors and boundaries, identify healthy and unhealthy sexual behaviors/practices by relatives (and others that their children may come into contact with), learn how to protect their children from sexual abuse by relatives (and others) and access available resources.
     

Implications for Law Enforcement

• Law enforcement codes restrict the types of penetration crimes captured and do not capture incidents of incapacitated rape (43% of the rapes identified by the survey). To this end, much consideration should be made by law enforcement and the FBI which guides law enforcement, to expand the types of criminal sexual penetration captured to include more types of penetration, especially incapacitated rape.
•  Both male and female rape victims from the statewide survey reported being dissatisfied, most very dissatisfied with the law enforcement response to their complaint. The most common reason given for their dissatisfaction was that they wanted the police to charge/arrest the offender or keep the offender locked up and to take a report and follow through with an investigation, to question the offender.

Implications for Healthcare

• Slightly over one-quarter of rape victims are injured during their rape incidents, and approximately one-third of these go for medical treatment.
• No standardized monitoring system currently exists to reliably document the number of rape victims that go to emergency departments or doctor’s offices as a sexual assault.
• Twice as many rape victims as non-victims suffer from serious disabling injury and approximately six times as many rape victims as non-victims suffer from one or more chronic mental health conditions.
• Without identifying these patients, it is impossible to determine healthcare utilization due to sexual assault or to more effectively treat these patients by offering them appropriate referral services.
• The implication to improve public health is to consider the need for universal screening for lifetime exposure to sexual assault and other forms of violence.
  

Number of sex crimes reported to law enforcement