What is Fulton County’s real sexual assault rate?
Authorities have long known that rapes are under-counted because most victims never seek help from police.
But an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found another reason that police data on sexual assaults doesn't reflect the real threat.
Grady Memorial Hospital didn’t tell law enforcement about many sexual assaults cases treated there.
The hospital houses the sole rape crisis center for Fulton's nearly 1 million residents, yet despite state law, officials don't treat reporting possible sex crimes to police as mandatory, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found. Evidence in about 1,500 sexual assault cases seen at the hospital since 2000 was not turned over to law enforcement. You can read more about the investigation here.
Without a full count from Grady, police agencies in Fulton County reported 221 rapes in 2013, the latest year for which data is available.
However, there’s yet another reason that’s an undercount. Fulton’s figures also excluded untold cases that do not fit an arcane and outdated definition of “rape.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which collects crime statistics nationwide, until recently did not include in the count a long list of sexual offenses, including sex crimes against men and incidents that were not deemed “forcible.” While the FBI switched to a new definition in 2013 that includes these crimes, Fulton stuck to the old method. Jurisdictions across the nation are still adjusting to the FBI’s new rules.
Preliminary statistics for January through June of 2014 still use the legacy definition of rape. For Atlanta, 74 rapes were reported in that period, compared with 52 for the same period in 2013. Countywide counts are not available.
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