According to Department of Justice statistics cited by Rebecca Solnit, police and prosecutors drop the ball on 87 percent of rapes reported to them.
According to Department of Justice statistics cited by Rebecca Solnit, police and prosecutors drop the ball on 87 percent of rapes reported to them. Africa Studio/Shutterstock

Mad about Brock Allen Turner’s sentencing?

Read this from Rebecca Solnit:

According to a more recent Bureau of Justice Statistics report, an estimated 211,200 rapes and sexual assaults went unreported between 2006 and 2010—211,200 rapes each year. Women were more than twice as likely as men not to report to police because “they were afraid of reprisal or getting the offender in trouble.”

That much isn’t surprising: Between 2005 and 2010, an estimated 78 percent of sexual violence against women came from a family member, intimate partner, friend, or acquaintance.

Solnit’s statistics come from an older DOJ report, but let’s work with it. Of the 17 percent of rapes even reported to police (by the DOJ’s calculations), less than half resulted in arrests, and less than 13 percent of reports resulted in convictions.

If we take these stats at face value, that means that even after rape victims report to the police (which can be an entire ordeal on its own), police and prosecutors drop the ball somewhere along the process more than 87 percent of the time.

You may have read that Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky, whose name is now synonymous with rape apologia, is facing a recall campaign because of the Turner sentencing. But if these statistics are true, judges everywhere should be scared. Prosecuting attorneys and police departments, too.