Free Essay: Statistical Analysis on Sexual Assault

Sexual assault refers to an act of touching another person sexually without their consent. It may also be defined as when a person engages another in sexual acts as opposed to their will. There are many forms of sexual assault, like rape, attempted rape, and threats. Sexual assault is said to affect millions of individuals worldwide. Individuals in the age group of 12 to 34 years are the people who suffer most from the assault (Elliott & Fagan, 2017). However, the female demographic experiences higher rates of assaults than males. Different measures and strategies are put in place by various governments to deter and reduce crimes like those of sexual assault. These crimes need to be controlled since they affect society and individuals significantly. The study focuses on the various activities that different states of the USA implement to ensure sexual assault crimes go down. California, Texas, and Florida are the states under study.

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There are various types of sexual assaults, including child abuse, domestic violence, elderly assault, groping, rape, sexual harassment, and mass assault. Child abuse refers to cases where the victim of the assault is a child of 12 years and below (Newton, 1978). Domestic violence is an assault that occurs in a domestic setting like in cohabitation or marriage. Elderly assaults are when individuals of more than 60 years happen to be the victims (Elliott & Fagan, 2017). Grouping is when an individual fond or touches another without their consent. Rape is the act of engaging sexually with an individual forcefully. Sexual harassment refers to instances where an individual coerces, intimidate, or bulls another sexually, and lastly, we have the mass assault, which is when women get assaulted publicly by men. Concerning the victimization survey conducted by the national justice department, every 2 minutes, an individual in the USA gets assaulted sexually (Newton, 1978). A mean of 237868 victims of sexual assault gets reported each year (Newton, 1978).

According to the United Nations Office on drugs crime statistics taken from 2003 to 2011, per 100,000 individuals, women were the most affected individual (Newton, 1978). 15 to 20% of women in the US as of June 2020 (Newton, 1978). The prevalence rate in 1995 and 2007 was 17.6% and 18%, respectively (Newton, 1978). According to the statistics collected from 2005-2010 by Bureau of justice, the approximated annual figures rates of female assaults got reported to have declined by 58% i.e., from 5 victims to 2 per 1000 of the females aged between 12 and order and 11 to 4 in 1000 for those aged below 1 (Newton, 1978). According to UCR (Uniform Crime Report) of 2018, 127,258 rape cases had been reported to the police (Newton, 1978).

According to the educational statistics of the National Center, approximately olny15% of the USA population has individuals with 14 to 24 years (Newton, 1978). The figures only imply that the more population is of the adults. However, most of the offenders are adults. According to a study conducted in 2010 by the disease control centers, one in five women and one in 71 men had a rape attempted in their lifetime (Newton, 1978). California is the primary populated US state with a population size of 39,747,267 individuals. It makes up approximately 12% of the whole US population (Newton, 1978). In California State, sexual assault for men is ten percent and five percent in females higher than that of the United States' average. It is according to GHE (Gender Equity and Health). As of 2018, California marked the State with the highest number of sexual assault cases.

According to the research Statista department, the reported cases were 15,505 (Greenwood, 2008). The high figures have been contributed by its high population of 39,747,267 (Greenwood, 2008). Despite being highly populated, the rate per 100,000 seems a bit low (Greenwood, 2008). Texas is the second largest State in terms of area, the first being Alaska. As of 2010, the Texas population was 25.1 million people (Greenwood, 2008). It is ranked position three in the nation due to its slow growth rate. In 2019, its population increased to 29,087,070, placing it at position two (Greenwood, 2008). In 2018, the estimated number of sexual assault cases get reported to be 14,693 (Greenwood, 2008). Florida gets rated as the third populous State in the US, with figures as in 2019 being 21,646,155 (Greenwood, 2008). Assault cases in 2018 got approximated to be 8438 (Greenwood, 2008). It is incredible how Alaska got named the State with high rates of assaults i.e., 80 per 100,000, despite its small population (Greenwood, 2008).

However, various questions like what is the correlation between the population and rate per 100,000? Why is a State like California with the highest population outnumbered by Alaska in terms of the rate of crimes, yet it is the least populated? FBI crime report estimates, the rate of sexual assault reported in California, Florida, and Texas per 100,000 is 20.6, 27.2, and 29.6, respectively (Greenwood, 2008). As per the data, Texas has the highest rate of sexual assaults, followed by Florida and, lastly, California. Differences in definitions and survey samples of the sexual assaults contributed to those figures. The 20th-century history deterrence theory got applied in crime prevention, but the methods got found ineffective. However, that has changed in the recent century proving the strategies more practical and applicable in crime prevention.

There are various prevention approaches, procedures, strategies, and practices that may get employed for sexual assault crime. They include; community policing, tutoring, and mentoring (Greenwood, 2008). The named methods may get applied in various ways. The applied practice gets said to be effective if and only if it proves to minimize crime cases. An effective prevention policy is supposed to have an impact on a large population that gets not directed to just a few individuals. For instance, a policy can affect every citizen in a country or even the youth attending school.

The State, federal government, or the local decision-makers are responsible for enacting the policies (Elliott & Fagan, 2017). Policies take the form of laws or regulations that get used to governing the behavior of a specific population. For instance, rules against women's violation or sexual assault restrict those kinds of behaviors, and individuals fear violating them since there comes with a consequence of breaking them. Thus, regulations and laws can be applied to curb crimes like sexual assault. To ensure the processes used targets the risk and aid in preventing a crime like sexual assault, an evaluation is needed to make sure it plays the intended role. Moderator effects also need to be determined, such as poverty, race, and sex. These factors contribute much to the strength or direction of intervention. For instance, if poverty is pushing individuals to commit sexual assaults, job opportunities may be created to minimize the crimes among the youth.

There are both long and short term effects on crime prevention. For instance, prisoners get offered opportunists to join various programs during prison so that when they get out, they will have an activity to keep them busy all day; thus, there will be no time of thinking about going committing crimes to get money. Inmates will also gain experience that will enable them to secure jobs when they get out of prisons. Another intervention applied is organizing for social programs where the affected group gets urged to join them where they get couched on how to live right (Newton, 1978). Workshops and presentations may also get used to educate the affected demographic on the dangers they are exposing to their bodies like acquiring incurable diseases like HIV, among other sexual illness. Educators should, however, be cautious about the type of practice they set to minimize a particular crime like sexual assault. The methods but work out to encourage others to observe them.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it is evident that sexual assault crime is an issue in all states, and thus, proper strategies need to get implemented to help curb such crimes. Various practices like the use of regulations and laws that restrict certain groups from doing a particular act that gets thought to be a crime help minimize the crime rate. Other methods include offering programs and jobs to ensure everyone gets equipped with the effects and consequences of committing it.

References

Elliott, D., & Fagan, A. (2017). The prevention of crime. John Wiley & Sons.

https://ashfordcollege.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118843604/cfi/6/8!/4/2/2/4/2@0:0

Greenwood, P. W. (2008). Changing lives: Delinquency prevention as a crime-control policy. University of Chicago Press. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Greenwood/publication/37693160_Changing_Lives_Delinquency_Prevention_as_Crime-Control_Policy/links/5692bdb608aed0aed816a18a.pdf

Newton, A. (1978). Prevention of crime and delinquency. National Council on Crime and Delinquency. https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=50431