U.S. Rape Clearance Data (2014-2016)
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This data was collected as part of an investigation by Newsy, Reveal, and ProPublica into how police process rape cases. Newsy requested internal case management data for all Part I crimes (as defined by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program) from every major law enforcement agency in the United States serving a population of at least 300,000 people. The data provided in this download (analysis.csv) includes annual counts of total rape cases and number of clearances by type (arrest, unfounded, and exceptional) for each jurisdiction, as well as the columns in the data provided by the agencies that were used to distinguish rape cases from other crimes, to divide the data by reporting year and to tally case dispositions as either unfounded, cleared by arrest or cleared by exceptional means. (A complete description of the included fields is included below.)
- To create this data, the authors sent record requests to 103 law enforcement agencies and, as of initial publication, received data from 69 agencies. As of November 14, 2018, five agencies were excluded from the graphic due to accuracy concerns identified in the data provided by the agency (Oklahoma City PD, Maricopa County PD, Pittsburgh PD, El Paso PD and New York PD) but are still included in this data set. A copy of the request sent to each jurisdiction is included with the download (records_request.txt).
- The requests were for the years 2014 through 2016 and included the incident number of the offense, the date, the type of offense, whether it was unfounded, the date it was unfounded, the date it was cleared, the arrest date, the type of clearance and the reason for exceptional clearance if applicable. The authors parsed data from the FBI’s summary and NIBRS master files for the three years and calculated reported FBI clearance rates alongside the analysis of the internal data from each jurisdiction.
- Through the analysis the authors found that it was common for agencies to use a reporting category called “clearance by exceptional means” to mark rape cases as cleared without making an arrest, inflating the clearance rates that are often cited as a measure of police effectiveness. The FBI reporting system used by most agencies nationwide (summary UCR) does not distinguish between the two types of clearance. These data provide a window into how often these agencies are using exceptional means to clear rape cases, as well as the prevalence of unfounded rape reports for jurisdictions that do not report that total to the FBI. For most jurisdictions, they also provide the means for local journalists to request specific reports by case or incident number.
- Each agency was contacted in the course of reporting to discuss the correct interpretation of the data provided and users are encouraged to reach out to local agencies to gain an appropriate understanding of the limitations and caveats associated with each set of data. Questions about our interpretation of the data can be directed to mark.fahey@scripps.com .
- Upon request, Newsy can provide additional files containing additional data provided by each agency on rape cases. The columns are as provided with the exception of any column named “YEAR,” which was added when data were provided in separate files or tabs for each year, and any column starting with the letters “MF,” which are columns that were added in the course of processing the data. All of the files have been restricted to rape cases as defined in the analysis file and data dictionary, and in some cases fields have been dropped from the originals to remove personally identifiable information.
- To request information for one or more jurisdictions, please contact mark.fahey@scripps.com.
- See below for the agency and FBI ORI number associated with each file name.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Place | Stanford (Calif.) |
| Publisher | Big Local News |
| Date created | 2018 |
| Publication date | 2018 |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Principal investigator | Fahey, Mark | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Greenblatt, Mark | |
| Author | Jacoby, Kenny | |
| Author | Sagara, Eric | |
| Author | Yeung, Bernice | |
| Author | Big Local News | |
| Author | Newsy | |
| Author | ProPublica | |
| Author | Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting | |
| Author | Chou, Sophie |
Subjects
| Subject | Federal Bureau of Investigation |
|---|---|
| Subject | Crime |
| Subject | Law enforcement |
| Subject | Rape |
| Subject | Harassment |
| Subject | Sexual assault |
| Subject | Police |
| Subject | 2014-2016 |
| Genre | Dataset |
Bibliographic information
| Files |
|
|---|---|
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/ns801cg2606 |
| Repository | Stanford Digital Repository |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under an Open Data Commons Attribution License v1.0.
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- Fahey, Mark et al. (2018) U.S. Rape Clearance Data (2014-2016). Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/ns801cg2606
Collection
Big Local News
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- Contact
- cep3@stanford.edu
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