Even as major crime dropped across Illinois for an unprecedented eighth year in a row, reports of rape spiked, reaching levels not seen since the mid-1990s in some parts of the state, according to new figures to be released Sunday.
The increase was particularly large in Chicago’s suburbs, where the number of sexual assaults reported to police rose more than 10 percent in 2002. Nationally, reports of rape also are up.
But police and experts who help rape victims said the rise does not necessarily mean more rapes are occurring. It also could signal that victims are more willing to step forward, they said.
Most other types of major crime–from murder to car theft–declined across the state, according to the Illinois State Police’s annual “Crime in Illinois” report. In Chicago, 2.8 percent fewer crimes were reported to police, including a slight drop in sexual assaults. Statewide, reports of crime declined 1.5 percent.
Though crime declined modestly, the number of arrests dropped more sharply. In Illinois, police made 5.6 percent fewer arrests for major crimes in 2002, the figures showed. In Chicago, arrests dropped by 13.8 percent.
The reason for the drop is not clear, but one explanation might be that as police devote more resources to homeland security duties during a time of tight budgets, fewer resources are available to investigate less serious crimes, experts said.
The state police issue the “Crime in Illinois” report each year, using data from local police agencies. Across the state, violent crime dropped by 1.3 percent, while property crime dropped by 1.6 percent, according to the report.
Since 1994, the first year before the current eight-year run of declining crime, the number of serious crimes reported to police has fallen by 22.2 percent. The sum hit 518,404 in 2002; it was 666,492 in 1994.
Nationwide, reports of crime barely changed, with 0.2 percent fewer major crimes in 2002 than in 2001, according to FBI figures released last week. Though the number of murders fell by 3.4 percent in Illinois, there was a slight 0.8 percent increase nationally.
Reports of rape increased broadly, however. The FBI reported 4 percent more rapes nationally, while Illinois State Police reported a 5.8 percent increase statewide.
The 4,074 rapes reported in Illinois outside of Chicago is the highest total since 1997, when there were 4,094.
`A sign of the times’
The last time suburban Cook County had a higher number of reported sexual assaults than last year’s 708 was in 1995, when there were 714. In the collar counties, there were 773 sexual assaults last year, the highest since a reported 844 in 1994.
“I think that is a sign of the times,” said Sean Black, communications coordinator for the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault. “People are reporting to police more.”
Years of efforts to increase services for rape victims have transformed the way the crime is perceived, experts said. Victims today are much more likely to step forward, they said.
Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, for example, has a sexual-assault nurse examiner program. It provides 24-hour on-call assistance for victims of sexual assault. If a rape victim comes in, the nurse examiners–all of them women–not only will conduct a pelvic examination, but they also are trained to talk about legal issues.
“Our numbers are increasing every year,” said Sharron Chivari, a certified sexual-assault nurse examiner at Central DuPage Hospital. “The trend has been over the years that each year, it seems like more and more people are stepping forward to press charges.”
Yet Chivari said she believes the rising statistics are not solely because of more victims stepping forward. She said she believes incidents of rape also are increasing.
Indeed, the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault estimates that no more than 30 percent of sexual assault victims report the crime, Black said. The organization oversees 32 sexual-assault crisis centers across the state.
Though the state reported 6,037 sexual assaults in 2002, the coalition took calls from more than 20,000 last year who sought help after being raped, Black said.
The trend was not evident in Chicago, where reports of sexual assault declined by 0.7 percent. Chicago police said they had not analyzed the numbers and did not know why the city’s report was out of step with the rest of the state.
The uncertainty over the rape numbers is not unusual when it comes to crime statistics. Law-enforcement officials and some experts said they are leery of relying on the statistics, because there are often errors and inconsistencies in the reports from police agencies.
Statistics draw skeptics
“I simply don’t believe the veracity of these reports,” said John Galliher, professor of criminology at the University of Missouri at Columbia. “In the case of homicides and auto theft, there isn’t much room for interpretation, but in the other categories, the authorities have a lot of room to make the statistics say what they need them to say.”
Galliher said the numbers provided by police departments go through minimal auditing, and there is much opportunity for massaging the statistics.
Officials acknowledge the numbers can sometimes be flawed. Illinois State Police have had trouble in past years computing crime rates based on population figures. They now use 2000 U.S. census data, which may skew crime rate information in areas that have seen rapid population change in the last two years.
Uncertainty also has swirled around the decline in the number of arrests in 2002.
The declines varied, but those in Chicago and Cook County were steep. In Cook County, crime dropped 2.4 percent, while arrests dropped 10.4 percent. The 13.8 percent decline in arrests in Chicago far outpaced the 2.8 percent drop in crime.
“Deployment for major events [such as war protests] could be one of the factors,” said David Bayless, a Chicago police spokesman.
Yet without doing a thorough analysis, experts said it would be difficult to make much of the disparity.
“It may reflect a resource problem, meaning the police are solving a lower percentage of cases,” said Joseph L. Peterson, professor of criminal justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “Or, there could be a different mix of offenses, like more property crimes, which are inherently more difficult to solve.”
Hate crimes down sharply
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One bright note in the annual report was a hefty decline in hate crimes in 2002, after a 2001 increase that law-enforcement officials attributed to anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiments in the months immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Statewide, there were seven reports of “anti-Arab” hate crimes and three reports of “anti-Islamic” hate crimes in 2002, down from 49 anti-Arab crimes and 10 anti-Muslim crimes in 2001.
Law-enforcement officials and experts said they believe the downward trend in overall reports of crime is tied directly to the performance of the economy.
As the economy softened in recent years, the decreases in crime came in smaller increments. Crime dropped 7.7 percent across the state in 1999. The drop was less than 4 percent in 2000. Each year’s drop has been slightly smaller.
For law-enforcement officials, the trend suggests more crime.
“If the economy doesn’t start getting better, you’re going to see more people breaking into pop machines and other crimes to get money,” said Morris Police Chief Douglas Hayse, president of the Illinois Chiefs of Police Association.
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Overall crime in Illinois keeps declining
The number of reported crimes in Illinois continues to drop, falling 1.5 percent from 2001 to 2002 and almost 24 percent since 1990.
REPORTED CRIMES
1990: 680,393
2001: 526,475
2002: 518,404 (41.7 per 1,000 people)
Source: Annual published reports from Illinois State Police
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– See microfilm for complete graphic.
Criminal sexual assaults up, murders down
Murders in Illinois declined by 3.4 percent in 2002 while criminal sexual assaults rose by 5.8 percent.
%% City of Remainder of Remainder of State total
Chicago six-county area Illinois
CRIMINAL SEXUAL ASSAULTS
1998 2,387 1,299 2,514 6,200
1999 2,469 1,317 2,500 6,286
2000 2,001 1,315 2,372 5,688
2001 1,976 1,336 2,395 5,707
2002 1,963 1,481 2,593 6,037
MURDERS
1998 702 137 178 1,017
1999 641 126 172 939
2000 631 126 141 898
2001 665 149 168 982
2002 648 144 157 949
%% Note: Criminal sexual assaults may be up due to increased reporting.
Source: Annual published reports from Illinois State Police
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State hate crimes drop 50 percent since 1998
Despite a spike in hate crimes motivated by ethnicity and national origin in 2001, hate crimes of all categories declined sharply in 2002.
%%
HATE CRIMES BY MOTIVATION IN ILLINOIS
YEAR RACIAL SEXUAL ETHNICITY/ RELIGIOUS GENDER/AGE/ TOTAL
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ORIENTATION NATIONAL HANDICAP
ORIGIN
1998 269 63 32 24 10 398
1999 235 45 25 34 8 347
2000 129 55 33 21 1 239
2001 146 51 75 45 6 323
2002 107 41 13 36 2 199
%% Note: A hate crime is committed when, by reason of the actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, or national origin of another individual or group of individuals, a person commits assault, battery, aggravated assault, misdemeanor theft, criminal trespass to residence, misdemeanor criminal damage to property, criminal trespass to vehicle, criminal trespass to real property, mob action or disorderly conduct.
Source: Annual published reports from Illinois State Police
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