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Sexual Violence Statistics

Every 68 seconds, someone in the United States is sexually assaulted.

On average, there are approximately 463,634 victims (age 12 or older) of sexual violence each year, and more than 63,000 children experience sexual abuse.

• Nearly 1 in 2 (44%) adult women and 1 in 4 adult men in the U.S. have experienced unwanted sexual contact in their lifetime.
• In a 2018 nationwide study, 81% of women and 43% of men reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment or assault in their lifetime.
• 1 in 3 women and 1 in 33 men in the U.S. have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime.

Stats About Reporting

• Two thirds of sexual assaults are never reported to law enforcement.
  • 16% of sexual assaults reported to law enforcement lead to arrest, and only 8% lead to a conviction.
• False reporting of sexual assault is low, with false reports accounting for 2% to 10% of all sexual assaults reported to law enforcement, the same rate as other violent crimes.

Stats About Perpetrators

• 8 in 10 reported instances of rape are committed by someone known to the victim.
  • 2 in 10 (39%) instances are perpetrated by an acquaintance.
  • 3 in 10 (33%) instances are perpetrated by a current or former intimate partner (spouse, partner, boyfriend, or girlfriend).
• Sexual harassment in a public setting is more often perpetrated by strangers, while physical sexual assault is more likely to be perpetrated by someone known to the victim.
• 93% of juvenile victims of sexual violence reporting sexual abuse to law enforcement know their perpetrators. 

Sexual violence has a disproportionate impact on people of color, immigrants, transgender people, people in the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, people between the ages of 12 and 34, women and girls, and people at the intersections of these identities.

People of Color

• 1 in 5 Black and African American women experience rape in their lifetime, with 1 in 10 experiencing rape as a teenager.
  • Only 1 of 15 Black and African American women who are sexually assaulted report to law enforcement.
• 1 in 4 Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women and 1 in 10 Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) men experience contact sexual violence in their lifetime.
• 1 in 2 American Indian and Alaska Native women and 1 in 4 men have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime.

LGBTQ Community

• Nearly 1 in 2 (47%) of transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming people have experienced sexual assault or rape in their lifetime.
  • Transgender people of color experience sexual violence at even higher rates. A national study of transgender people in this country showed American Indian (65%), multiracial (59%), Middle Eastern (58%) and Black (53%) respondents reported experiencing sexual violence in their lifetime.
• 40% of gay and 47% of bisexual men have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime, compared to 21% of heterosexual men.
• 3 in 4 bisexual women in the U.S. report experiencing sexual violence and 1 in 2 bisexual women report experiencing rape in their lifetime.

People with Disabilities

• 40% of women with disabilities report experiencing sexual assault in their lifetime.
• People with disabilities experience sexual violence at a rate 3 times as often as abled people.
  • 7 of 10 sexual assaults against people with disabilities are experienced by people with multiple disabilities.

Youth

• 1 in 3 female victims and 1 in 4 male victims of rape experience sexual violence for the first time between the ages of 11 and 17.
• More than 80% of women and girls who experience completed or attempted rape experience it before the age of 25.

Men

• Men who experience marginalization based on race, ethnicity, and sexuality, and men with disabilities are more likely to experience sexual violence than men who are not marginalized in this way.

Learn more about sexual violence or Domestic and Sexual Violence Services.

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