Chicago Tribune - 22 June '03

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Illinois sees big increase in rape 
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But total crimes dropped in '02 for 8th straight year

By David Heinzmann and Darnell Little, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune 
staff reporters Virginia Groark and Aamer Madhani contributed to this report

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

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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