FOI Ref: FOI/2022/3913
You asked
Please can you under the freedom of information act provide statistical data of rape incidents in the last 30 years, for England and Wales in the categories listed below.
1. Please can you provide the age ranges of perpetrators and victims for Men, Women and Transgender Year on year.
2. The statistics for rapes and attempted rapes year on year by Sex, Male-Female, Female-Male, Female-Female, Male-Male, Transgender M&F-Female and Transgender M&F -Male.
3. The statistics for ethnicity of Perpetrators and Victims year on year.
4. If known, please can you provide the education level of Perpetrators and Victims.
5. Economic affluence of Perpetrators.
6. Place of Birth of Perpetrators and victims.
7. Statistics of perpetrators that commit rape that are of non UK Birth, but UK passport holders
8. Employment status of Perpetrators
9. Statistics of where the concentrations of incidents are being committed.
10. The number of false claims by Women, Men or Trans.
11. Statistics of Rapes committed by criminals known to the police foreign and domestic.
12. The number of rapes each year committed or attempted.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
Unfortunately, we only hold some of the data that you have requested. Our publications and data predominantly concern crime as it is experienced by victims, or as it is recorded by police. We do not generally produce or hold statistics with such detailed information on perpetrator characteristics.
In reference to your individual data requests: We have published data on the number of rape offences recorded by the police year on year between 2002 and 2021 in Crime in England and Wales: Appendix tables in Table A4. These data contain information on sex (male/female) and age of the victim. This is published alongside our quarterly Crime in England and Wales Statistical bulletin.
However, sexual offences recorded by the police do not provide a reliable measure of trends in these types of crime. Improvements in police recording practices and increased reporting by victims have contributed to increases in recent years, although this effect is thought to be diminishing.
The CSEW provides reliable estimates of the prevalence of sexual assaults using a consistent methodology that is not affected by changes in recording practices and police activity or by changes in the propensity of victims to report to the police.
The Sexual offences prevalence and victim characteristics, England and Wales tables present data on prevalence of sexual assaults, including rape, from year ending March 2005 to year ending March 2020 by sex of victim (see Table 3b). Table 5: Percentage of adults aged 16 to 74 who were victims of sexual assault in the last year, by personal characteristics and sex, year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020 CSEW combined - includes detailed information on rape victim characteristics including ethnicity, country of birth, marital status, employment status, occupation, highest qualification, disability, religion and sexual orientation. Although gender identity questions were added to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) on 1 October 2019, the sample size of those who identified as transgender was insufficient to present data on prevalence of sexual assault in Table 5.
Similar data is not held about perpetrators of rape. However, the Nature of sexual assault by rape or penetration, England and Wales Tables 3 and 4 do provide more detailed breakdowns of age and sex of perpetrators of rape or sexual assault by penetration. You may also be interested in our previous article Sexual offending: victimisation and the path through the criminal justice system.
The Crime in England and Wales: Police Force Area data tables and Community Safety Partnership area tables provides data on the number of sexual offences at a sub-national level, by police force area and community safety partnership area (which roughly equates to local authority level).
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) are primarily responsible for and hold data on convictions and offenders. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) publish Statistics each quarter which may be of help to you. Alternatively, you can contact them directly to enquire about the data you need at ESD@justice.gov.uk.
We do not hold any statistics relating to the number of recorded false allegations of rape. It is possible that the Home Office may hold the statistics you require, but they will be best to advise you on this. They can be contacted at CrimeandPoliceStats@homeoffice.gov.uk.
If you have any other crime-related queries in the future, you can email crimestatistics@ons.gov.uk.