A Nationally Representative Examination of the Prevalence, Characteristics, and Consequences of Statutory Rape in the United States, 1997-2016 (ICPSR 39249)
Version Date: Jun 26, 2025 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Gary Sweeten, Arizona State University;
Matthew Larson, Wayne State University
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR39249.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
Statutory rape laws vary widely between U.S. states, making the measurement of its incidence in the broader U.S. population either impossible within contemporary datasets or too painstaking for researchers to pursue without support. To address this issue, this study examined the prevalence, characteristics, and consequences of statutory rape victimization and perpetration in the United States using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), and the U.S. Census Bureau's American Communities Survey (ACS). To establish an empirical foundation for the study of statutory rape, this study pursued the following key objectives:
- Estimate nationally representative rates of statutory rape victimization and perpetration in the United States using the NLSY97, focusing on a) age-graded rates of victimization, b) age-graded rates of perpetration, and c) risk factors for statutory rape victimization and perpetration.
- Assess situational differences between first sexual experiences that are statutory rape compared to those that are not, and assess the effectiveness of statutory rape laws across states with lax, moderate, and strict laws to affect teen sexual activity and victimization rates.
- Estimate the likelihood of women's statutory rape victimization being reported to police, using NIBRS data on women's victimization and men's perpetration.
- Assess the short and long-term consequences of statutory rape victimization based on a) the nature and characteristics of relationships between victims and perpetrators and b) the age difference between victims and perpetrators.
This collection includes the syntax files and data-map documentation needed to reproduce the data analysis conducted by this project, along with information describing the processes used to access NLSY97, NIBRS, and ACS data. Users should refer to the ICPSR README file for an inventory of all syntax and data-map files.
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None
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Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
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These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
The goal of this project was to determine rates of statutory rape in the broader U.S. population, identify the characteristics (age, sex, etc.) of victims and perpetrators, measure differences between self-reported statutory rape estimates (using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97)) and estimates from law enforcement data (using the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)), and understand the short and long-term consequences of statutory rape.
Study Design View help for Study Design
This project analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), and the U.S. Census Bureau's American Communities Survey (ACS).
NLSY97 is a nationally representative survey of 8984 adolescents born between 1980 and 1984 that began in 1997, was conducted yearly though 2011, and biennially from 2011 onward. The most recent release included 144,891 interviews across 19 waves of data (1997--2019). This project used several samples from NLSY97 during analysis: 1. the full NLSY97 sample (N=8984), with occasional listwise deletion due to missing data; 2. the full 1984 birth cohort (N=1771) subsample, who were 12-13 years old at the start of the study; and 3. the separated male (N=911) and female (N=860) subsamples of the 1984 cohort. These samples were used to conduct the following analyses:
Measurement of statutory rape: NLSY97 does not include direct reports of statutory rape victimization or perpetration, so researchers determined whether a report of sexual activity constituted statutory rape based on age of respondent, age of sexual partner, U.S. state in which sexual activity occurred, date of sexual activity, and applicable laws in that time/place. These factors were each used to code indicators of statutory rape for sexual incidents identified using NLSY97 data about sexual intercourse debut (asked in each wave until reported), most recent sexual intercourse (waves 4 through 9), first sexual intercourse and most recent sexual intercourse with current dating partner (waves 6 through 9), and household rosters including cohabiting partners. Indicators were then combined into a final indicator of statutory rape status for each report of sexual activity.
Characteristics of sexual debut: Respondents report several characteristics related to their first sexual activity, including relationship with first sexual partner, location of first sexual encounter, time of first sexual encounter, discussion of birth control prior to the encounter, and desire to become pregnant from the encounter. These details were used to analyze how relationship and situational characteristics of the first sexual encounter differ by statutory rape status.
Please refer to the file 'roadmap_statrape_nlsy97.docx' for additional information on this project's use of NLSY97 data.
NIBRS is the FBI's primary incident-based data reporting system for local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. NIBRS includes a wide range of data such as details about the time and location of offenses, whether offenses were attempted or completed, demographic characteristics of victims and offenders (and relationships between the parties), and other contextual information (i.e. offender gang-affiliation, involvement of drugs/alcohol).
This project accessed extract-files for 2004-2016 via ICPSR, beginning with 2004 as it was the first calendar year in which at least two states had more than 95% of policing agencies reporting their annual data to NIBRS. NIBRS data from 2004-2016 were merged to determine the prevalence of statutory rape victimization reporting among states that met this 95% threshold. After identifying all statutory rape cases within the time period, researchers applied age-specific criteria for victims and perpetrators to remove records that do not qualify as statutory rape under state laws. The final dataset included 15,700 incidents of statutory rape involving females, in eligible states, between 2004 and 2016. Please refer to the file 'NIBRS-Data map.docx' for additional information on this project's use of NIBRS data.
ACS provides yearly records of demographic, social, economic, and housing realities for the general U.S. population. This study used ACS age-graded population estimates in combination with NIBRS statutory rape victimization data to create age-graded statutory rape victimization prevalence rates. Please refer to the file 'NIBRS-Data map.docx' for additional information on this project's use of U.S. Census Bureau data.
Universe View help for Universe
Victims and perpetrators of statutory rape in the United States.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Source View help for Data Source
The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97)
The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS): Extract Files, 2004-2016, ICPSR
Notes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
This dataset is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), the criminal justice archive within ICPSR. NACJD is primarily sponsored by three agencies within the U.S. Department of Justice: the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.