The number of rapes reported to the police increased by 12 percent from 2014 to 2015, according to a new report from NCIS. The largest increase is in the number of internet-related sexual assaults and incidents of abuse being reported.
– We hope that this increase is solely because of more people choosing to report and not because of an increase in the number of rapes, Eivind Borge, head of the tactical investigation department in the Criminal Police, told VG news.
Last year, a total of 1,367 rapes were reported to the police. A large part of them are categorized as rapes committed at parties, but the category that increases the most is “other”. In a large number of this category of rapes, the victim and the perpetrator first made contact on the Internet.
– We are seeing an increase in the number of victims in these cases. The perpetrator often comes into contact with many people, and often the victims are young people. The sexual assaults or abuse then either takes place when they meet or through the Internet, Borge says.
1081 of the reported rapes in 2015 seem to divide into categories. Of them were 422 were committed at parties, 220 fell under the category”others”, 198 were committed inside a relationship, 144 were vulnerability rapes and 97 were assault rapes. There number of reports increased in all the categories, but the largest increases were in the category of vulnerability rapes (71.4 percent) and in the category “others” (76 percent).
Borge adds that although police encourage more people to report sexual assaults, he still thinks there might be a number of sexual assaults that go unreported.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
