Victims reporting rape jumps 16% in New York City

Reported rapes are on the rise across the city this year - a spike fueled by more victims speaking out, advocates say.

The number of rape complaints was up about 16% through late June, the largest increase among the seven major crime categories.

"It doesn't mean that rape is up. It just means that those who were raped are now coming forward," said Carole Sher, director of the Beth Israel Rape Crisis and Domestic Violence Intervention Program.

"The fact that people are reporting rape more is really good because that also means that people are coming to emergency rooms and getting help," said Sher, who was among a group of advocates who urged the NYPD last year to train officers to treat rape victims with greater sensitivity.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly upgraded training and also directed detectives from the special victims unit, not patrol officers, to handle sex-crime complaints from the outset.

Still, some say the numbers are alarming.

"There just seem to be more and moreof these disgusting attacks on women,"said City Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Queens), chairman of the Public Safety Committee.

Vallone noted recent headline-grabbing crimes like the Memorial Day attack on an 85-year-old woman on the upper East Side. He argued that the increase in reported rapes through the first half of the year shows the NYPD needs more cops on patrol.

"It should scare the city into action," Vallone said.

There were 711 rape complaints citywide through June 26, compared with 613 at the same time last year. Rapes were up in all eight of the NYPD's patrol commands. None has seen a more dramatic increase than the Patrol Borough Manhattan South, where the 68 reported rapes reflect a 62% jump from the 42 during the same period last year.

Stuyvesant Town resident Eileen-Marie Looney, 42, said she had no idea the numbers were up so sharply in southern Manhattan - particularly in her local 13th Precinct, where there have been 11 rapes, compared with five last year.

"I thought this was a safe neighborhood," she said, noting she often walks home alone at night.

Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said random attacks in the city were the exception rather than the rule.

"If there is a glass-half-full aspect to it, it's the fact that in over 80% of the cases the victim knows her assailant," Browne said.

While reported rapes are up, serious crime overall is down 1% citywide, according to the NYPD. Murders were down about 5% as of late June - from 231 last year to 218 this year.

Subway crime was up about 11% through late June. Felony assaults and crime in public housing were both up about 8%. Robbery, burglary and grand larceny reports were all down slightly.

Browne said crime stats have a natural ebb and flow.

"New York City crime, once thought to have reached its lowest possible point in 2001, has declined 40% since then," he said.