Rape

I pick up the East Villager each week to read about my neighborhood.  It has a section called the Police Blotter in which some of the crimes in the area are listed.  Almost every week there is a report of a rape.

This week a man was seen raping a woman inside a bank's ATM.  He punched her in the face so hard she was knocked unconscious.  This was at Broadway and 9th Street at 8 PM, a very busy area at a very busy time and a very public space.  Passersby called 911 and he was apprehended.
There were 28 rapes in NYC last week.  So far this year there have been 241 rapes.  Last year at this time there were 239.  There were 1421 women raped in NYC last year.  Now I understand why so many people have dogs.  I will never complain about a woman taking her dog where ever she goes.
In the old days, that being the 1960s, people talked of legalizing prostitution.  The belief then was that  it would curtail rapes.  It was theorized that men needed sex and that rape was a symptom of a repressed society.
Currently, a NYC police officer is on trial for rape.  This is a new case.  In the other one the two police officers  were found not guilty because the young woman was too intoxicated to remember the details accurately.  This incident is of a young teacher who went to meet her principal so she could get a ride to work.  While she was waiting outside his building at 6AM the police officer, after a night of drinking and with the use of his gun, forced her into an alley and raped her.  Neighbors witnessed it and called the police.  According to his cell phone records he had called a number of escort services but did not get a response.  People will suppose if he had gotten a response the rape would not have occurred.  That it was because of sexual frustration and alcohol.  I wonder.
A number of countries have legalized prostitution.  Some statistics from the UN.
But first this: professionals say "no other major category of crime - not murder, assault or robbery - has generated a more serious challenge of the credibility of national crime statistics" than rape.  With that in mind, here are the statistics.
Per 100,000 population:
Belgium                 29.5
Chile                     11.9
Denmark                7.3
France                  16.4
Iceland                 28.2
New Zealand       31.3
Sweden               46.6
USA                    29.3


US Cities per 100,000:
Anchorage                   90.9
Cleveland                     80.0
Colorado Springs         80.2
Minneapolis               113.6
St. Paul                        65.1
NYC                         1,036

Is it alcohol drinking, sexual frustration?   
Maybe.  If you think a man can't control himself.  Maybe.  If you think all this talk on the Republican Campaign trail about contraceptives is an aberration.  Maybe.  If you think like Gingrich that "Women need to put an aspirin between their legs" is funny.  Maybe.  If your orthodoxy thinks women should be fully covered.

Good news: Crime rates are down in the US.  Theorists believe it may be due to two factors, abortion.  The unwanted that would become the abused and unloved are less likely to be born.  The other factor: the removal of lead in paint.
But better news would be a shift in power. Civil Rights Laws have helped a number of groups.
And it's not all men on women rape.  Some rape boys.  
Maybe, instead of having bicycles around the city for general use we should have German shepherds available as escorts.