Pema Levy January 6, 2012, 5:33 PM

On Friday, the Justice Department did something it hasn’t done since 1929: it changed the definition of rape.

For over 80 years, for the purposes of crime collection data, rape was defined as forcible male penile penetration of a female. This excluded a vast number of sexual crimes including oral and anal penetration, or instances when a victim was unable to give consent. The new definition makes up for these oversights. It also expands the definition to reflect that anyone — male, female, or transgender — can be a victim of rape.

The Obama administration was closely involved with the change. The DOJ’s Office of Violence Against Women (OVW) worked closely with White House Advisor on Violence Against Women and the Office of the Vice President.

Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor to the president, told reporters that the previous definition generated numbers that gave an “incomplete” picture of the impact of sexual assaults around the county. Officials said they weren’t able to offer a prediction of how much of an increase they expect under the expanded definition.

Under the old definition, it was impossible for law enforcement and government to properly understand and address the issue. It also made it possible to ignore sexual crimes that didn’t fit the narrow definition. “It is not possible to manage - or improve
- what is not measured,” said Carol Tracy, director of the Women’s Law Project, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2010. “The lack of solid data about the incidence and disposition of rape and other sex crimes means we—as a society—do not really know how prevalent this violent crime is, how safe our citizens are, or how effective are the methods used to investigate and apprehend perpetrators.”

Under the new definition, the full picture of sex crimes in the country will come into focus slowly as data collection switches to the new definition over a few years. “We don’t know exactly how much this number will increase, I think that’s why this process over the next few years will be so important,” said White House Advisor on Violence Against Women Lynn Rosenthal. “To give an accurate number on that would be kind of a guess, so we don’t want to hazard a guess on that at this point,” said David Cuthbertson, FBI Assistant Director of the Criminal Justice Information Services Division.

The fact that the scope of what is taking place is so unknown simply underlines the fact that these changes are necessary. But it’s not hard to believe they will go up. Cities across the country have expanded the definition. Baltimore, which found its numbers jump the most, reported rapes rose nearly 70%.

Friday’s changes are the result of over a decade of work by women’s groups and advocates to change the definition, an effort taken up by the Women’s Law Project in after the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the Philadelphia Police Department had failed to investigate thousands of sex crimes.

Ryan J. Reilly contributed to this story.

Department of Justice, Obama administration, Valerie Jarrett