MANHATTAN, N.Y. — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, in a New York Daily News op-ed titled “Prosecuting Sexual Assault for What It Is, Rape,” addressed the persistent misconceptions about sexual violence and detailed his office’s work in prosecuting such cases. He described the realities of rape and sexual assault, urging the public to understand the crime beyond the limited depictions often seen in media coverage.
Bragg opened his piece by highlighting the disparity in which sex crimes receive the most attention. “Too frequently, sex crimes are only covered if they involve a celebrity, or if they conjure the deep-seated horror of a random attack by a stranger who jumps from the shadows,” he wrote.
He noted that sexual violence committed by strangers accounts for only a small percentage of reported cases. Bragg argued that a lack of coverage of other forms of sexual violence contributes to survivors’ hesitation to come forward, which fuels chronic underreporting.
According to 2015 data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics cited by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, “Rape is the most under-reported crime; 63% of sexual assaults are not reported to police.”
Bragg pointed out that sexual assault and rape are most often committed by someone the survivor knows. “Sometimes that means an acquaintance or their current/former dating partner,” he said. “And this is why when I created the Manhattan district attorney office’s first Special Victims Division, we combined our sex crimes and domestic violence practices into one Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Bureau.”
The Palomar College Police Department corroborates this reality: “Statistics show that over 70% of rapes are committed by someone the victim knows. Sometimes the victim has only met the rapist casually. Other times the rapist is well known to the victim. Most of these rapes occur in the victim’s own home or the home of a friend or relative.”
Reflecting on legal progress, Bragg acknowledged, “To be clear, we have come a long way since the decades where a man could not be prosecuted for raping his wife.”
“Our collective understanding of rape has expanded tremendously thanks to activism and education led by advocates and survivors,” he added.
Bragg also credited the #MeToo Movement with forcing society to confront long-ingrained stereotypes about “typical” rape and rape victims. The movement, he wrote, empowered survivors to speak out and challenged assumptions about who can be a victim and under what circumstances.
In 2021, Hannah Stevens and Karen Nikos-Rose of UC Davis published research showing that language in news coverage can influence toxic responses online. “In social media posts, and subsequent online reactions to them, people often blame victims and defend accused rapists or attackers, the research suggests,” they wrote. “They also engage in biased beliefs about which victims are more worthy of empathy — namely blameless victims assaulted by deviant perpetrators, researchers said.”
Bragg stressed the importance of public discussion on the full spectrum of rape and sexual assault, particularly cases that rarely receive media attention. His approach, he said, “includes reaching survivors, who may never see intimate-partner rapes covered in the media, and the everyday New Yorkers who will weigh the facts as they sit in the jury box.”
“Whether it happens in a long-term consensual relationship. Whether it takes years to come forward. Whether money exchanges hands. Whether alcohol or substances were involved, simply put, rape is rape,” Bragg wrote.
He emphasized that his office provides assistance even when prosecution is not possible or no arrest is made. “Our Survivor Services Bureau offers everything from high-quality counseling to legal referrals, all for free,” he said.
Bragg closed by commending survivors who come forward. “I am consistently inspired by the survivors that do so to secure justice in their case and, as we consistently hear, to stand up for other survivors. I want survivors to know that regardless of the form it takes, rape is rape. And we are here to help.”
