A recent report from the Government Accountability Office found that the Departments of Health and Human Services, Defense, Education and Justice oversee at least 10 different efforts to collect data about sexual violence—producing widely varying statistics that, on the surface, appear to measure the same thing. As a result, policymakers and the public simply do not have reliable, easy-to-understand data about sexual assault, which can have serious consequences for the effectiveness and accountability of the criminal justice system and hinder efforts to combat sexual assault. Federal agencies and Congress should take action to ensure that the public and policymakers alike can better understand this data and put it to good use in the fight against sexual assault, writes Joshua New in Ms. Magazine.
