# Risk of adult woman being abducted **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 4, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888 "2009-09-04T18:05:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/21 "2009-09-05T16:03:41Z")
I’m not sure what the rape statistics have to do with the abduction statistics. Kidnapping an adult and keeping them a long time is a lot harder than raping a woman. Rape is presumably vastly more common than abduction. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/22 "2009-09-05T16:07:40Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > 73% of women who are raped, know their attacker What does that have to do with anything? That seems kind of a meaningless statistic. 73% of rapists are “friends or aquaintances”??? - I think they mean: 73% are aquaintances because friends dont do that. According to the FBI’s definition of aquaintance, the definition of attacker is “NOT” unknown. Why does it matter if the attacker was never seen before, or if the attacker was known in the neighborhood? Is it better that a victim can say anything other than he cant be identified at all? So what if you had seen this guy once before in the local bar last month? If a woman is gang-raped by the local gang in the neighborhood, they are all “aquaintances” as far as the FBI and this statistic is concerned. Besides, for incest rape that statistic is 100%, and incest rape is not any better than rape by a complete stranger. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/23 "2009-09-05T16:13:13Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I’m not sure what the rape statistics have to do with the abduction statistics. Kidnapping an adult and keeping them a long time is a lot harder than raping a woman. Rape is presumably vastly more common than abduction. It doesnt have to be a long time, nor even a different place. OJ Simpson was charged with kidnapping in that hotel robbery and the victim was still in his own room. Rape and abduction/kidnapping of unarmed women go together like peanut butter and jelly - I would guess that rape is the most common motive for kidnapping women. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/24 "2009-09-05T16:15:53Z")
The point of the statistic is to warn women that the fact that they know a man (and sometimes know him pretty well) doesn’t mean that he won’t rape her. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/25 "2009-09-05T16:21:04Z")
My point is that simple rape is probably vastly more common than abducting a woman and then repeatedly raping her. Don’t go arbitrarily playing around with the definition of kidnapping. Grabbing a woman in a dark alley and holding her down as one rapes her before letting her go is rape, not kidnapping. As I said, I think that kidnapping an adult woman is actually fairly rare, and I suspect that most of the time it’s about money rather than rape. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/26 "2009-09-05T16:35:52Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > The website of the [National Center for Missing and Exploited Children](http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US&PageId=2816) gives this (from several years ago, apparently out of a total of over 70 million children): It’s not clear how this relates to the abduction of non-juveniles. But I think it suggests this is much rarer than it is often thought to be. This has been pointed to by a number of researchers and writers (Richard Louv - _The Last Child In The Woods,_ or Barry Glassner - _The Culture of Fear_, from 1999, by the way, would be good examples). This underlies the essential idea of the OP - that the perception of danger and threat greatly exceeds the probability of harm. In our recently mega-enhanced culture of fear, everyone has heard of cases of abduction, assault, endangerment, kidnapping, etc. If you read the newspapers or watch television, you can barely see anything else. That increases the amount of fear and the estimation of chances of danger, but doesn’t increase the amount of crime. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/27 "2009-09-05T16:54:04Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > The adult population is almost 200 million, so if a little over half are women, and _all_ of the victims of abduction by strangers are adult women, that gives a rate of about 1 in 200,000. > > According to The National Weather Service, the odds are about 1/500,000 per year. And 1/5000 over a lifetime. I would imagine that very few/almost none elderly women are abducted. If you further narrow down your statistics to unarmed women under 50 or so, wouldnt you then get closer to 1 in 100,000 per year? … … and therefore 1/2000 per 50 year lifetime. 1 in 2000 would mean that maybe half of us actually know someone who was abducted/raped, which does not really sound unrealistic, and maybe even a little high, yet, a definite risk, and certainly nobody would want to fly in a commercial airliner with that level of risk . IF its anywhere close to 1/2000 then that could be a legitimate risk and something to worry about or to defend against. YOu could also add in all the UNsuccessful abductions that may have been attempted but not completed and didnt get into the statistics - attempted abdutions that were intended, prevented or fought off, to get an even better idea of the need to think of whether there is a real need to being prepared for self defense. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/28 "2009-09-05T16:59:47Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > What does that have to do with anything? > > That seems kind of a meaningless statistic. > > 73% of rapists are “friends or aquaintances”??? - I think they mean: 73% are aquaintances because friends dont do that. According to the FBI’s definition of aquaintance, the definition of attacker is “NOT” unknown. Some friends do. Some women get raped by their husbands, boyfriends, relatives or people they thought cared about them. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/29 "2009-09-05T17:28:18Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Some friends do. Some women get raped by their husbands, boyfriends, relatives or people they thought cared about them. Regardless, nobody keeps statistics that give us numbers/differentiate between husband, boyfriend, former husband, former boyfriend, relative, former relative, friend, former friend, etc …versus just being able to provide a name or identify a mugg shot(i.e an aquaintance). The incidence of rape by a husband is probably pretty low, and the incidence of abduction/kidnapping by a husband - even lower than that. Generally they are so rare,that when we hear of rape on the tv news, we usually dont think of the perpetrator as being her husband or live-in boyfriend, and I certainly dont see that on my tv news. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/30 "2009-09-05T17:30:08Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > Regardless, nobody keeps statistics that give us numbers/differentiate between husband, boyfriend, former husband, former boyfriend, relative, former relative, friend, former friend, etc …versus just being able to provide a name or identify a mugg shot(i.e an aquaintance). The incidence of rape by a husband is probably pretty low, and the incidence of abduction/kidnapping by a husband - even lower than that. > > Generally they are so rare,that when we hear of rape on the tv news, we usually dont think of the perpetrator as being her husband or live-in boyfriend, and I certainly dont see that on my tv news. Well, I wasn’t talking about kidnapping–just rape. Actually, it’s the opposite–rape by a stranger (without the whole kidnapping/abduction) is fairly rare, whereas rape by someone you know (a date, a boyfriend, someone you thought was a friend) is very common. It probably doesn’t show up on the news because it doesn’t sound newsworthy or because it often doesn’t get reported. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/31 "2009-09-05T17:56:36Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Actually, it’s the opposite–rape by a stranger (without the whole kidnapping/abduction) is fairly rare, whereas rape by someone you know (a date, a boyfriend, someone you thought was a friend) is very common. It probably doesn’t show up on the news because it doesn’t sound newsworthy or because it often doesn’t get reported. Cite? Thats just not true, and according to police reports, the field: “someone you know”, usually does NOT!!! mean boyfriend, date, husband, or friend. I would guess that most rapes were done by people a woman would not choose to have sex with and to say otherwise is spreading a very misleading rumor. It doesnt have to be a stranger, it can be someone you know, or “know of” who is disgusting. Being a non-stranger doesnt mean anything. You seem to be hung up on stranger or non-stranger. Most women would not have sex with 99.99 % of non-strangers, and most “non-strangers” are also not friends either. I know plenty of non-strangers and I dont like most of them for any purpose . ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/32 "2009-09-05T18:18:40Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > The incidence of rape by a husband is probably pretty low, Actually in a a 1990 study 10% of married women reported a forced sexual assault, and studies of women in battered women’s shelters show that a significant number have been raped by their husbands/boyfriends. In the United States, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Justice, 1994, 28% of rape victims are raped by husbands/boyfriends. The same stats say 68% knew their attackers (date rape, acquaintance rape). Approximatley 5% were raped by other relatives. Comparable stats National Crime Victims Survey (1992-1993): 92% of rapes were committed by known assailants with roughly half committed by friends and acquaintances, 26% by intimate partners. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/33 "2009-09-05T18:55:24Z")
> [@Eats\_Crayons](#): > > Actually in a a 1990 study 10% of married women reported a forced sexual assault, and studies of women in battered women’s shelters show that a significant number have been raped by their husbands/boyfriends. > > In the United States, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Justice, 1994, 28% of rape victims are raped by husbands/boyfriends. The same stats say 68% knew their attackers (date rape, acquaintance rape). Approximatley 5% were raped by other relatives. > > Comparable stats National Crime Victims Survey (1992-1993): 92% of rapes were committed by known assailants with roughly half committed by friends and acquaintances, 26% by intimate partners. …what is its utterly amazing to me, is that I am… THE ONLY PERSON !!! on Straight Dope who has never known a single woman who was raped by her current boyfriend or her current husband, but more to the point and back to the Topic, I have never known a single woman actually abducted/kidnapped by her current husband or current boyfriend. (also, FYI…dont know either any men raped or kidnapped by their wives or girlfriends) ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/34 "2009-09-05T19:07:30Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > …what is its utterly amazing to me, is that I am… THE ONLY PERSON !!! on Straight Dope who has never known a single woman who was raped by her boyfriend or her husband. Or maybe no one has offered you that information. Edit: You have edit your last post. Yes, one would hope that woman would leave an abusive relationship. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/35 "2009-09-05T19:22:20Z")
Also, “abduction”, “unlawful confinement”, “false imprisonment” and similar crimes are sadly not uncommon in domestic violence cases. Women do get abducted by their husbands/boyfriends (wherein the legal definition means you are forcibly taken an held captive against your will.) ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/36 "2009-09-05T20:20:25Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > …what is its utterly amazing to me, is that I am… THE ONLY PERSON !!! on Straight Dope who has never known a single woman who was raped by her current boyfriend or her current husband, but more to the point and back to the Topic, I have never known a single woman actually abducted/kidnapped by her current husband or current boyfriend. > > (also, FYI…dont know either any men raped or kidnapped by their wives or girlfriends) You will notice, however, that I didn’t ask about whether anyone personally knows people who have been abducted or raped by partners, strangers, etc. I asked about statistics. Thanks to all who have helped so far! ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/37 "2009-09-05T20:52:20Z")
It’s difficult to find statistics for this, the Uniform Crime Reports that a lot of stats come from don’t include kidnapping because, well, let’s ask the FBI: > [@FBI UCR FAQ](#): > > **Which specific crimes are reported to the UCR Program, and why were these crimes identified for reporting?** > The UCR Program collects offense information for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. These are Part I offenses and are serious crimes by nature and/or volume. Not all crimes, such as embezzlement, are readily brought to the attention of the police. **Also, some serious crimes, such as kidnapping, occur infrequently.** Therefore, the UCR Program limits the reporting of offenses known to the eight selected crime classifications because they are the crimes most likely to be reported and most likely to occur with sufficient frequency to provide an adequate basis for comparison. > Arson was not originally part of the crime reporting process. Arson became the eighth Part I crime as the result of a limited congressional mandate in October 1978. With the passage of the Anti-Arson Act of 1982, Congress permanently designated arson as a reportable offense. > As for arrest information, the UCR Program collects arrest data on Part I offenses and 21 other crimes, such as driving under the influence, that are Part II offenses. Simple assault is a Part II offense but is collected under 4e (Other Assaults–Simple, Not Aggravated) as a quality control matter and for the purpose of looking at total assault violence. There are a few reports on child abductions, and the FBI has tons of pages on “famous kidnappings,” but between the DoJ, FBI, and CIA I can’t find any hard statistics, other than the missing persons registry which tends to even count people who flew out to the Bahamas and forgot to tell their family. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/38 "2009-09-05T20:59:08Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > It’s difficult to find statistics for this, the Uniform Crime Reports that a lot of stats come from don’t include kidnapping because, well, let’s ask the FBI: > There are a few reports on child abductions, and the FBI has tons of pages on “famous kidnappings,” but between the DoJ, FBI, and CIA I can’t find any hard statistics, other than the missing persons registry which tends to even count people who flew out to the Bahamas and forgot to tell their family. I should also mention that the DoJ’s Nation Crime Victimization Survey, which attempts to also address unreported crimes isn’t much better here. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/39 "2009-09-05T21:36:40Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > You will notice, however, that I didn’t ask about whether anyone personally knows people who have been abducted or raped by partners, strangers, etc. I asked about statistics. A lot seem to be listed under violence against women stats which include “hostage-taking” and “abduction”. Abductions statistics are tougher to sort out, because for adults, they seem to be linked with other crimes like car-jacking, robbery, and murder. Looking up “missing people” stats is a bit more helpful. National Crime Information Center says in 2007 there were 11,670 adults (21 or older) listed as EMI (missing under circumstances that suggest involuntary disappearance such as abduction) and that is out of a total of 139,510 missing people (21 or older). I can’t find anything on how many EMIs were female. A separate entry has: “518 records entered as Abducted by a Stranger”. It does not say if the “abducted by stranger” records were for adults or juveniles, male or female, or all of the above. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2009, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888/40 "2009-09-06T20:48:18Z")
> [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](#): > > Also, just to point out, being worried about your daughters traveling alone wouldn’t just be fear of abduction, it would be of any of the other horrible things that could happen as well: rape and sexual assault wouldn’t be counted in those abduction figures for instance, and sadly they’re probably both a lot more likely to happen. And Robots! Also, the Plague, vats of rubber cement spilling from upper-story windows suffocating you instantly, spontaneous combustion, and of course, St. Vitus’ Dance. It’s tough being a woman. I’m sure glad I have my magical protective penis! But really-- so good of you to point out all of the horrible things that can happen to women. I mean, let’s be realistic here, if you are a woman in America, sooner or later you are going to be raped and chopped into tiny pieces, or, a victim of St. Vitus’s Dance. Be afraid… be VERY, VERY afraid!!! Are you Nancy Grace by any chance? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/risk-of-adult-woman-being-abducted/508888.md?page=3)