The Associated Press reports (via the Washington Post):
The Obama administration on Friday expanded the FBI’s more than eight-decade-old definition of rape to count men as victims for the first time and to drop the requirement that victims must have physically resisted their attackers.
The new definition will increase the number of people counted as rape victims in FBI statistics, but it will not change federal or state laws or alter charges or prosecutions. It’s an important shift because lawmakers and policymakers use crime statistics to allocate money and other resources for prevention and victim assistance.
The White House said the change was not motivated by the recent Penn State child sex-abuse scandal. Indeed, the expanded definition has been long awaited as many states and research groups made similar changes in their definitions of rape over recent decades.
Senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett called the change a “very, very important step.” The issue got top-level White House attention starting last July, when Vice President Joe Biden raised it at a Cabinet meeting.
