When I was studying for my master’s degree in criminology back in 2010–2012, I was taught that young men were at highest risk for becoming victims of crime. It was one of those conventional wisdoms that hardly needed to be proven because they were so strongly established.
Imagine my surprise when, several years later, I was writing a research background for a study and discovered that young men had never been more frequently victimized than young women in the Swedish Crime Survey. In the early years, 2005–2012, victimization rates were about the same for men and women in the age groups 16–24. Since then, self-reported victimization among young women has increased, and it is now consistently about 10–15% higher than men’s vulnerability.
I found this hard to let go of, especially since there were no studies assessing this crime trend. It was proposed by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention and by researchers that the increase was due to a change in how young women perceive the questions in the survey, rather than there being an actual increase. As the increase consisted mainly of sexual offenses, the hypothesis put forward was that young women’s interpretation of the sexual offense question in the survey had changed and broadened over time.
However, this was not something that had been empirically assessed. With the help of a small research grant from the NSFK, I was able to conduct a study that focused on the period prior to and during increase, i.e., 2009–2016.
In this study, I use a statistical method called Multi-Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis, which uses variables to examine whether an underlying factor is the same across groups or over time. In this case, I use the victimization variables to take a closer look at the underlying factor crime against the person. If there has been a real increase, the statistical relationships between the variables and the underlying factor should be the same over time. If, on the other hand, there has been a change in these statistical relationships, the analysis shows that there has been a change in how the questions are interpreted.
When I ran and compiled the results from all models and tests, the results showed that there has indeed been a change in how the questions have been interpreted over time, and that most of the change has occurred in the question relating to sexual offenses. This supports the assumption that there has been a change in how sexual offenses are perceived among young women and that tolerance for different types of sexual transgressions has decreased over time.
The change in young women’s views on sexual offending coincides with an intense public debate on sexual offending in Sweden. In 2013, the legal concept of rape was expanded to include incidents where the victim was unable to resist due to alcohol or drug intoxication, unconsciousness, being asleep, or having a freezing reaction. In 2018, following the #metoo wave the year before, consent-based legislation was introduced, shifting the previous focus on the presence of violence and threats to the absence of explicit consent.
When I examined the crime pattern for sexual offenses further, it turned out that the more serious sexual offenses, i.e. rape, sexual offenses that led to the victim needing medical care, and sexual offenses that occurred when the victim was in a defenseless state, e.g. intoxicated, asleep or in a freeze reaction, decreased over time. This indicates not only a change in young women’s perceptions, but also a change in the behavior of the perpetrators, with fewer serious sexual crimes being committed.
About the author
Mika Hagerlid is a senior lecturer at the Department of Criminology, Malmö University. Hagerlid works mainly in the field of victimology.
Their research focuses on hate crime, sexual harassment and young women’s experiences of interpersonal crime.