Anti-Josh Stein ad cherry-picks stat about rape in North Carolina

A Republican-backed television advertisement is attacking North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein’s record on getting rapists off the streets. 

Stein, the Democratic nominee for governor, is touting his office’s work ending the state’s decades-long backlog of unprocessed rape test kits, which are used to collect evidence following rape allegations. 

But a 30-second ad by State Solutions Inc., an affiliate of the Republican Governors Association, targets Stein’s claim of helping rape victims, saying rapes have gone up while he’s been in office. The association behind the ad is supporting Stein’s Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, in the gubernatorial race.

"How dare he?" a woman in the ad says. "On (Josh) Stein’s watch, rapes in North Carolina are up 53%." 

This claim stood out to us for two reasons: The ad didn’t include a citation and rates of violent crime have been falling across the nation.

The ad also implies that the attorney general is directly responsible for stopping crime, which is not so. Attorneys general are primarily responsible for prosecuting state-level cases and issuing guidance to district attorneys. Attorneys general have very little control over law enforcement strategies at a local level.

Nevertheless, we wondered: Is rape really up 53% in North Carolina? The ad relies on cherry-picked data. 

It’s not based on rape convictions, which have been proven in court. It’s not based on the rape rate, which compares rape reports to the state’s population. The claim is based on a total number of rapes reported over time — data that’s flawed because law enforcement agencies expanded their definition of what qualifies as rape while Stein was in office.

Importantly, advocates for sexual assault survivors say it’s difficult to pinpoint the actual number of rapes that occur every year. People often don’t report sexual assault to law enforcement. And reports of rapes don’t always lead to convictions.

So, we looked at two sets of data: rape reports and rape convictions. The numbers tell different stories.

To track rape convictions, we contacted the communications office for the state’s judicial branch. The office pointed us to reports published each year by the North Carolina Sentencing Commission.

The commission tracks convictions for the state’s most serious rape and sexual offenses, including: first-degree rape and first-degree sex offenses, second-degree rape and second-degree sex offenses, and statutory rape of children 15 or younger. The commission also tracks convictions for people who attempted to commit those crimes.

Stein started his first term as attorney general in 2017. So, we compared the total number of these rape convictions reported in fiscal year 2016-17 with the total number reported in fiscal year 2022-23.

Those Sentencing Commission reports show the number of convictions for the state’s most serious rape offenses and sex crimes increased about 8% to 224. That’s far less than the ad’s claim that rapes are up 53%.

Conviction trends also varied by offense. For instance, convictions for first-degree rapes and sex offenses decreased from 72 cases in fiscal year 2016-17 to 66 in 2022-23, a 14% decrease. At the same time, convictions increased for second-degree rape and statutory rape. Convictions for second-degree rapes and sexual offenses increased 11%, from 62 to 69, while convictions for statutory rape rose 24%, from 58 to 77.

PolitiFact NC contacted the Republican Governors Association to ask which numbers it was looking at when it created the ad. The group cited North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation’s data on rape reports — data that has been affected by changes to how rape allegations are documented by law enforcement agencies. 

The number of reported rapes could differ from the total number of rape convictions because sometimes victims drop charges or judges find suspects innocent.  

In 2016, the year before Stein took office, North Carolina law enforcement agencies reported 2,067 rapes to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. In 2022, the most recent year of data published by the State Bureau of Investigation, law enforcement agencies reported 3,170. That’s an increase of 1,103 reports, or 53%, as the ad says.

A focus on raw numbers, though, obscures how commonly something occurs.

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The rate of crime — which compares incidents of crime to a state’s population — offers a more accurate view of how often something occurs, especially in a fast-growing state such as North Carolina.

In 2016, State Bureau of Investigation data shows that there were 21.1 rapes reported for every 100,000 people. In 2022, the rate was 31.1. That’s an increase of 47%. 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation collected different numbers for North Carolina over that span. The state’s rate was 28 reported incidents per 100,000 people in 2016 and 30.5 in 2022, an increase of about 9%. 

The FBI tracks rape reports submitted by North Carolina law enforcement agencies through the National Incident-Based Reporting System, known as NIBRS.

Between 2018 and 2019, the rate of reported rapes in the state jumped from 24 per 100,000 people to 32.1, according to SBI data. 

One potential reason for the increase: North Carolina law enforcement agencies adopted a new method for reporting crime. From 2018 to 2019, agencies began reporting crimes in accordance with NIBRS. 

The new system outlined an expanded definition of what qualifies as rape. 

The old definition classified rape as "carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will." The new version expands the definition to include male and female victims and offenders:

"Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim." 

It remains unclear how much of the rate’s increase can be attributable to the new reporting system. The SBI didn’t analyze that, State Bureau of Investigation spokesperson Anjanette Grube said. But the change in definition could have been a factor, Grube told PolitiFact NC in an email. 

Cultural influences can also affect trends in rape reporting, said Ilse Knecht, director of policy at the Joyful Heart Foundation, which advocates for victims of sexual assault. 

Knecht told PolitiFact NC that she wasn’t surprised by the jump in reported rapes in North Carolina. She cited the expanded definition of rape, and the influence of cultural movements that have increased willingness by victims of sexual harassment, assault and rape to come forward. 

The #MeToo movement, for instance, gained traction in 2017 amid allegations of sexual abuse by film producer Harvey Weinstein. The movement encouraged more victims to reveal their own stories of sexual violence.

"When those of us who are working in this field, working against sexual violence, see numbers of reports go up, it actually can be a positive sign, because it means that the systems have changed for the better, potentially, the culture has changed for the better, and that survivors may feel safer," she said.

Knecht praised Stein earlier this year for helping end the state’s backlog of rape kits. The backlog started in the 1990s, when the state crime lab didn’t have enough scientists to process every rape kit. Thousands of unprocessed kits have been sitting on shelves since then, with thousands of victims waiting for justice.

Kate Frauenfelder, a spokesperson for Stein’s gubernatorial campaign, said Stein understands that victims deserve justice. "That’s why addressing the rape kit backlog was one of Attorney General Josh Stein’s first priorities when he took office in 2017," Frauenfelder said.

The Republican Governors Association ad claimed that, "on Stein’s watch, rapes in North Carolina are up 53%."

It’s difficult to know how many rapes occurred in North Carolina under Stein’s watch because not all rapes are reported and not all rape reports lead to convictions. Ad-makers cited the sheer number of rape reports collected by the SBI between 2016, the year before Stein took office, and 2022, the most recent year of data available. It shows an increase of 53%. 

However, relying on the sheer number of rapes reported can obscure the full picture. It doesn’t account for population growth in a fast-growing state. Meanwhile, rape rates published by the State Bureau of Investigation and FBI — which do consider population growth — show increases ranging from 9% to 47%.

The ad also doesn’t account for law enforcement agencies having expanded their definition of rape to include a wider range of cases. That broadened definition, which came during Stein’s term, and a national awareness campaign likely influenced the number of rapes reported in North Carolina.

The ad contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. That’s our definition of Mostly False.