Misleading Statistics: The Truth Behind UK’s Rape Rate Rankings

A viral bar chart circulating on social media has sparked alarm with its claim that the United Kingdom has become “the rape capital of Europe.” The graphic, which has been viewed by millions, shows the UK with a rate of 109 rapes per 100,000 people in 2022—far exceeding rates in other European countries like Spain, Germany, and Greece.

While the numbers themselves come from legitimate sources, experts say the comparison is fundamentally misleading and represents a textbook case of using accurate figures to distort reality.

The data originates from the World Population Review, which draws its information from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). However, both organizations explicitly warn against making the very comparisons being spread on social media, noting “the challenges of cross-national comparability are considerable” and highlighting the “apples-to-oranges nature of international rape statistics.”

“It’s taken from a source and used in a way that the source literally says, ‘don’t do this because it’s not accurate,'” explained Tanya Serisier, a lecturer in criminology at Birkbeck University of London and author of “Speaking Out: Feminism, Rape and Narrative Politics.”

Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office, which collects similar data across Europe, told investigators that “focusing solely on the number of crime offenses can be misleading and insufficient.”

Why Cross-Country Comparisons Fail

Several fundamental factors make international comparisons of rape statistics unreliable:

First, legal definitions vary significantly between countries. Some nations employ narrow definitions requiring proof of physical attack or coercion, while others use broader definitions. The UK overhauled its sexual offenses law in 2003 to be consent-based, expanding what legally constitutes rape.

Second, counting methods differ dramatically. In the UK, a single incident with multiple perpetrators is counted as multiple offenses—one for each perpetrator—while other countries might record it as a single case.

Third, the UK uses what criminologists call “input statistics,” where cases are counted when a police report is filed. Other countries may wait until after investigations are closed before counting an incident in their statistics.

Finally, cultural differences play a crucial role. Public trust in the justice system, attitudes around consent, awareness of sexual violence, and willingness to report incidents vary significantly between societies. All these factors affect whether victims will report crimes to police, creating substantial variation in official statistics.

A More Accurate Measurement Approach

Criminologists recommend victim surveys, rather than police reports, as a more reliable method for understanding sexual violence prevalence. These surveys ask representative samples of people about their experiences, capturing incidents that never reach official statistics.

“Crime statistics are only showing us—and people often use the metaphor of an iceberg—the things above the sea level. Those are things that get reported, that get counted by official agencies,” Serisier explained. “But for nearly all crimes, there’s another layer of things that don’t ever come to the attention of authorities.”

The UK’s Crime Survey for England and Wales tells a different story from police reports. While police recorded more than 71,000 rapes in England and Wales in 2024—a 479% increase since 2002—the national crime survey estimates about 1.9 million adults experienced rape or attempted rape in 2022. Crucially, the percentage of adults reporting having been raped has remained relatively stable since 2005, fluctuating between 0.4% and 0.7% each year.

University of Lausanne comparative criminologist Marcelo Aebi emphasizes that “a Europe-wide survey with standardized questions would be the only way to know which is the real rate of rape.” The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention reached a similar conclusion in a 2020 report, stating: “A well-executed European victims of crime survey is a better source of knowledge.”

Immigration Claims Lack Evidence

Another misleading claim tied to these statistics is that “uncontrolled mass immigration” is driving the UK’s high rape figures. This assertion, shared by British MP Rupert Lowe, has also received over a million views online but has no factual basis.

The UK and the Netherlands have nearly identical proportions of foreign-born residents—around 16% as of 2022—yet according to the same chart, the Netherlands’ rape rate is less than one-sixth that of the UK’s.

“The claim that’s often made essentially is, ‘We are letting in more immigrants and particularly more immigrants from certain areas and that’s increasing our rates of sexual assault,'” Serisier noted. “There is no evidence to suggest that’s the case at all.”

The UK does not publish data on the nationality or ethnicity of perpetrators. What national data does reveal is that 85% of victims knew their offender, according to government surveys conducted between 2014 and 2017.

Several other factors likely contributed to the rise in reported rapes. After a Metropolitan Police whistleblower revealed in 2014 that sexual offenses were being under-recorded by roughly a quarter, police reformed their crime recording practices. Cultural shifts following the #MeToo movement and high-profile cases have also likely encouraged more victims to come forward.

“I want to see the data, because facts come first,” said Aebi. “In these issues, there is a lot of advocacy, people that from the beginning know what they want to say and how to explain it. Rhetoric is very easy.”

While the UK’s rape statistics appear alarmingly high at first glance, the reality is far more complex than viral social media posts suggest. Statistical differences in definitions, reporting, and cultural factors render international comparisons fundamentally misleading—and claims linking immigration to sexual violence rates are simply not supported by evidence.