A Spotlight PA investigation revealed that police in State College, Pennsylvania, underreported hundreds of rapes in its public crime statistics over nearly a decade, from 2013 to 2021. The department only reported 67 rapes to state and federal authorities during that time, but after reviewing the cases, it admitted there were actually 321—an undercount of 254, or nearly 80 percent. Officials said this happened because the police kept using an old, narrower definition of rape even after the FBI updated it in 2013 to include more types of sexual assault, and the department didn't learn about the change until a supervisor was trained in 2022. Police officials said the mistake was not intentional, but even after updating its reporting, the department did not reveal the yearslong undercounting until the news story came out. Spotlight PA said it cannot say if other factors led to the undercount since the police department refused to give it access to investigative files.
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