What Does “Sexual Assault” Mean? A Century of Changing Definitions, Measurement, Reporting, and Epidemiology in the United States, 1920–2026

Objective

Every estimate of the scope of sexual victimization depends on how “sexual assault” is defined, and disagreements over definition have produced dramatically divergent statistics that continue to shape policy. This review synthesizes a century of American scholarship (1920–2026) on the definition of sexual assault, tracing changes in legal definitions, measurement instruments and national data systems, trends in police reporting, and the resulting epidemiological evidence.