The Lawrence Police Department’s percentage of arrests made in reported rapes increased nearly 200% from 2017 to 2018, according to a recent report.

But statewide, the number of reported rapes increased nearly 9% in the same time frame, and the rate per 1,000 population hit a new high.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s annual report, “Domestic Violence, Stalking, and Sexual Assault In Kansas,” released earlier this month, includes a great deal of data on these types of incidents statewide, compiled from law enforcement agencies and to the extent that the data is available.

The report states that it contains “the truest and most accurate information available,” but that it does not represent all events at the rates that they actually occurred — just those crimes that are reported to law enforcement agencies, and subsequently to the KBI.

Rape stats in Lawrence and Douglas County

LPD’s percentage of arrests made in reported rapes — eight in 58 incidents, for 13.8% — lagged a bit behind the statewide average of 16% for 2018.

However, it was more than four times the 2016 percentage, 3% (two arrests in 67 reports), and it represented a 187.3% increase over the 4.8% reported in 2017 (three arrests in 63 reports).

“Each investigation we conduct has its own unique circumstances and evidence that potentially could or could not lead to an arrest,” Sgt. Amy Rhoads, public affairs officer for the Lawrence Police Department, said via email Friday. She said some of those factors include an identified suspect, evidence and witnesses.

The other four agencies included in Douglas County for the purposes of the report — the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, Baldwin City Police Department, Eudora Police Department and University of Kansas Police Department — had too few rape incidents reported for their arrest percentages to be statistically significant.

However, for 2018, DGSO had two reports of rape and no arrests; KUPD had three reports and one arrest; BCPD had no reports; and EPD had three reports and one arrest, according to the KBI.

The prior year, DGSO had six reports and five arrests.

“Crimes of this nature often involve a lengthy investigation in order to present a thorough case and arrests are not always made immediately,” Jenn Hethcoat and Deputy Charlie Cooper, DGSO’s public information officers, said via email Friday. “It is important to us that people know that we take reports about these types of crimes seriously and we are here to help anyone who has (experienced) this trauma.”

Domestic violence stats in Lawrence and Douglas County

According to the report, Douglas County altogether had 797 reported domestic violence incidents in 2018. Law enforcement arrested one or more suspects in 463 of those incidents, or 58.1%.

The report includes the number of “dual arrests,” meaning more than one suspect was arrested in connection with an incident.

“In a number of cases, this is the result of an incident where the primary aggressor cannot be determined so both parties involved are arrested,” the report says. “There also may be a number of cases in which multiple arrests were made at the incident because a third party may have intervened.”

In 2018, Lawrence police made 471 arrests in 724 reported incidents; 63 of those, or 13.4%, were dual arrests. LPD’s 2018 arrest percentage was 56.4%.

The department’s 2017 numbers show that in 935 reported incidents, 430 arrests were made; 264 of those, or 61%, were dual arrests. LPD’s arrest percentage was 17.8% for 2017.

The other law enforcement agencies in the county have substantially smaller numbers of incidents. The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office made 25 arrests and no dual arrests in 26 reported incidents in 2018, the report shows, leading to an arrest percentage of 96.2%.

In 28 incidents in 2017, DGSO made 18 arrests including 2 dual arrests for an arrest percentage of 57.1%; the 2016 percentage was 57.9%.

“We perceive this as a positive change,” Hethcoat and Cooper said via email Friday. “It is difficult to pinpoint any one thing that contributed to the statistical change, we’ve always done training with our deputies and we care about doing our best for the community. We believe this change reflects that dedication.”

The total number of DV incidents reported in Douglas County was 886 in 2016, 1,000 in 2017 and 797 in 2018; however, the report does not include numbers from the Eudora Police Department for 2016. The overall arrest percentage, based on those numbers, was 55% in 2016, 20.4% in 2017 and 58.1% in 2018.

Kansas stats: Domestic violence homicides

The report includes the number of domestic violence homicides involving adults who had been involved in intimate relationships and those who are blood- or step-related. The report does not include domestic homicides involving children. The state tracks those in a different way.

According to the report:

• From 2017 to 2018, the number of DV-related homicides statewide dropped by one, from 38 to 37. However, 2017’s 38 was the greatest number recorded since the report began its current format in 1999. These constituted 21.6% of the 176 total homicides statewide in 2017, and 25.3% of the 146 total in 2018.

• In 2018, the majority of the victims, 57%, were between the ages of 20 and 39, and 35% were between ages 40 and 69; 78% were white, 8% were black and 14% were Hispanic. Female victims constituted 59%, males 41%. Fifty-seven percent had been involved in an intimate relationship with the suspect — boyfriends/girlfriends, spouses and exes; 24% were other family and 19% were listed as “other.”

• Suspects in 2018 were 95% male, 5% female; 70% were between the ages of 20 and 39, and 14% were between the ages of 40 and 59. Fifty-nine percent were white, 19% were Hispanic, 19% were black and 3% were Asian.

• Firearms were used in 70% of the deaths, knives in 13% and blunt objects in 11%.

• Nine DV-related homicides, or 24.3%, occurred in Sedgwick County; four each occurred in Johnson and Shawnee counties.

• Based on the methods the state uses in tracking these incidents, there were no DV-related homicides in Douglas County in 2018. However, a mother who drove her car into the Kansas River with her kids inside on Aug. 3, 2018, was convicted and later given a life sentence for the murder of her 5-year-old daughter and attempted murder of her 1-year-old son.

Kansas stats: Rape

Not all agencies in Kansas reported all of the detailed information included in the report. However, according to what information was available:

• The number of reported rapes hit a new high: the total increased by 8.9%, from 1,239 in 2017 to 1,349 in 2018. The arrest percentage rose from 13.2% to 16%. The rate of rape reports per 1,000 population also hit a new high, 0.46, in 2018. The totals and rates are provided going back to 1999.

• In 81.1% of reported rapes, the suspect was known to the victim. Most of the reported rapes — 76.3% — occurred in a single or multiple residence.

• A majority of the victims, 59.2%, were younger than 25; 96.7% of them were female, 3.1% male and 0.2% unknown. Most victims were white, 84.1%; 13.9% were black, 0.7% Indian, 0.6% Asian and 0.7% unknown, as the report lists races and ethnicities.

• The largest age group of suspects was 18.5% in the range of 15-19; an additional 22.4% fall into the ages of 20-29. Males constituted 92.6% of the suspects, females 2.4%, and unknown 5.0%. Most suspects were white, 66.8%; 24.2% were black, 0.5% Indian, 0.7% Asian and 7.8% unknown, as the report lists races and ethnicities.

• Of 140 rapes that occurred in public areas, 55% were in the streets, 30.7% in parks or in the open and 13.6% in parking areas; one occurred on a waterway. Public-area rapes constituted 10.4% of the total.

• Of 40 rapes that occurred on school properties, 37.5% occurred in a college residence or on a college campus; 62.5% occurred at all other schools. These constituted 3% of total rapes.

The complete report is available through the KBI’s website at accesskansas.org/kbi.

— Editor’s note: The total number of arrests LPD made in reported rapes in 2018 was incorrectly reported to KBI. Rhoads confirmed the correct number of arrests was eight, out of 58 reported rapes.