Each one of these figures represents a survivor who reported a sexual assault or other

sex crime to the Chicago Police Department, during a six-year period spanning from

2018 through 2023 – more than 21,000 victims in all.

By all accounts, they represent a minority of

the true number of survivors of sexual assault

in Chicago.

All experts agree that at least three out of five

incidents of sexual assault and abuse go

unreported – for a variety of reasons.

1,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

2,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx –

herself a survivor of sexual assault – said

that sex crimes are one of the most

underreported of all crimes.

All experts agree that at least three out of five

incidents of sexual assault and abuse go

unreported – for a variety of reasons.

3,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

“The violation is so personal, and so deep,”

Foxx says.

“The mere process of reporting – having to

tell a stranger that someone has violated your

body; going to a hospital; explaining to a

nurse, and the rape kits; and then talking to a

prosecutor; talking to a victim wellness

specialist – the process, in and of itself, is

incredibly daunting.”

4,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

So: keep each of these victims of sexual

assault in mind as you continue to scroll down

to see just how many survivors there are in

Chicago, and just how few have seen any kind

of justice.

5,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

Because – until we show you otherwise –

none of the victims and survivors represented

here saw an arrest after they reported their

assault to Chicago police.

6,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

With the exception of about 100 cases

we found where a victim recanted or where

the sex charges simply did not seem

warranted, these victims each told police their

individual accounts of being sexually abused

and assaulted.

Yet their alleged assailants have not been

charged.

7,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

NBC 5 Investigates – along with Telemundo

Chicago Investiga – spent six months looking

at every incident of sexual assault, sexual

abuse, incest, child pornography, sex

trafficking and other sex crimes reported on

the comprehensive Chicago Police

Department’s crimes database.

8,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

We created a massive spreadsheet, recording

every case reported to Chicago police from

Jan. 1, 2018 through Dec. 31, 2023 –

a six-year period. We eliminated any case

where it appeared the allegations of sexual

misconduct were unclear, suspect or missing

altogether.

9,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

Then we looked at every incident in which

Chicago police made an arrest. We then

cross-referenced each one of those arrests

with the online files of all cases in Cook

County Criminal Court to see what happened

in each case.

10,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

This involved several months of recording

each police narrative to make sure – again –

that it seemed to be a credible accusation of

sexual misconduct; looking up court cases,

one by one; reading each court document;

tracing each case as it made its way through

court and the judicial process – which often

takes years – and finding out what the

resolution was, for each case.

11,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

We started to find patterns, such as domestic

abuse among relatives - often an adult relative

abusing a minor child - with other children

then coming forward to report past abuse.

We also traced each offender's past criminal

history and found a significant number who

had been accused of sexual misconduct in

previous years as well - sometimes two, three

or even more times.

12,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

We found allegations of abuse by teachers,

police, and coaches; massage therapists,

rideshare drivers, and tattoo artists; work

colleagues; casual acquaintances and

neighbors.

13,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

For every case, we read every document and

recorded every bit of information we could

find: The race, gender and age of the

defendants and the victims; whether an

alleged offender was registered as a sex

offender in Illinois; whether they were in

prison, on probation or free; what they were

arrested for; what they were initially charged

with in court; how their case was resolved

(with a dismissal or a conviction); and their

sentence (prison or probation) - if any.

14,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

We also filed hundreds of requests for police

reports, police bodycam video, surveillance

video and other records that might shed light

on each case. And we spoke with experts on

the issue: State's Attorney Kim Foxx, a law

professor at Northwestern University and the

executive director of Illinois' main advocacy

group for survivors of sexual assault.

15,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

And we made phone calls - scores of phone

calls - to the victims and survivors named in

the cases we found. Some were

(understandably) upset that we called, and we

agreed not to contact them again. But a

surprising number of these victims and

survivors wanted to talk to us about their

cases. And most were unhappy with how their

cases made their way through an arrest, into

court, and on to a final judgment.

16,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

It turns out that many of these victims and

survivors experienced the exact issues we

were discovering in our research:

A startling number of sex-assault cases where

no arrest was made; and - of those where

someone was arrested - an equally-startling

number of cases that never made it to court;

were dismissed once they got there; or were

pled down to a non-sex crime.

17,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

Remember: All of these figures continue to

represent sexual assault victims in Chicago

who reported their cases to police over the

last six years, but have never seen an arrest.

18,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

In the end, NBC 5 Investigates and Telemundo

Investiga logged a total of 21,471 reports of

sexual assault, abuse, and other sex crimes to

police, in the six years between 2018 and

2023, in the City of Chicago.

And for a total of 19,884 of those victims,

Chicago police never made an arrest in their

case.

19,000 sex assault survivors in Chicago

That’s just seven percent of all reported

sexual assaults and other crimes in Chicago.

Police did make arrests for the remaining 1,587 survivors and victims, below.

However, NBC 5 Investigates and Telemundo Chicago Investiga found that those arrests almost

never led to a resolution that allowed these survivors to feel that they had gotten any kind of

justice.

317 of those arrests never made it to court –

sometimes because the victim declined to

press charges; other times because the state’s

attorney didn’t feel there was a solid case.

356 other victims’ cases are pending in court

– not yet decided.

276 victims’ cases were dismissed with no

conviction.

That leaves just 638 victims and survivors – the remaining figures below – who saw their

offenders arrested and convicted. That’s just under three percent – 2.97% to be precise – of all

reported sexual assaults in Chicago.

But even then, NBC 5 Investigates and Telemundo Chicago Investiga found issues for nearly half

of these remaining survivors – the ones who saw their cases through the entire justice system –

in terms of what happened to their assailants.