Cincinnati’s Rape Reports Jumped 61%. Council Called it a Data Issue.

Key Points

• CPD logged 239 rape reports from Jan. 1 to Oct. 5, compared with 148 in 2025.
• Older offenses account for 30 of the 91 additional rape reports, about one-third.
• Strangulation reports rose about 49% even when counted by occurrence date.

About a third of Cincinnati’s 61% rise in reported rapes involves offenses from earlier years, The Cincinnati Exchange found. Strangulation reports remain elevated by occurrence date, while the council’s requested explanation from the administration is still pending.

Seven of nine Cincinnati council members want the city to explain a jump in reported rapes and strangulations.

Their own motion already says the rape figures overstate the real trend because of reporting problems.

The Cincinnati Exchange’s review of CPD records shows Cincinnati rape statistics rising for more than one reason. Reports of older offenses account for about a third of the increase. Most of the rest returns to the 2020 through 2023 level, after an unusually low 2025. Strangulation reports, by contrast, remain elevated even when counted by offense date.

The council motion, file 202602908, asks the administration to brief the Public Safety and Quality of Life Committee within 30 days. Councilmembers Mark Jeffreys, Anna Albi, Evan Nolan, Jeff Cramerding, Ryan James, Seth Walsh and Meeka Owens signed it. It sat on council’s Oct. 21 agenda. As of Oct. 22, the city’s legislative record showed no action, and the meeting minutes remained in draft. So the Exchange cannot yet report that council adopted it.

The two council members missing from the list matter for what comes next. Scotty Johnson chairs the committee that would hear the presentation, and Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Kearney sits on it. Neither signed.

What the motion on Cincinnati rape statistics asks

The motion’s statement cites a 61% rise in reported rapes and a 70% rise in strangulations between 2025 and 2026. It says the administration has already told council why: a discrepancy in CPD’s internal reporting process, plus recent state law changes. “This is a reporting and data-correction issue,” the statement reads, “not an indication that rape offenses are suddenly increasing at the rates reflected in the current year-to-date comparison.”

So the sponsors concluded in the same document that they should ask the administration to support it. They want an analysis of how much of the spike traces to House Bill 161 and an amendment to Ohio’s sex-offense code. They also want to know what the figures would show without the 2024 and 2025 law changes.

The motion also requests a 30-day report on funding for Women Helping Women, the YWCA, and similar partners. And it asks CPD to rewrite Procedure 12.315 so officers must offer every sexual assault victim an advocate, record the answer, and accept delayed reports.

How CPD builds its rape statistics

Every record in CPD’s current public crime dataset carries two dates. The city’s methodology document defines the report date as the date someone submitted or entered a report into the system. An event date marks when the offense occurred. The document also warns that CPD can add, reclassify, or remove records as investigations move forward.

CPD’s weekly neighborhood reports appear to use the report date. Over-the-Rhine’s report, updated Oct. 19, lists 13 rapes so far in 2026 against 5 at the same point in 2025. The Exchange matched both figures to the dataset only by counting report dates. By event date, the neighborhood shows 10 and 6. That affects every year-to-date figure the city publishes, including those in our earlier Over-the-Rhine review.

The category itself has limits. Under the methodology, CPD assigns STARS categories from the Ohio Revised Code or national incident codes to each report. The public file publishes the category but not those codes. Readers therefore cannot tell which statutes feed Cincinnati rape statistics. Nor can they see whether the 2026 increase sits in particular offense codes. The motion asks about the sexual battery statute, section 2907.03, in connection with rape figures. That question matters only if STARS counts some sexual battery offenses as rape, and the public record does not say.

The Exchange downloaded all rape and strangulation records on Oct. 22. The file held rape reports through Oct. 7, and strangulation reports through Oct. 10. Later revisions could change these counts.

What Cincinnati rape statistics show by occurrence date

Counted by report date, Jan. 1 through Oct. 5, CPD logged 239 rape reports in 2026 and 148 in 2025. That works out to 61.5%, which matches the motion’s figure, and a net increase of 91 reports.

Of those 239 reports, 52 involve offenses that occurred in an earlier calendar year. The same 2025 window held 22. By the Exchange’s calculation, that 30-report difference accounts for about a third of the net increase of 91. The calculation compares the same window by report date and flags any record whose event year precedes its report year. It has limits. An offense on Dec. 31 reported Jan. 2 counts as a prior-year offense, while a January offense reported in September does not. The file also cannot show whether victims came forward late or CPD logged older reports late.

Other measures point the same way for Cincinnati rape statistics. Through Oct. 10, 33 of this year’s reports describe an offense at least a year old, against 11 by that date in 2025. July 2026 alone logged 46 rape reports, the most of any month since at least 2020, and nine described offenses from earlier years.

Removing the timing effect still leaves an increase in recorded reports. The Exchange counted rapes that occurred January through August and reached CPD within 30 days, which treats every year the same way. That count rose from 97 in 2025 to 138 in 2026, about 42%. It measures reports, not the underlying number of rapes, which no police dataset captures.

A longer view changes what Cincinnati rape statistics say. The same measure produced 131 in 2020, 146 in 2021, 163 in 2022, and 152 in 2023. It then fell to 121 in 2024 and 97 in 2025. So 2026 sits inside the range of the four years before the drop. The most unusual year is 2025, the lowest of the seven.

That comparison carries a caution. Status codes in the dataset change format in June 2024, consistent with the records-system switch CPD made that month. Whether the old and new systems sorted offenses into the rape category identically depends on a crosswalk the city has not published.

One conflicting count remains. Transparent.city reported 175 rapes in 2026 and 155 in 2025 for the same window, from an older CPD dataset that now requires a login. The Exchange could not reconcile the two.

The law changes and the timing

House Bill 161 removed Ohio’s spousal exceptions for rape, sexual battery, and related offenses. It took effect Aug. 9, 2024, so it covered all of 2025 and 2026.

Both sections the motion cites changed again on March 21, 2025. That version of section 2907.02, which lists Senate Bill 109, added sexual conduct with a person impaired by drugs given for a medical or dental procedure. Section 2907.03 took a new version the same day. Those versions covered all but the first 11 weeks of the 2025 comparison window.

Those dates raise doubts about the council statement. Laws in force for nearly all of both periods would not produce a 61% jump through new conduct alone. They do not rule out a classification effect, though. If CPD changed how it maps those statutes into STARS categories, perhaps recently, the law changes could still show up in Cincinnati rape statistics for 2026. Only CPD’s offense-code mapping and its effective date can answer that.

Strangulation reports remain elevated by occurrence date

Ohio made strangulation a separate felony under section 2903.18, effective April 4, 2023. CPD’s strangulation category first appears in the dataset that month, so 2024 is the first full year available for comparison.

Published strangulation figures differ by source and window. WVXU reported a 65% rise for January through August, citing CPD data, and the Exchange’s Oct. 9 report carried that figure. The motion cites 70% without a date range. Transparent.city counted 328 reports against 221 from Jan. 1 to Oct. 5. The Exchange’s download shows 296 against 193 for January through August, about 53%, and 331 against 218 for the Jan. 1 to Oct. 5 window.

The timing effect behind the rape count does not appear here. The median lag between offense and report sat at zero days in 2024, 2025, and 2026. Counted by event date, the Jan. 1 to Oct. 5 increase still runs near 49%. The jump began abruptly: CPD logged 42 strangulation reports in January 2026, after no month in 2025 topped 33.

Occurrence-date counting removes reporting delay, but it does not remove every reporting or classification effect. More survivors may be coming forward, and officers may be applying the felony label more often. The public file cannot separate those explanations from a rise in strangulations themselves.

Reports cleared by adult arrest rose alongside them. From Jan. 1 to Oct. 5, CPD marked 244 strangulation reports cleared by adult arrest, against 166 a year earlier, about three in four reports both years. That status describes how CPD closed a report. It does not count people, charges, or convictions, and the law presumes anyone arrested is innocent.

The increase hits the West Side hardest. District 3 logged 155 reports in that window, up from 92. Westwood, West Price Hill and East Price Hill together went from 50 to 75. Neighborhood counts this small can swing on a few households.

What the Oct. 20 task force presentation showed

One day before the Oct. 21 council meeting, the Hamilton County Domestic Violence Task Force briefed Albi’s Youth and Human Services Committee. Its slide deck includes figures that early coverage left unexplained.

FOX19 reported that dismissals dropped from 80% to 68%. That slide comes from Hamilton County Domestic Relations Court, a civil court. It tracks civil domestic violence filings there, the protection-order cases Ohio law sends to domestic relations courts, not criminal prosecutions. The rate was 80% in 2023, 69% in 2024, and 68% in 2025. As of 2026, the court shows 800 dismissals on 1,170 filings. The drop happened two years ago, and the slide does not explain why most filings end in dismissal.

TriHealth’s 75% figure also has a narrow denominator. Forensic nurse Christine Hassert’s slide says strangulation appeared in 75% of the CARES team’s 2025 domestic violence cases. That team examines survivors 14 and older in TriHealth emergency departments, not every domestic violence victim in the county. Women Helping Women reported 4,140 hotline calls through the third quarter, up 18.5%, and 297 hospital responses, up 30.8%. Its slide does not name the comparison period.

Both the motion and TriHealth’s slide say strangulation raises a woman’s homicide risk by 750%. The 2008 study the motion cites compared 506 attempted and completed homicides with 427 abused women. It tied prior strangulation to about seven and a half times the odds of a completed homicide. The danger is real, but the 750% phrasing turns an odds ratio into a risk figure the study never reported.

The criminal prosecution data council did not discuss

City Solicitor Emily Woerner and Chief Prosecutor Susan Zurface presented criminal case data, separate from the civil protection-order figures above. Their table, drawn from Hamilton County’s court case system, counts 1,711 misdemeanor domestic violence charges filed in 2024. Of those, 1,375 were dismissed, and 232 resulted in conviction. In 2025, 1,690 were filed, 1,317 dismissed, and 209 convicted. Each year’s outcomes add up to the filings. The 2026 row shows 900 filed and 574 dismissed, with 162 pending, but gives no cutoff date. The slide also does not say whether the counts cover only city cases.

A felony strangulation table lists 181 charges filed in 2024, 173 in 2025, and 224 so far in 2026. A column labeled “Ignored by Grand Jury” shows 172, 15,7 and 194. The slide does not define the term or its denominator. It does not say whether prosecutors later indicted those cases under new numbers. Its rows also do not add up to the filing totals. Until the city and the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office define that column, the Exchange is not treating it as a dismissal rate.

The grant ordinance passed the same day

A signed copy in the city’s legislative record shows council passed Ordinance 361-2026 on Oct. 21, with Mayor Aftab Pureval’s signature. The online vote history recorded it as of Oct. 22. It lets City Manager Sheryl Long apply for, accept, and appropriate up to $274,735 from the federal Byrne Justice Assistance Grant. That money would pay for police visibility overtime and the Sexual Assault Advocate contract with Women Helping Women.

Cincinnati shares that grant with Hamilton County. Under the ordinance, the two governments will negotiate an agreement splitting it equally, minus a 10% administrative fee the city charges the county. That would leave the city up to $151,104 and, by the Exchange’s arithmetic, the county about $123,631.

Neither the ordinance nor the city manager’s transmittal says how the city’s share divides between overtime and advocates. The application deadline fell on Oct. 16, five days before the vote, and the ordinance let the city apply first. Nothing in the record shows a federal award yet. The grant requires no local match and adds no positions.

The strongest case for a reporting explanation

Supporters of the council’s reading have a fair case. More awareness brings more reports, and better training changes how officers code what they hear. During the hearing, Judge Anne Flottman recalled her years as a Warren County magistrate, when petitioners told her an attacker choked them. More people now use the word strangulation, she said, according to FOX19. On that reading, officers now file those calls under the felony statute rather than simple assault. The prosecutors’ slides list targeted training for officers in 2026.

Cincinnati rape statistics support much of that argument. Reports of older offenses more than doubled, explaining about a third of the increase. The adjusted 2026 count looks more like a return to 2020-2023 than a new peak.

Strangulation fits the argument less neatly. No reporting lag inflates it. The prosecutors’ table shows more strangulation charges in 2026 so far than in all of 2025, and Women Helping Women’s hospital responses rose too. Still, charges and arrest clearances flow from the same police classification decisions. The public record cannot yet separate more strangulation from more strangulation that officers now name and charge.

What council asked for, and what it does not have

Council’s own motion asks the administration for three things on the data: the effect of House Bill 161, the effect of the sex-offense code amendment, and what the figures would show without either. As of Oct. 22, the city’s public legislative file contains none of the records that would answer those questions. It holds no occurrence-date rape counts and no list of offense codes behind the STARS rape category. Nor does it hold a crosswalk between CPD’s old and new records systems.

The same file leaves the money and the prosecutions unexplained. It does not show how the city’s $151,104 grant share splits between police overtime and advocates. It also does not define the “Ignored by Grand Jury” column the city’s own prosecutors put before council. Sponsors have already called the rise in Cincinnati rape statistics a reporting and data-correction issue. The records that would test that conclusion remain with the administration.

FAQs

Why did Cincinnati's reported rapes jump 61% in 2026?

CPD counts reports by entry date. From Jan. 1 to Oct. 5, it logged 239 rape reports against 148 in 2025. Reports of offenses from earlier years rose from 22 to 52, about one-third of the net increase. Measured like for like, recorded reports rose about 42%, to a level similar to 2020 through 2023.

Do the figures show that more rapes are happening in Cincinnati?

No police dataset can show that. CPD’s records measure reports, and many rapes never reach police. After removing older offenses and late reports, recorded reports still rose from an unusually low 2025. Changes in reporting, classification or the 2024 records-system switch could all affect that count.

Did Ohio law changes cause the increase in Cincinnati rape statistics?

The dates raise doubts. House Bill 161 took effect Aug. 9, 2024, and further amendments took effect March 21, 2025, so the laws covered nearly all of both comparison periods. A classification change remains possible if CPD recently remapped those statutes into its STARS rape category, which the city has not documented.

What did the 68% dismissal figure from the Oct. 20 hearing measure?

It came from Hamilton County Domestic Relations Court, which handles civil domestic violence protection-order cases. It does not measure criminal prosecutions. The rate fell from 80% in 2023 to 69% in 2024, then held at 68% in 2025 and in 2026 so far, with 800 dismissals on 1,170 filings.

How much federal grant money did council approve for police overtime and advocates?

A signed copy of Ordinance 361-2026 shows the council passed it on Oct. 21. It authorizes up to $274,735 in Byrne Justice Assistance Grant money shared with Hamilton County. Under a planned split, Cincinnati would keep up to $151,104. The ordinance does not say how that is divided between overtime and Women Helping Women.