Sexual Assault of Women on College Campuses

New report should have college administrators worried for safety of female students.

By Skyler Holley

A new study released Monday shows that about 3 percent of college women have experienced a completed or attempted rape.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice and the Bureau of Justice estimate that about 1.7 percent of female students were victims of attempted rape and another 1.7 percent of female students reported being coerced to have sex.

The study, “The Sexual Victimization of College Women,” was federally funded and conducted by Bonnie S. Fisher, a professor at the University of Cincinnati, Francis T. Cullen and Michael G. Turner.

The NCWSV study results are based on a telephone survey of a randomly selected, national sample, of 4,446 women attending a 2- or 4-year college or university. All students selected for the survey went to schools with at least 1,000 students.

The authors of the study explained, “Most victims knew the person who sexually victimized them.” Usually it was a boyfriend or ex-boyfriend, a classmate, friend, acquaintance, or a coworker who sexually victimized the women. College professors were cited as the offender in a low percentage of cases involving unwanted sexual contact, but were not identified as committing and rapes or coercions.

More Statistics:

• About 13 percent of college women have been stalked since the beginning of the school year
• Majority of incidents occurred after 6 p.m. in living quarters
• 60 percent of completed rapes occurred in the victim’s living quarters
• 31 percent occurred in other living quarters on campus
• 10 percent occurred at a fraternity
• 90 percent of offenders were known to the victim
• A college that has 10,000 female students could experience more than 350 rapes a year.

Rapes occurring off-campus happened mainly in residences. Sexual contacts and threatened victimizations also occurred in bars, dance clubs, night clubs and work settings.

The attention to the sexual victimization of women has been brought on by the increasing concern that colleges are becoming hotspots for criminal activity. Previous research suggests that women on college campuses could be at greater risk for sexual assault than other women in a comparable age group.

Often women do not believe their victimizations are a crime because of embarrassment, they do not understand what rape is, they blame themselves, or they do not want to identify their assailant as a rapist.

More Information:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/assist/nvaa2002/chapter22_4sup.html