The Sexual Victimization of College Women Nationwide

By Paige Wall


Today the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute and the Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report saying about 3 percent of college women are involved in a sexual assault case during a college year.


The report titled “The Sexual Victimization of College Women,” reinforces the importance of many organizations’ efforts to improve education and knowledge about sexual assault.


The federally funded study headed by Bonnie S. Fisher, professor at the University of Cincinnati, Francis T. Cullen and Michael G. Turner emphasizes how important this issue truly is.


The Data Stated:
• 1.7 percent of female college students are victims of attempted rape,
• 1.7 percent of female college students are being coerced to have sex.
• 13 percent of female college students are being stalked since the beginning of the school year
• Vast majority of these incidents occur after 6 p.m. in living quarters
• Nearly 60 percent take place on campus in the victim’s residence
• 31 percent occur in other living arrangements on campus
• 10 percent occur in fraternity houses


The authors said, “About nine in 10 offenders are known to the victim, most often a boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, classmate, friend acquaintance or coworker sexually victimized the women.”
Fisher found many women do not characterize their sexual victimizations as crimes with reasons being:
• Embarrassment
• not understanding the clear definition of rape
• not wanting to define someone they know as a rapist
• blaming themselves for their sexual assault


How safe are college campuses? They’ve become the new hot spot for criminal activity which leads to the rising fear on them.
Previous research suggests college females are at a greater risk for rape and/or sexual assault than women in the general public or in a comparable age group.


Who took part in this survey? The NCWSV telephone study’s results are based off of 4,446 randomly selected women who are attending a 2 or 4 year college or university.
The sample was limited to schools with at least 1,000 students.


Survey Results:
• For every 1,000 women attending their institutions, there may be 35 rapes in a given year
• For a campus with 10,000 women, the number of rapes could exceed 350
• More broadly, when projected over the Nation’s female student population of several million, these figures suggest rape victimization is a potential problem of large proportion and of public policy interest.


The National Institute of Justice and the Bureau of Justice Statistics are components of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime.


For More Information:
Dateline NBC: Rape on Campus
Students and Campus Rape