Rape and other forms of sexual victimization of women is steadily increasingly and becoming a greater problem on college campuses across America.
By Kaitlyn Hodgins
Three percent of college women experience a completed and/or attempted rape during a college year, according to a report released Monday.
The report, “The Sexual Victimization of College Women” was federally funded and release by the U.S. Department of Justice’s National institute of Justice and the Bureau of Justice.
The report, conducted by Bonnie S. Fisher, a professor at the University of Cincinnati, Francis T. Cullen and Michael G. Turner, offered a comprehensive look into the prevalence and nature of sexual assault occurring at American Colleges.
The Data Showed
· About 1.7 percent of female college students were victims of attempted rape.
· About 1.7 percent of college women reported being coerced into having sex.
· About 13 percent of college women have been stalked since the beginning of the school year.
· Of the incidents of sexual victimization, the vast majority occurred after 6 p.m. in living quarters.
· For completed rapes, nearly 60 percent that took place on campus occurred in the victim’s residence.
· 31 percent occurred in other living quarters on campus.
· 10 percent occurred at a fraternity.
· Most off-campus victimization, especially rapes, also occurred in residences.
· However, particularly for sexual contacts and threatened victimizations, incidents also took place in bars, dance clubs, nightclubs and work settings.
“Most victims knew the person who sexually victimized them,” the authors wrote. “For both completed and attempted rapes, about nine in 10 offenders were known to the victim. Most often, a boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, classmate, friend acquaintance, or co-worker sexually victimized the women.”
According to the report, “College professors were not identified as committing any rapes or sexual coercions, but they were cited as the offender in a low percentage of cases involving unwanted sexual contact.”
Based on the findings of Bonnie Fisher and her colleagues, they estimate that the women at a college that has 10,000 female students could experience more than 350 rapes a year—a finding with serious policy implications for college administrators.
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.
Fisher also found that many women do not characterize their sexual victimizations as a crime for a number of reasons.
Reasons Women May Not Report a Rape
· Embarrassment.
· Not clearly understanding the legal definition of rape.
· Not wanting to define someone they know who is victimized them as a rapist.
· They blame themselves for their sexual assault.
The study reinforces the importance of many organizations’ efforts to improve education and knowledge about sexual assault.
Previous research suggests that college women are at greater risk for rape and other forms of sexual assault than women in the general population or in a comparable age group. College women might, therefore, be a group whose victimization warrants special attention.
Attention to the sexual victimization of college women, however, also has been prompted by the rising fear that college campuses are not ivory towers but, instead, have become hot spots for criminal activity. Researchers have shown that college campuses and their students are not free from the risk of criminal victimization.
Who was surveyed?
· NCWSV study results are based on a telephone survey of a randomly selected national sample of 4,446
· Women who were attending a 2-or4- year college or university.
· The sample was limited to schools with at least 1,000 students.
Furthermore, from a policy perspective, college administrators might be disturbed to learn that for every 1,000 women attending their institutions, there may well be 35 incidents of rape in a given academic year (based on a victimization rate of 35.3 per 1,000 college women). For a campus with 10,000 women, this would mean the number of rapes could exceed 350.
Even more broadly, when projected over the nation’s female student population of several million, these figures suggest that rape victimization is a potential problem of large proportion and of public policy interest.
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Violence Against College Women
College Violence
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Why Don't Women Report Rape?
Myths and Facts about Sexual Violence
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