BJS: Rate of Sexual Assault Shows Sharp Decline, Lower Among College-Age Women

One of the reasons that Rolling
Stone‘s discredited story about a vicious gang rape at the
University of Virginia (UVA) was initially believable is that many
of us take it for granted that colleges are a hotbed of sexual
assault.

As Sen. Kristen Gillibrand of New York has
said, “Women are at a greater risk of sexual assault as soon as
they step onto a college campus.”

This is simply not true, according to the latest figures on
sexual assaults released by the Bureau
of Justice Statistics (BJS). Surveying women between the ages
of 18 and 24, BJS found that “The rate of rape and sexual
assault was 1.2 times higher for nonstudents (7.6 per 1,000) than
for students (6.1 per 1,000).” Other findings form the report
include:

• For both college students and nonstudents, the offender was
  known to the victim in about 80% of rape and sexual assault
  victimizations.
• Most (51%) student rape and sexual assault victimizations
  occurred while the victim was pursuing leisure activities away from
  home, compared to nonstudents who were engaged in other activities
  at home (50%) when the victimization occurred.
• The offender had a weapon in about 1 in 10 rape and sexual
  assault victimizations against both students and nonstudents.
• Rape and sexual assault victimizations of students (80%) were
  more likely than nonstudent victimizations (67%) to go unreported
  to police.

Until the numbers decline to zero, there is no such thing as
“good news” in data about rape and sexual assault. However, the
trends as measured by BJS are going in the right direction. Between
1997 and 2013, the rate of rape or sexual assault against women
dropped by about 50 percent. Again, too high, but going in the
right direction. The decline in the rate of sexual assault is part
of a widely observed decline in violent crime more generally, which
is down
about 60 percent over the past 15 to 20 years.

There are many caveats in the data for all sorts of reasons
(chief among them is that precisely because most assaults are
committed by people known to the victims, the crimes are
underreported). But this sort of information is essential to any
and all discussions about law enforcement and campus policies
related to sexual contact.

Much of the push for the erosion, if not total evisceration, of
due process on
college campuses comes from the false belief that campuses are
uniquely dangerous for women. That not only does a disservice to
(mostly male) suspects brought up on charges of abuse and worse, it
also discourages women in their academic pursuits and poisons an
environment that is already toxic to begin with.

One of the key findings of recent research on sexual offenders
is that such acts are not widely dispersed among a general
population but are mostly committed by
a small number of serial predators. Recognizing that and
building it into campus awareness programs aimed at both potential
victims and potential witnesses is one way to build better, more
equal relations among women and men on campus and off.

Reason on the UVA story
and sexual assault.