Dive Brief:
- Female college students between the ages of 18 and 24 are less likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than their non-college peers, and those who are assaulted are less likely to report the attack to police, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Justice.
- For both the college and not-attending-college groups, the attacker in rapes and sexual assaults was known by the victim in about 80% of the cases.
- Among the rape and sexual assault victims in the 18- to 24-year-old category, 12% of the college students and 5% of the non-students said the assault was not important enough to report.
Dive Insight:
The report by the U.S. Department of Justice doesn’t address why the figures are so different for college and non-college-attending women, but an obvious question for the reader is: Does the college student disciplinary system, where campus rape and sexual assault cases are often adjudicated, supplant or interfere with the local criminal justice system? As defined in the report, rape means sexual penetration against the will of the victim and sexual assault is unwanted sexual contact other than rape. Other numbers from the report, which were compiled from 1995 to 2013: 20% of rape and sexual assault victims in the college category reported their attacks, compared to 32% in the non-college group. The rate of rape and sexual assaults for the college women was 6.1 per 1,000, compared to 7.6 per 1,000 for non-college women.
