• An estimated 20-25% of women in higher educational institutions are victims of completed or attempted rape during their college careers.
• No strangers: Among college women, nine in 10 victims of sexual assault knew the attacker.
• Date rape: Almost 12.8% of completed rapes, 35% of attempted rapes, and 22.9% of threatened rapes happened during a date.
• 2.8% of women experienced either a completed rape (1.7%) or attempted rape (1.1%) during the six-month period of the study; of those, 22.8% were victims of multiple rapes. By extrapolation, nearly 5% of college women are victimized during any given calendar year.
• For every 1,000 women attending a college or university, there are an estimated 35 incidents of rape each academic year.
• Of victims of completed rape, 34% were victimized on campus and 66% off campus.
• Fewer than 5% of completed or attempted rapes against college women were reported to law enforcement; in two-thirds of the incidents the victim did tell another person (usually a friend, not family or school officials).
Source: Fisher, B.S., Cullen, F.T., & Turner, M.G. The Sexual Victimization of College Women (2000). National Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
This article appears in May 16 • 2014.