Despite the recent focus on sexual assaults and rapes on campus, a new government study suggests more women are victims of attacks far from college campuses
— and at a higher rate.
The report, Rape and Sexual Assault Among College-Age Females, 1995-2013, released by the
Bureau of Justice Statistics, found nonstudents
— 65,700 on average per year
— were the victims of roughly double the number of rape and sexual assaults as students
— 31,300 on average per year.
It found the rate of sexual assault on campus is 6.1 per 1,000 students, or 0.61 percent, while the rate for nonstudents is 7.6 per 1,000 people.
Those numbers are significantly lower than statistics cited in a study done in 2007 by the
National Institutes of Justice, which found almost one in five women reported having been raped or assaulted while in college.
The Federalist blasts the 2007 report as producing a "bogus" statistic from a survey of "only two universities … which paid respondents for their answers" that's since been used as evidence of a "pervasive rape culture on college campuses across the country."
"Even more striking is that according to the BJS data, the likelihood of sexual assault has actually been trending downward across the board since 1997," the Federalist notes.
The report released Thursday comes at a time of close attention to the issue of campus sexual assault — and amid the controversy over a
Rolling Stone article about an alleged gang-rape at the University of Virginia. The magazine has since backed away from its reporting.
But it showed a troubling infrequency in which sexual attacks are reported.
According to the report, rapes and sexual assaults against female students were more likely to go unreported to police
— only 20 percent chose to report the crime
— compared with 32 percent of non-students who reported being attacked. And "regardless of enrollment status, rape and sexual assault victimizations were more likely to go unreported than other types of violent crime," the report found.
The study noted the reasons for not reporting a rape or sexual assault varied somewhat between students and nonstudents. The report found 19 percent of nonstudents, and 9 percent of college students, "stated that they did not report to police because the police would not or could not do anything to help."
Twelve percent of campus students were more likely to say being a victim of sexual assault "was not important enough to report," compared with 5 percent of nonstudents who thought that way, the report showed.
The report found 26 percent of college students and 23 percent of nonstudent victims who didn't report the assaults "believed the incident was a personal matter," while 20 percent each "stated a fear of reprisal."