2007 · Cited by 3 — Data indicate that 13.7% of undergraduate women had been victims of at least one completed sexual assault since entering college: 4.7% were victims of
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The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice and prepared the following final report: Document Title: The Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) Study Author(s): Christopher P. Krebs, Ph.D. ; Christine H. Lindquist, Ph.D. ; Tara D. Warner, M.A. ; Bonnie S. Fisher, Ph.D. ; Sandra L. Martin, Ph.D. Document No.: 221153 Date Received: December 2007 Award Number: 2004-WG-BX-0010 This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federally- funded grant final report available electronically in addition to traditional paper copies. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
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October 2007 The Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) Study Final Report NIJ Grant No. 2004-WG-BX-0010 Performance Period: January 2005 through December 2007 Prepared for National Institute of Justice 810 Seventh Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 Prepared by Christopher P. Krebs, Ph.D. Christine H. Lindquist, Ph.D. Tara D. Warner, M.A. RTI International 3040 Cornwallis Road Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 Bonnie S. Fisher, Ph.D. University of Cincinnati Sandra L. Martin, Ph.D. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill RTI Project Number 0209487
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The Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) Study Final Report NIJ Grant No. 2004-WG-BX-0010 Performance Period: January 2005 through December 2007 Prepared for National Institute of Justice 810 Seventh Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 Prepared by Christopher P. Krebs, Ph.D. Christine H. Lindquist, Ph.D. Tara D. Warner, M.A. RTI International 3040 Cornwallis Road Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 Bonnie S. Fisher, Ph.D. University of Cincinnati Sandra L. Martin, Ph.D. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill *RTI International is a trade name of Research Triangle Institute.
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Table of Contents Section Page Abstract: vii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY viii 1. Introduction 1-1 1.1 A Typology of Sexual Assault .1-3 1.1.1 Incapacitated Sexual Assault .1-4 2. Background 2-1 2.1 Prevalence Estimates for Se xual Assault Victimization .2-1 2.2 The Context of Campus Sexual Assault 2-3 2.3 Risk Factors Associated with Sexual Assault ..2-5 2.3.1 Prior Victimization 2-5 2.3.2 Substance Use ..2-6 2.3.3 Age and Year of Study 2-7 2.3.4 Race/Ethnicity 2-7 2.3.5 Residential Status 2-7 2.3.6 Sorority Membership2-7 2.3.7 Dating Violence History..2-8 2.3.8 Consensual Sexual Experiences 2-8 2.3.9 Attitudinal Characteristics ..2-8 2.4 Reporting of Sexual Assault2-9 2.5 Perpetration of Campus Sexual Assault..2-11 3. Research Methods 3-1 3.1 Data Collection ..3-1 3.1.1 Sampling 3-2 3.1.2 Recruitment Procedures and Response Rates 3-2 3.1.3 Web Site and Survey Design and Content .3-2 3.1.4 Incentive Redemption.3-5 3.2 Data Handling .3-6 iii
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3.2.1 Data Preparation and Cleaning .3-6 3.2.2 Response Bias Analyses.3-7 3.3 Data Analysis 3-10 3.3.1 Descriptive Analyses ..3-10 3.3.2 Risk Factors for Sexual Assault 3-13 4. Study Sample 4-1 4.1 Women.4-1 4.2 Men..4-1 5. Findings 5-1 5.1 Sexual Assault Victimization ..5-1 5.1.1 Prevalence Estimates ..5-1 5.1.2 Risk Factors Associated with Se xual Assault Among University Women5-6 5.1.3 Context ..5-14 5.1.4 Reporting and Nonreporting .5-21 5.1.5 Consequences ..5-26 5.2 Sexual Assault Perpetration ..5-27 6. Conclusion and Recommendations 6-1 6.1 Summary of Findings 6-1 6.2 CSA Study Implications 6-3 6.3 CSA Study Limitations .6-6 6.4 Conclusion ..6-7 7. Future Directions 7-1 References 1 iv
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List of Exhibits Exhibit Page 1-1. Basic Sexual Assa ult Typology.1-7 3-1. Diagram of Sampling Frames, Samp ling Subframes, Samples, and Respondents.3-3 3-2. Sexual Assault Preval ence Measures.3-12 4-1. Descriptive Data on CSA Sample of Undergraduate Women, Weighted Percentages (n = 5,446) a..4-2 4-2. Descriptive Data on CSA Sample of Undergraduate Men, Weighted Percentages (n = 1,375) a..4-4 5-1. Prevalence Estimates for the Sexual Assault Measures for Women, Unweighted Frequencies, We ighted Percen tages.5-2 5-2. Percentage of Undergraduate Women Wh o Report Being a Victim of Forced and Incapacitated Sexual Assault Bef ore and Since Ente ring College.5-3 5-3. Percentage of Victims of Physically Fo rced and Incapacita ted Sexual Assault Who Experienced Sexual Ba ttery Only and Rape.5-4 5-4. Prevalence Estimates for the Sexual A ssault Measures for Men, Unweighted Frequencies, Weighted Percentages5-6 5-5. Prevalence of Various Measures of Se xual Assault Within Demographic and Behavioral Factors for Undergraduate Women (n = 5,361) a.5-8 5-6. Logistic Regression Models of Four Sexual Assault Measures (n = 4,646) a.5-11 5-7. Percentage of Victims (by Sexual A ssault [SA] Type) Reporting Various Victimization Contextual Factors, Unweighted Frequencies, Weighted Percentagesa5-15 5-8. Reporting of Sexual Assault (SA), by Assault Type, Unweighted Frequencies, Weighted Percentagesa.5-22 5-9. Consequences of Sexual Assault (SA), by Assault Type, Unweighted Frequencies, Weighted Percentages a.5-27 v
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ABSTRACT: THE CAMPUS SEXUAL ASSAULT (CSA) STUDY Sexual assault is a public health and public safety problem with far-reaching implications. Although a substantial body of research on sexual assault exis ts, additional data are needed to help document the current magnitude of the problem, the extent to which certain subpopulations are impacted, the consequences and reporting (or nonreporting) of victimization incidents, and stra tegies for preventing and reducing the risk of sexual assault and effectively responding to victims. One subpopulation that is often believed to be at elevated risk for sexual assault is college students. RTI International (RTI) was funded by the National Institut e of Justice (NIJ) to conduct the Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) Study, which is a study of various types of sexual assault experienced by universit y students. This study has one primary research objective. 1. To examine the prevalence, nature, and repo rting of various types of sexual assault experienced by university students in an effort to inform the development of targeted intervention strategies. In addition, the CSA Study has two service-or iented objectives, the success towards which were not measured and are thus not the subjec t of this final report. These objectives are, however, worth mentioning. 2. To educate students about various types of sexual assault, how they can maximize their safety, and what they can do if they or someone they know has been victimized. 3. To provide students with information ab out the campus and community resources that are available should they need assistance or have any concerns or questions. RTI has been working with two large, public universities on the CSA Study. Data were collected using a Web-based survey from ov er 6,800 undergraduate students (5,466 women and 1,375 men). Data indicate that 13.7% of undergraduate women had been victims of at least one completed sexual assault since entering college: 4.7% were victims of physically forced sexual assault; 7.8% of women were sexually assaulted when they were incapacitated after voluntarily consuming drugs and/or alcohol (i.e., th ey were victims of alcohol and/or other drug- [AOD] enabled sexu al assault); 0.6% were sexually assaulted when they were incapacitated after having b een given a drug withou t their knowledge (i.e., they were certain they had been victims of drug-facilitated sexual assault [DFSA]). Detailed data were collected on the context, reporting, and consequences of sexual assault. Self- reported rates of sexual assault victimization and perpetration among males were very low. The primary implications of the CSA Study are the relative rarity of cases of DFSA and the need to incorporate alcohol and drug message s into sexual assault prevention and risk reduction programming. vii
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Sexual assault is a public health and public safety problem with far-reaching implications. Being a victim of sexual assault is one of the most violating experiences anyone can endure and can cause immediate, as well as long-term, physical and mental health consequences. Of rape victims, 25% to 45% suffer from nongenital trauma; 19% to 22% suffer from genital trauma; up to 40% get sexually tr ansmitted diseases (S TDs); and 1% to 5% become pregnant, resulting in an estimated 32,000 rape-related pregnancies in the United States annually (Holmes, Resnick, Kirkpatrick, & Best, 1996). Four out of five rape victims subsequently suffer from chronic physical or psychological conditions (Strategies for the Treatment and Prevention of Sexual Assault, 1995), and rape victims are 13 times more likely to attempt suicide than noncrime victims and six times more likely than victims of other crimes (Rape in America: A Report to the Nation, 1992). Overall, rape is believed to carry the highest annual victim cost of any crime. The annual victim costs are $127 billion (excluding child sex abuse cases), followed by assault at $93 billion per year, murder (excluding arson and drunk driving) at $61 b illion per year, and child abuse at $56 billion per year (Miller, Co hen, & Wierama, 1996). Given the substantial impact sexual victimization has on individual victims and society, collecting information that advances our understanding of sexual assault and helps us prevent victimization and better meet the needs of victims is critical. Much research has been published about the sexual assault experiences of co llege women, a group often characterized as being at high risk for sexual victi mization. Researchers have consistently reported that a sizable percentage of women are sexually assaulted during their college years, with, on average, at least 50% of their sexual assaults involving the use of alcohol or other drugs by the perpetrator, victim, or bo th (Abbey, 2002; Fisher et al., 2000; Testa & Parks, 1996). RTI International was funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to conduct the Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) Study. The CSA Study was undertaken specifically to document the prevalence of distinct types of sexual assault among university women (with fitypesfl defined by how the assault was achiev ed, such as the use of physical force or incapacitation of the victim due to drugs or al cohol), as well as the context, consequences, and reporting of distinct types of sexual assault among a la rge sample of undergraduate women from two large universities. In the CSA Study, sexual assault includes a wide range viii
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Section 1 Š Introduction of victimizations, including rape and other ty pes of unwanted sexual contact (e.g., sexual battery). The typology that guides the classification of sexual assault in the CSA Study is based on how the assault (or attempted assault) was achi eved. Virtually all sexu al assault research distinguishes between assaults occurring as a result of physical force (or threats of physical force) from assaults that do not involve the us e or threat of force; the CSA Study similarly considers physically forced sexual assault as a distinct category of assault. Another means through which sexual assault is achieved is incapacitation of the victim . Legal definitions of sexual assault factor in one™s ability to provide consent, and individuals who are incapacitated because of the effects of alcohol or drugs (or otherwise incapacitated, such as when they are unconscious or asleep) are inca pable of consenting. In the CSA Study, we consider as incapacitated sexual assault any unwanted sexual contact occurring when a victim is unable to provide consent or stop what is happening because she is passed out, drugged, drunk, incapa citated, or asleep, regardless of whether the perpetrator was responsible for her substance use or whether substances we re administered without her knowledge. We break down incapa citated sexual assault into four subtypes. The first two subtypes pertain to sexual assaults achieved when the victim is givenŠwithout her knowledge or consentŠa substance that ph ysically incapacitates her and makes her incapable of providing consent. DFSA (drug-facilitated sexual assault) is defined as unwanted sexual contact occurring when the victim is incapacitated and unable to provide consent after she had been given a drug without her knowledge or consent. Incidents classified as DFSA are thos e in which the victim is certain that she had been drugged. In contrast, SDFSA (suspected drug-facilitated sexual assault) is defined as incapacitated sexual assault occurri ng after the victim suspects that she had been given a drug without her knowledge or consent. The third type of in capacitated sexual assa ult considered in the CSA Study is termed alcohol and/or other drug- (AOD-) enabled sexual assault. This subtype includes unwanted sexual contact occu rring when the victim is incapacitated and unable to provide consent because of voluntary consumption of alcohol or other drugs. Finally, to distinguish between incapacitation due to the effects of AOD (administered either coercively or voluntarily) and other types of incapacitation, we include a fourth type of incapacitated sexual assault in our typology. Other incapacitated sexual assaults capture the remaining, and likely uncommon, situations in which a victim can be incapacitated, such as by being asleep or unconscious. ix
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The Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) Study The CSA Study builds upon previous research and makes a number of contributions to the field. The CSA Study is one of the first to ge nerate estimates of th e prevalence of drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) among a college sample. The concept of DFSA has received widespread attention from the media and a va riety of stakeholders, including prevention and risk reduction specialists, treatment providers, law enforcement, and university administrators, but empirical da ta on the prevalence and natu re of this phenomenon have yet to appear in the literature. In addition, th e CSA study explores the extent to which risk factors vary by type of assault. We believe th is is the first study to find that the type of sexual assault a woman has experi enced in the past puts her at risk for experiencing that same type, but not another type, of sexual assault in the future. A finding like this may help prevention and service provider s tailor their efforts and take into account what type of sexual assault a woman has experienced or may be at risk of experiencing. METHODS The CSA Study involved conducting a We b-based survey of random samples of undergraduate students at two large public univ ersities, one located in the South (University 1) and one located in the Midwest (University 2). The CSA Survey was administered in the Winter of 2006, and a total of 5,446 unde rgraduate women and 1,375 undergraduate men participated. Because the male component of the study was exploratory, the data and results presented in this summary represent women only. The CSA Study was reviewed and approved by RTI™s Institutional Review Board (IRB), as well as the university IRBs. We drew random samples of students aged 18- 25 and enrolled at least three-quarters™ time at each university to participate in the CSA Study. Sampled students were sent an initial recruitment e-mail that described the study, provided a unique CSA Study ID#, and included a hyperlink to the CSA Study Web si te. During each of the following weeks, students who had not completed the survey were sent follow-up e-mails and a hard-copy letter encouraging them to partic ipate. The overall response rates for survey completion for the undergraduate women sampled at the two universities were 42.2% and 42.8%, respectively. A nonresponse bias analysis was conducted to create sample weights. We compared respondents and nonrespondents on the admini strative data elements provided by the universities, which included age, university, race /ethnicity, and year of study. Although little nonresponse bias was detected, weights adjust ing for non-response were developed using a Generalized Exponential Model (Folsom & Sing h, 2000) to reduce nonresponse bias and x
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