Rape on Campus

[Steve918]

Is there really a rape epidemic on US and UK campuses?

The Guardian, a left-leaning British newspaper, has an almost weekly column on the subject. The columnist posts in the comments section, pretending to be a male commentator, and likes to torment and report any other commentators with divergent viewpoints. The column is founded on the survey described here: Campus Sexual Assault Statistic (Time Magazine)

This column gets lots of comments, which is probably why it is such a frequent topic. Media organisations need their clickbait.

On the other side of the extremist-spectrum, there are posts like this: how-to-stop-rape (NSFW)

Rape is an appalling crime, obviously. It is also a crime that usually takes place between two people in private, so any accusations that come to trial rely on which side is believed by the jury. I have been on a jury in such a case and often wonder if we came to the correct decision. We found the defendant guilty.

It beggars belief that someone would go through the trauma and rigmarole of reporting a false accusation of rape. But then again cases like this are promoted by certain sections of the media.

I was at university in the UK over twenty years ago and this issue was around then. The Daily Mail, a British tabloid described by some as a newspaper for women who hate women, had quite prominent stories about false rape allegations. On a personal level, I knew two girls who claimed to have been raped. One was possibly a sociopath, an unpleasant and manipulative person. The other was obviously damaged and would make outlandish claims about such things as murdering her boyfriend and having random attacks of amnesia. She also made an obviously false suicide attempt. There is no way anyone can tell whether there individuals were telling the truth about being raped. Neither reported their allegations to the police. This doesn’t mean that they are lying either.

Common sense would dictate that the level of rapes in western universities would not equate with that of the Bosnian war. On the other hand, men can do evil things to women.

On such a controversial topic, is objectivity impossible and one’s opinion solely based on personal experiences and, ultimately, on what one wants to believe is true?

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

I don’t think rape on college campuses is any more frequent than elsewhere in society. However the fact that college campuses are conducive to activism on social and political issues as well as the fact that people with higher levels of education are more likely to write about what they’ve seen, heard, and/or experienced and that a rapist in college is someone who is often an acquaintance without being a close family member/friend (which can discourage reporting) all contribute to rapes at the university become more widely known and tied to a larger narrative. In terms of personal experience, I’ve met at least one girl who was raped on campus although she didn’t report it.

[Stonebow]

This is a very complex question. Are there false reports of rape? Of course. Are they statistically significant? I do not know, nor do I know whether we can know. Just because there is no finding of responsibility against the alleged rapist, does that mean the alleged victim made it up?

I will say a lot of the uptick in reporting and increased education/enforcement in this area has to do with us really defining rape in ways that we never have. The classic trope of the college party, where everyone is drinking too much and people do things they regret? Guess what, that brings into play capacity. If you use a sliding scale of force/capacity/consent, where you have to ‘clear’ each gateway before sex, well, a lot of college sex historically should have stopped at the capacity stage. That is a lesson both alleged rapists and victims are learning, and reporting will scale with that.

FWIW, I am an attorney that works in the (American) University setting, and my primary responsibility is civil rights claims. Sexual discrimination, harassment, and violence all fall under my charge as part of Title IX, and i oversee investigations into all of these areas.

[PastTense]

The Department of Justice has collected statistics:

Highlights:

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).
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.

Home

These are much lower numbers than the media has been throwing around

[kayT]

I’m not sure how the report can state rates of rape so confidently when it is well established that many rapes go unreported.

[elfkin477]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

I don’t think rape on college campuses is any more frequent than elsewhere in society.

Considering the amount of judgment-impairing drinking by both sexes that goes on at a typical college campus, I can easily believe rape happens more frequently at colleges and universities than other places.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@elfkin477

Considering the amount of judgment-impairing drinking by both sexes that goes on at a typical college campus, I can easily believe rape happens more frequently at colleges and universities than other places.

Parties involving heavy drinking isn’t exactly uncommon among non-collegiate youths either.

[John_Mace]

@elfkin477

Considering the amount of judgment-impairing drinking by both sexes that goes on at a typical college campus, I can easily believe rape happens more frequently at colleges and universities than other places.

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

Parties involving heavy drinking isn’t exactly uncommon among non-collegiate youths either.

So what if it “isn’t uncommon” as long as it is LESS common?

[Freudian_Slit]

@elfkin477

Considering the amount of judgment-impairing drinking by both sexes that goes on at a typical college campus, I can easily believe rape happens more frequently at colleges and universities than other places.

I’ve seen people point out that rape isn’t necessarily more likely to happen at college but more that it’s more common among that particular age group (18–25). So it’s happening all over to young people, both college going and non, but more talked about in regard to college, maybe since colleges/universities are more visible institutions than.

ETA: From a Slate piece:

For the years 1995 to 2011, as the University of Colorado Denver’s Rennison explained to me, it found that an estimated 0.8 percent of noncollege females age 18-24 revealed that they were victims of threatened, attempted, or completed rape/sexual assault. Of the college females that age during that same time period, approximately 0.6 percent reported they experienced such attempted or completed crime.

From St. Louis Post Dispatch:

And 80 percent of college women and 67 percent of noncollege women ages 18-24 said they did not report their assault.

But if the Justice Department’s data are showing a higher incidence of assault of noncollege young people, why the focus on campus sexual assault?

McCaskill said the answer was simple: jurisdiction.

The federal government has the authority to address the problem on campus, she said, through federal Title IX laws. It is not as easy for federal officials to address assaults involving those not in school.

[even_sven]

I think one of the reasons why campus, in particular, gets singled out is that many people remember college as a relatively safe place. They are small communities, have some level of oversight, and encourage people to explore and experiment. It’s disquieting and compelling to think of this enormous dark streak running through what is for many people a very nostalgic time.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

Parties involving heavy drinking isn’t exactly uncommon among non-collegiate youths either.

This is true, but for many students there’s the important additional factor living in a dorm or Greek house with at least forty more of you under the same roof, on a street or residential section of campus with ten more dorms or houses and hundreds more students all of roughly the same young age. Unlike life in the real world, including students who commute, nobody has to drive home, and this may encourage some students to drink more than they otherwise would have done.

[Nava]

@even_sven

I think one of the reasons why campus, in particular, gets singled out is that many people remember college as a relatively safe place. They are small communities, have some level of oversight, and encourage people to explore and experiment. It’s disquieting and compelling to think of this enormous dark streak running through what is for many people a very nostalgic time.

I’d say the appropriate verb for your first sentence is more “expect”, which involves both people who went to college and who did not. Given for example that so many universities require freshmen to live on campus unless they’re living with relatives, one would expect that the environment will be safer than living in a shared house with no supervision. If that isn’t the case, then what is the advantage to the students? To the school it’s clear, they get paid for housing that’s often below-par, but to the students?

[Salvor]

If you define rape so broadly so as to include something as widespread as sex while drunk, then yes it’s an epidemic. Not everyone holds to such expansive definitions of rape though.

[ITR_champion]

@Stonebow

This is a very complex question. Are there false reports of rape? Of course. Are they statistically significant? I do not know, nor do I know whether we can know. Just because there is no finding of responsibility against the alleged rapist, does that mean the alleged victim made it up?

Cathy Young had a good article on this in Slate recently:

Yes, Sometimes Women Lie About Rape

The short version is that there are many studies of the matter producing different numbers. The best studies say that the number of cases in which the accuser retracts the accusation is about 8 to 10 percent, and the number in which no conviction results is between 25 and 50 percent. So both the claim that false accusations virtually never occur, and the claim that most accusations are false, are not supported.

[Acsenray]

Asking whether there’s a “rape epidemic” anywhere misses the point.

The points are these:

1. Rape is more common than people act like it is.

2. Rape often goes unreported.

3. When it is reported, our social networks, institutions, and the justice system are unable the handle the issue and end up punishing the victim. The punishment of society often has more long term effects than the race itself.

4. A huge number of rapists—especially men in positions of respect, authority, or privilege—are able to get away with it with practically no consequences.

[MrDibble]

I think, from what I’ve been reading, that the issue isn’t so much the rate of rape as the visibly piss-poor response of most colleges to it when it is reported.

[AK84]

Why the anger at Colleges though. Rape accusations should be handled by the authorities. Colleges should not sit in judgment and only help the judicial process.

[Blake]

@John_Mace

So what if it “isn’t uncommon” as long as it is LESS common?

I’ve seen no evidence that it is less common, and my personal observation is that it is more common.

Rape is intrinsically tied to age: over half of all rape victims are under 25. While college students have a reputation for heavy drinking, under 25s of all types party, and in my experience working under 25s party at least as heavily as college students.

So I’d be reticent to attribute anything to more partying by college students until I saw some hard figures.

[Lord_Feldon]

@AK84

Why the anger at Colleges though. Rape accusations should be handled by the authorities. Colleges should not sit in judgment and only help the judicial process.

Yes, rape accusations should be handled by the authorities. Colleges have their own issues they have to deal with though, unless colleges are going to be banned from disciplining students unless there’s proof beyond reasonable doubt that a crime was committed.

A student being accused of raping another students on college property is both a crime and an issue that the college has to deal with through it’s own processes. Just like if one employee is accused of raping another at work. In addition to being a crime that the judicial process must deal with, it’s also sexual harassment and the employer can’t just let the courts handle that.

[Blake]

@Lord_Feldon

A student being accused of raping another students on college property is both a crime and an issue that the college has to deal with through it’s own processes. Just like if one employee is accused of raping another at work. In addition to being a crime that the judicial process must deal with, it’s also sexual harassment and the employer can’t just let the courts handle that.

Except that the inevitable counter-claim that the self-proclaimed victim is sexually harassing the accused means that in practice it is something that has to be handled by the courts. Any employer trying to take sides in a he-said she-said like that would seem to be opening themselves up to a lawsuit.