“Rape and sexual assault victimizations of students (80%) were more likely than nonstudent victimizations (67%) to go unreported to police,” the report published on the Bureau’s website stated.
A research, conducted by the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) between 1995 and 2013, found that US female college-age students experienced higher rates of rape and sexual assault than those of any other age group.
On average almost 5 victims per every 1,000 female students were victims between 2007 and 2013, as stated in the report. College-age male victims accounted for only 17 percent of the surveyed cases.
While one in five cited the fear of reprisal for not reporting a case, about 26 percent of students believed it was a personal matter and 12 percent said the incident was not important enough to report, according to the survey. This resulted in less than one in five female students in the United States receiving assistance from a victim service agency, the report stated.
However, rape and sexual assault cases still remained more common among people who did not attend college than in students. “The rate of rape and sexual assault was 1.2 times higher for non-students (7.6 per 1,000) than for students (6.1 per 1,000),” the report said.
Further to this, in about 80 percent of the cases for both students and nonstudents, the offender was someone familiar to the victim.
The NCVS considered a sexual assault to include the inability to provide consent due to drug or alcohol use, being forced to penetrate another person, coerced to engage in unwanted sexual contact and unwanted sexual experiences that do not involve physical contact.
