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Sexual Assaults on College Campuses
Amris Chacon
Texas A&M University- Corpus Christi
HLTH3342 Human Sexuality in Health Education
C. Sabia-LeBus
Spring 2016
Sexual Assault on College Campuses
Every parent wants to feel safe and comfortable as they send their children off to college. It is an
exciting time in the student’s life to be able to embark on a new journey that will determine his or her
future. Every parent wants the best for their child and for them to get the best education that is offered.
College should be the best four years of a person’s life filled with memories that will last a lifetime along
with friends that will endure this journey of college as well. College can be the most memorable times in
ones life, but unfortunately they are not all happy memories. There are many crimes that take place on
college campuses, some more than others. The most common crime that takes place of college
campuses is sexual assault. Sexual assault is any type or form of sexual behaviors that occur without a
person’s consent. Anything that is forced whether it is fondling, intercourse, or attempted rape is a sexual
assault.
Statistics
A recent study by Foubert has shown that one in four college women have reported gone
through and survived a sexual assault. That is 25% of the women on a college campus that have reported
being assaulted. Women are not the only ones that get sexually assaulted, one in every sixteen males get
assaulted as well while they are in college. The main gender that usually rates higher in sexual assault
cases is women coming in at 91% and men at 9%. There was a survey showing that 63.3% of men
admitted to have committing sexual assault multiple times on their victims. The study also showed that
60% of the sexual assaults happen with an acquaintance of the victim, basically eight out of every 10
cases. In college you think to branch out of you comfort zone and meet new people, but nobody would
ever think that their new friends could potentially ever hurt them. Sexual assault is the least reported
crime out of all the violent crimes (Rand, 2009). More than 90% of victims do not report their sexual
assault. Sadly it is because they are either afraid of what’s to come, they rather simply forget about it and
pretend it never happened, or they didn’t think it was serious enough. This lowers the rate of catching the
assailants that are responsible.
Risks
Sadly, every year there are over one million women on college campuses who report to have
been sexually assaulted. Women are more at risk to getting sexually assaulted when they are highly
intoxicated. This is because they are not in their “right mind” and are unable to think clearly. In a research
done by Abbey (2004) 55% of college women reported that their sexual assault happened while the
consumption of alcohol was taking place. The research also claimed that 97% of the sexual assaults
occurred when both the victim and the assailant were under the influence of alcohol. According to Abbey
(2002), “Research suggests that alcohol consumption by the perpetrator and/or the victim increases the
likelihood of acquaintance sexual assault occurring through multiple pathways. Alcohol’s psychological,
cognitive and motor effects contribute to sexual assault” (2002). The most common location according to
Abbey (2002) where a sexual assault takes place are the dorms on campus, apartments, and
fraternity/sorority houses. There are a lot of women who enter college that want to join a sorority. Mainly
girl join a sorority for the social interactions that the sorority has to offer to incoming women. Women who
are in a sorority are 74% more likely to become a victim of sexual assault and those that live in a sorority
house are three times more likely to become sexually assaulted (Minow & Einolf, 2009; Mohler-Kuo,
Dowdall, Koss, & Weschler, 2004). Girls are not supposed to fear joining a sorority or any other extra
curricular activities because they are afraid of being assaulted. They should simply be aware and
