The CSA Study involved conducting a Web-based survey of random samples of undergraduate students at two large public universities, 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 undergraduate 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\u2019s Institutional Review Board (IRB), as well as the university IRBs. \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
We drew random samples of students aged 18-25 and enrolled at least three-quarters\u2019 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 site. 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 participate. The overall response rates for survey completion for the undergraduate women sampled at the two universities were 42.2% and 42.8%, respectively.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Note that they specifically say that they asked the men whether they had ever been perpetrators; whether they also ask the same \u201cvictim\u201d questions isn\u2019t clear.<\/p>\n
The women who responded were of all ages, not just graduating seniors.<\/p>\n
Here are there headline statistics:<\/p>\n
16% of respondents experienced \u201cattempted or completed sexual assault before entering college.\u201d<\/p>\n
19% of respondents experienced \u201ccompleted or attempted sexual assault since entering college.\u201d \u00a0Given that women at all stages of their college careers were surveyed, unless this statistic reflects massaging of the data, then this implies that the actual percentage of women who are victims at some point during their college career would be a lot higher.<\/p>\n
But then there are more breakdowns.<\/p>\n
Of the pre-college assaults, 10.1% were attempted, and 11.3% completed (this doesn\u2019t add to 16% because some respondents experience both). \u00a0Of the completed, 6.4% were physically forced and 7.0% were based on incapacity (drug\/alcohol use) \u2014 the attempted assaults aren\u2019t similarly broken down.<\/p>\n
Of the college assaults, 12.6% were attempted and 13.7% completed. Again, the attempts aren\u2019t further broken-down. \u00a0The completeds split into 4.7% physically forced, of which 1.4% were sexual battery and 3.4% were rape; and 11.1% incapacitated, further split into 2.6% sexual battery and 8.5% rape, and further split into 7.8% alcohol or drug use, 0.6% cases in which the women were certain they had been drugged, 1.7% cases where women suspected they had been drugged, and 1.0% \u201cother\u201d \u2014 e.g., sleeping or unconscious.<\/p>\n
Now, all of these numbers are high \u2014 we\u2019re looking at 3.4% of women saying they were victims of \u201crape rape\u201d during their college years, that is, excluding those who were drinking or high. \u00a0But consider that women who have been victims are almost certainly going to respond to a survey like this to have their voice be heard, and women who haven\u2019t are more likely to be indifferent, so, for simplicity\u2019s sake, let\u2019s knock that figure down to 1.5%.<\/p>\n
And what\u2019s more, what of the 16% who reported being victims before college, or the 6.4% who were victims of a completed sexual assault not due to drug\/alcohol incapacity? \u00a0Why is no one flipping out about this figure?<\/p>\n
More interesting figures: \u00a0on reporting \u00a02% of incapacitated victims reported the incident to police, compared to 13% of those who experienced physically-forced assault. \u00a0Why not? <\/p>\n
For those who were incapacitated, 67% said \u201cthey did not think it was serious enough to report,\u201d 35% said \u201cit was unclear that a crime was committed or that harm was intended,\u201d and 29% said they didn\u2019t want anyone to know about the incident. \u00a0(Note that these figures group rape and other non-rape assault.)<\/p>\n
For those who were physically-forced, and didn\u2019t report, 56% said \u201cnot serious enough,\u201d 35% said, \u201cnot clear it\u2019s a crime,\u201d and 42% \u201cdon\u2019t want anyone to know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Definitions<\/b><\/p>\nIn 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, incapacitated, or asleep, regardless of whether the perpetrator was responsible for her substance use or whether substances were administered without her knowledge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u00a0Three types of incapacitated sexual assault. \u00a01) drug-facilitated (\u201cslipped a Mickey\u201d), 2) suspected drug-facilitated, and 3rd:<\/p>\n
The third type of incapacitated sexual assault considered in the CSA Study is termed alcohol \u00a0and\/or other drug- (AOD-) enabled sexual assault. We recognize that most women who drink or use drugs do so voluntarily and that the vast majority of situations in which a woman is incapacitated because of the effects of alcohol or drugs are not caused by coercive or clandestine action on the part of another individual. However, if a woman experiences unwanted sexual contact when she is incapacitated and unable to provide consent because of voluntary consumption of alcohol or other drugs, a sexual assault has nonetheless occurred. We consider the assault to be directly enabled by the use of alcohol or other drugs. Although it is important to distinguish between DFSA and sexual assault occurring after voluntary substance abuse, we believe that both are clear instances of incapacitated sexual assault and classify them accordingly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Survey Itself<\/b><\/p>\n
The report describes extensively background literature and various correlations in the data, and then gets to the real meat of the report: \u00a0the survey questions.<\/p>\n
One accusation that one often reads of these sorts of studies is that incidents are classified by the researchers as sexual assault when the survey respondent didn\u2019t consider the incident to be any such thing \u2013 e.g., by asking, without context, \u201chave you ever had sexual contact with a man while you were drunk?\u201d \u00a0Is that what\u2019s happening here? <\/p>\n
Their definition of sexual assault seems overly-broad in one sense, to be sure, as they include \u201cforced touching of a sexual nature (forced kissing, touching of private parts, grabbing, fondling, rubbing up against you in a sexual way, even if it is over your clothes).\u201d<\/p>\n
And the question about incapacitated sexual contact is this: \u00a0\u201cHas someone had sexual contact with you when you were unable to provide consent or stop what was happening because you were passed out, drugged, drunk, incapacitated, or asleep?\u201d <\/p>\n
Is this a survey question that leads its respondents to answer \u201cyes\u201d for next-day regrets? \u00a0If I take just the second half of the question, \u201cunable to stop what was happening,\u201d given that this is an anonymous survey, you\u2019d think that this ought to happen infrequently, unless it\u2019s simply the case that women, in their own minds, convince themselves, due to next-day regrets, that the sex they only hazily remember was sex they didn\u2019t want.<\/p>\n
But the first part? \u00a0If \u00a0they read the question somewhat legalistically, the student could interpret this question as simply meaning \u201cI was drunk, therefore, technically, I didn\u2019t consent.\u201d \u00a0Is this how a significant number of the students interpreted the question? \u00a0I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
The Bottom Line<\/b><\/p>\n
So the 19% figure isn\u2019t particularly useful, especially since, if you want to take it seriously, you have to pair it with the 16% pre-college figure. \u00a0Is the right number 1.5%? \u00a0What, after all, do you make of the fact that the survey was conducted in the winter, that is, halfway through the academic year, and roughly equal numbers of freshmen\/sophmores\/juniors\/seniors participated? <\/p>\n
So I\u2019m disappointed, and going to bed. \u00a0Goodnight!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After my first \u201cinsta-lanche\u201d earlier today (for those who don\u2019t know, that means that Glen Reynolds, the \u201cinstapundit,\u201d links to your piece on his blog and you get a reader count several orders of magnitude higher than usual \u2013 in this case, this morning\u2019s \u201cCampus Sexual Assault: I\u2019ll believe it\u2019s a crisis when. . .\u201c), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[117],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-sexual-assault"],"yoast_head":"\n
The 1\/5 statistic: reading the source document<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After my first "insta-lanche" earlier today (for those who don't know, that means that Glen Reynolds, the "instapundit," links to your piece on his blog\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/09\/the-15-statistic-reading-the-source-document.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The 1\/5 statistic: reading the source document\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After my first "insta-lanche" earlier today (for those who don't know, that means that Glen Reynolds, the "instapundit," links to your piece on his blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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