Campus Sexual Assault Perpetration: What Else We Need to Know.

Abstract

I commend Swartout and colleagues on their study (1) in this issue of JAMA Pediatrics for their secondary data analysis of the 2 largest longitudinal data sets of men in college that operationalize sexual assault with a well-validated measure. The results shed additional needed light on the nature of campus sexual assault. By combining 2 data sets, albeit 15 years apart, they maximize our ability to detect the nature of sexual assault on campus. This information will inform better strategies for best identifying, adjudicating, and treating sexually assaultive men. As they point out, one of the major findings is that most men in college do not rape women. In the combined data set, 5.6% of 1645 men committed a sexual assault that met the FBI definition of rape during college. In current conversations about campus sexual assault, many college-aged men believe they are being demonized—if they are not rapists, then they are likely to rape as soon as exposed to a university atmosphere that condones rape. Clearly this is not true, and although all universities need to improve the response to those who are raped and improve accountability for those who do rape, we should avoid any rhetoric that suggests that men at universities are likely to rape and that young women in college should be frightened of the men on their campus in general.... Although the study by Swartout et al in this issue is informative, it also highlights the dearth of high-quality research in the field. Although we have an excellent national survey of sexual assault as part of the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey that includes women of college age, there is not sufficient representation of college students in that sample to identify the complex patterns needed to inform campus policy and prevention strategies. The results of the last well-measured population-based multi-university study of perpetration of sexual assault were published in 1987. Another important limitation of this study is that the samples are from only 2 universities in the southeastern United States and are limited in terms of diversity. One was 25.7% black and 5.8% other; the second was only 7.3% black and 3.3% other. Thus, the findings of this important study inform current policy discussions of college sexual assault by highlighting the need for a multifaceted approach to high school and college rape response and prevention. However, the most important finding is that there is insufficient current national research in this field to support the kind of evidence-based policy and programming in campus sexual assault prevention called for by the White House Council on Women and Girls. Although the Campus Climate Surveys will be informative for surveillance, without validated measures, sufficient response rates, and the ability to answer complex research questions about perpetrators, trajectories, and the interplay of risk and protective factors, they will not provide the kind of findings needed. 1 Swartout KM, Koss MP, White JW, Thompson MP, Abbey A, Bellis AL. Trajectory analysis of the campus serial rapist assumption [published online July 13, 2014]. JAMA Pediatr. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.0707. Language: en