Sexual Violence Prevention

¶ … Sexual Victimization of College Women" by Fisher, Cullen and Turner (2000), considers sexual violence against young women in the United States. College campuses provide rich grounds for such investigation, since there is a large concentration of young women in these locations. Because of the prevelance of almost exclusively young populations on campuses, the authors claim that such young women are at greater risk of sexual assault than others of their age in the general population.

The population included a sample of 4,446 women from 2- or 4-year colleges or universities with an enrollment rate of at laest 1,000, where participants were attending during fall 1996. Surveys were administered telephonically. Both participants and schools were randomly selected. Letters were sent to each participant to explain the purpose and nature of the study. A response rate of 85.6% was obtained. The study design incorporated a two-stage format of NCVS. First, a series of screen questions are asked. These reveal whether respondens may have experienced incidents of violence against them.

If so, the respondent was asked to complete an "incident report" containing a more detailed series of questions. To limit the influence of memory on the truth surrounding the events, questions were asked during the start of 1997, the year after the period of focus for the study. The study surveyed 12 types of sexual victimization, including attempted sexual contact with or without force.

Two major findings are found to be particularly important in this study: First, campuses with 10,000 female students can experience more than 350 rapes per year; and second, women are often unwilling to classify the assault against them as a crime. There are various reasons for the latter, of which the most important include: Embarrassment; a lack of understanding regarding the legal nature of the crime; the perpetrator is somebody they know; or they blame themselves.

Both these findings have significant implications not only for campus policy, but also for the public interest and policy makers in general. The important factor here is that the study findings were somewhat limited by the time and population of the study, which means that, for the country-wide population of college age women, over the entire course of their residence on campuses, the risk of sexual assault may increase exponentially. In this way, the study offers a significant contribution regarding the safety of young women on campuses.

Policymakers, young women themselves, parents, and campus administrators all have a stake in ensuring greater safety for these women on college campuses. In technical terms, the article appears to be constructed with thorough attention to necessary detail. Information relating to the study, such as survey questions and definitions, are offered as "exhibits" in the body of the article rather than appendices at the end of the work. I found this to be an effective method of supplementing the body of the work, since the.