How common is sexual violence?
It is estimated that 20-25% of college women will be victims of an attempted or completed rape during their college careers. In 90% of college cases, the offender is known to the victim, usually a classmate, friend, or acquaintance. (Fisher, Bonnie, Francis Cullen, Michael Turner. The Sexual Victimization of College Women. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice and Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, 2000.)

How many students utilize the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response?
84 Harvard students called or came in to the OSAPR during the 2007-2008 academic year after experiencing a rape, sexual assault, or relationship violence.

How much sexual assault actually occurs at Harvard?
Sexual assault is known to be severely underreported, so we may never have a good answer to that question. Limited data comes from two sources: the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) annual report, and a UHS health survey.

The HUPD reports the following numbers of "forcible sexual offenses" occurring on the Cambridge campus and reported formally or confidentially in three successive years as 30 (2004), 12 (2005), and 18 (2006). The HUPD data include reports made to 'any campus authority' in keeping with the requirements of the Clery Act, that is, any administrator or faculty member other than mental health counselors and clergy, who are exempt from reporting. As these counts include reports by any member of the Cambridge campus community, some victims may not have been Harvard undergraduates. It is important to understand that a minority of sexual assaults are ever reported to authorities.

The Harvard University Health Service has participated in surveys during 2000 and 2002 as part of the National College Health Association Survey. The response rate in the most recent year was 37%. Among respondents, .9% reported having been victims of forced sexual penetration and 2.4% reported attempted sexual penetration. The low response rate makes these data of somewhat limited value., and because the incidents may not have occurred while the students were undergraduates at Harvard. In summary, we have limited information about the frequency of rape or sexual assault in Harvard College.

How much sexual assault happens nationally?
The National College Women Sexual Victimization Study (NCWSV) was designed to identify cases of completed rape (unwanted completed penetration by force or the threat of force), attempted rape, completed sexual coercion (unwanted completed penetration with the threat of non-physical punishment, promise of reward, or verbal pressure), attempted sexual coercion, completed sexual contact (unwanted sexual contact not including penetration) with force or threat of force, completed sexual contact without force, and attempted sexual contact with or without force occurring during the 1996-97 academic year. Because the survey was conducted between February and May, the rates underestimate academic-year incidence. Rates of threat of rape, threat of contact, and threat of penetration were also determined.

This survey yielded the following estimates of the reported frequency of sexual victimization. Note that these data represent survey responses, not reports of these incidents to authorities.

Other interesting facts gleaned from this survey:

The survey also found that 13% of respondents had experienced at least one stalking incident since the beginning of the academic year. In order to assess the prevalence of stalking, survey interviewers asked respondents the following question: "[s]ince school began in fall 1996, has anyone -- from stranger to an ex-boyfriend-- repeatedly followed you, watched you, phoned, written, e-mailed, or communicated with you in other ways that seemed obsessive and made you afraid or concerned for your safety?".

What does this mean?
As the data suggest, sexual assault and other forms of coercive sexual behavior are part of college life for a substantial number of young women and men. The presence of sexual violence is a source of concern for the entire community, and has a grave impact on the affected person's psychosocial development, intellectual maturation, and identity formation.

Our shared understanding of the cost of sexual violence is relatively recent. The 1987 publication of the study by Mary Koss , the first of its kind to measure the prevalence of nonconsensual sexual activity among undergraduate women, established a new sense of urgency. The early 90's saw the advent of many new programs at colleges across the country to address the problem, along with the emergence of the study of sexual assault on campus as a focus of several different disciplines. Fueled by the energy of social change activists-- primarily students-- sexual assault on campus has acquired greater visibility than ever before.

As previously noted, The National College Women Sexual Victimization (NCWSV) study found that in 9 out of 10 cases, the perpetrators were known to the victims. According to the survey, 12.8 percent of completed rapes, 35.0 percent of attempted rapes, and 22.9 percent of threatened rapes take place during a date. Rape in college tends to happen between students who know each other, and who may have been intimate with each other in the past. "Stranger rapes" can and do happen on college campuses, but they are the exception, not the norm.

Alcohol has been identified as a significant factor in a large majority of campus sexual assaults. Studies indicate that in the majority of cases, alcohol was used immediately prior to the assault, either by the victim or by perpetrator, or by both (prevalence ranges from 55-80% for victims and 26-55% for perpetrators) . According to the literature, alcohol contributes to the occurrence of sexual violence in two ways: by encouraging aggressive or disinhibited behaviors and by reducing ability to give informed consent.

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