The Red Zone. A period of high vulnerability for freshman students, beginning from the first day on campus until Thanksgiving break (Bogdanich, 2014). This so called ‘red zone’ is the time when the majority of sexual assaults occur on college campuses: the first few months of the first semester (RAINN, 2018; One in 4 USA, 2018). Sexual assaults occur across college campuses worldwide and represent a large quantity of crime that occurs on those campuses. The largest type of sexual assault that occurs in this demographic is incapacitated sexual assault. Incapacitation here refers to the use of alcohol or drugs to subdue, coerce, or otherwise take advantage of the victim (Bird, Gilmore, George, & Lewis, 2016). Despite the awareness of sexual assault on college campuses, there is an astonishing lack of preventative measures in place for this type of crime. This paper examines the problem, presents theories that explain, study, and discuss incapacitated sexual assault, and provides research-based prevention strategies for the future.
Problem
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as: sexual violence is defined as a sexual act committed against someone without that person’s freely given consent (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018). Across the undergraduate student body, 23.1$ of women and 5.4% of men will experience sexual assault (RAINN, 2018). In just one year, over 300,000 women in colleges, are raped and this does not include any other type of sexual assault. On top of this massive number, 72%-81% of these rapes occur by a male while the female victim is intoxicated. In fact, a woman is at her highest risk for a sexual assault if she becomes voluntarily intoxicated (Neilson, Bird, Metzger, George, Norris, & Gilmore, 2018; One in 4 USA, 2018).
Drug-facilitated, or incapacitated, sexual assault strikes when alcohol and/or drugs are utilized to impede a person’s ability to provide consent to sexual activity (RAINN, 2018). These types of substances make an assault easier for the perpetrator because they can keep the victim from resisting and sometimes prevent them from remembering the assault after the effects wear off. Perpetrators often use alcohol and drugs deliberately to render victims more vulnerable to attack, or completely unconscious (Lisak & Miller, 2002). This can happen one of two ways. The perpetrator may simply take advantage of an individual’s voluntarily alcohol consumption or drugs use. Alternatively, an assaulter may give a victim a drug either unknowingly or forcibly (RAINN, 2018).
“Approximately 11% of college women who experience rape report it to the police… 7% of college women who experience drug, alcohol, or incapacitated rape report it to the police… Of those cases reported to the police, less than 10% of rape cases result in criminal charges against a defendant” (One in 4 USA, 2018). There are numerous reasons why a victim does not report an assault (See Appendix A). One study took 220 college sexual assault survivors in for a survey to analyze reasons for non-reporting. Many of these survivors chose not to report for these reasons: they were drunk, they were ashamed, felt they would be blamed, and they were afraid (Spencer, C., Mallory, A., Toews, M., Stith, S., & Wood, L, 2017). When victims do choose to report their assault, it is often not for themselves, the most common reason victims report is to prevent future assaults on others. Overall though, sexual assault is the least reported crime to police (Michigan State University, 2004). Clearly, this type of crime is a severe problem across colleges everywhere.
Research and Theories
Numerous studies have been conducted on college sexual assault rates and types. Overall, young women, ages 18-24, are the most likely to be victims of sexual assault compared to any sex of any other age group (Neilson, Bird, Metzger, George, Norris, & Gilmore, 2018). There are certain factors that put women at risk for assaults. A 2018 study researching this predisposing factors and actions that cause this risk. The idea is that women who know the risks for victimization will also be able to actively reduce their own risk. The first risk fact is a prior history of sexual assault (Neilson, Bird, Metzger, George, Norris, & Gilmore, 2018; Carey, Durney, Shepardson, & Carey, 2015).
Research suggests that women with a prior sexual assault history are less perceptive of sexual assault risk than non-victimized women. For example, when listening to a recording of a [hypothetical] date rape scenario, women with sexual assault history took longer to discern a risk from inappropriate behavior than women with that history (Neilson, Bird, Metzger, George, Norris, & Gilmore, 2018). On top of this, women with sexual assault history are more like to drink in order to cope, especially binge drinking or negative drinking. Women with sexual assault history are actually five times more likely to report alcohol abuse than those without assault history (Neilson, Bird, Metzger, George, Norris, & Gilmore, 2018). As presented earlier, voluntary intoxication is often used in favor of a perpetrator. This puts these women at a high risk of being assaulted again.
A 2018 study examined perceived sexual assault risk using a sample of undergraduate female students in their freshman and sophomore years of school. This is the time when they are most at risk for sexual assault as a college student. Their study found that individuals who drank more – especially to cope – were less likely to perceive a risk of sexual assault than their counterparts (Neilson, Bird, Metzger, George, Norris, & Gilmore, 2018; RAINN, 2018).
In their study, the average age of the participants was 18.78yr with a standard deviation of .83. Freshman made up the majority with 62.9%, 49.8% lived on-campus in a residence hall, and 78.4% were not a sorority member. The races represented were: White 40.3%, Asian American/Pacific Islander 40.8%, Multiracial 9.9%, Hispanic/Latina 8.5%, Black 3.0%, Other 2.6%, and American Indian/Alaskan Native 1.4%. This is a relatively standard representation of college campuses across the United States. Over 21% of the sample, 152 women, said they experienced a sexual assault after beginning their college career and 14% of those said they had also experienced a sexual assault prior to college (Neilson, Bird, Metzger, George, Norris, & Gilmore, 2018). Combine these numbers with a 2016 that discovered up to 70% of sexual assaults on college campus involve alcohol use by the victim or perpetrator (or both) (Bird, Gilmore, George, & Lewis. 2016).
The Bird et al study used the Sexual Experiences Survey, a behavioral assessment of sexual assault, in their research. This survey specifically recognizes incapacitated sexual assault within the assessment with questions like: taken advantage of when I was drunk.
A total of 10.45% of participants (n = 63) reported a history of ISA before college, with 3.3% (n = 20) reporting one victimization experience, 3.0% (n = 18) reporting two victimization experiences, and 4.1% (n = 25) reporting three or more victimization experiences. A total of 8.13% of participants (n = 43) reported a history of ISA since college, with 4.8% (n = 29) reporting one victimization experience, 1.5% (n = 9) reporting two victimization experiences, and 1.8% (n = 11) reporting three or more victimization experiences. (Bird, Gilmore, George, & Lewis. 2016).
This further shows evidence of the huge quantity of incapacitated sexual assaults on college campuses, particularly for second time victims.
The yearly number of rapes among college women is 5 times higher than that of noncollege women, 5% to 1%. In the college women victim sample, incapicated rape is far more prevalent than forcible rape (See Appendix B). The sample was 483 freshman-year female college students, they were all 18-21 years of age and made up 26% of the incoming class. The sample was demographically representative: 94% were 18 years of age; whites were 66%, Asians 11%, blacks 10%, and multiracial 13%, and Hispanic/Latino 9% (Carey, Durney, Shepardson, & Carey, 2015).
Their assessment used 4 tactics of perpetrators to define the type of sexual assault: coercion, physical harm, threats, or incapacitation by alcohol or drugs. Then, this was further narrowed down by type of sexual act: sexual touching, oral sex, sexual intercourse attempt, successful sexual intercourse, or anal sexual activity. The participants were then asked to denote how many times this has happened during their freshman year. In these women, within their freshman year, the quantity of attempted or completed rape went from 28% to 37% (Carey, Durney, Shepardson, & Carey, 2015). That percentage does not include other types of sexual violence besides rape.
The Department of Justice learned that 20-25% of women are victims of sexual assault during their college years. However, their study also found that only 11.5% ever report their assault to any authority and if it was an incapacitated assault, only 2.7% reported the incident (Conley, Overstreet, Hawn, Kendler, Dick, & Amstadter, 2017). This study found that a ‘broad sexual assault’ (any uncomfortable or unwanted sexual experiences) were reported by 23% of women in the sample. On top of this, those that had also reported broad sexual assault prior to their college years, 39.2% reported it also happening during college. Their study also showed that women with alcohol abuse and depression histories were at an even greater risk than their healthier counterparts (Conley, Overstreet, Hawn, Kendler, Dick, & Amstadter, 2017).
With everything shown above, many people think that the understanding of consent, assault, and rape are ‘common sense’; this is not the case. A 2015 study showed that 63% of students think it is acceptable for a man to push a woman for sex, regardless of her opinion, if they share a kiss and 41% of the women of the group believed they were to blame if raped while voluntarily drunk (Wegner, Abbey, Pierce, Pegram, & Woerner, 2015) A high school sample gave an even further example, 40% of the boys thought it was acceptable to force sex on a woman if she was intoxicated since she was ‘asking for it’. Overall in their research, they found that 75% of the sexual assault incidents involving alcohol showed both the victim and perpetrator drinking (Wegner, Abbey, Pierce, Pegram, & Woerner, 2015). This demonstrates that alcohol laws and education need to be improved drastically.
The majority of the samples above are heterosexual women, but the victimization rates of (sexual) minority students are higher than theirs. In 2017, a study was performed to assess the risk and assaults of college students in sexual minorities (i.e. Gay, bisexual, etc.). They found that individuals of these minorities were more likely to experience sexual violence than their binary gender and heterosexual counterparts (Ollen, Ameral, Palm, Hines, Tracey, Terence, & Kivilghan, 2017)
TGQN-identifying (transgender, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, and gender questioning) college students are actually more likely than cisgender individuals to see sexual violence as a problem in their university. In fact, TGQN students are more than 6 times as likely to consider the sexual violence problem extreme. This is because 33.33% of TGQN students will experience nonconsensual sexual acts in college while only 20% of women and .06% of men will experience the same violence (Worthen & Wallace, 2017). This is even more individuals experiencing this traumatizing form of violence across the world. Prevention is not just possible, it is crucial.
Prevention
The goal of all this research was to better understand campus sexual assault with the end goal of preventing it from happening in the future. Preventing sexual assault is a large undertaking but it is not impossible, and strategies do exist. There are two lines of prevention that would be the most beneficial long-term: alcohol education and policy changes as well as gender equality and education.
Alcohol consumption has been linked to violence on numerous occasions (World Health Organization, 2009; Conley, Overstreet, Hawn, Kendler, Dick, & Amstadter, 2017; Neilson, Bird, Metzger, George, Norris, & Gilmore, 2018). In a confusing logic, a victims’ use of alcohol increases the likelihood that they will be blamed for what happened while perpetrators’ intoxication is often used to absolve them of responsibility (Wegner, Abbey, Pierce, Pegram, & Woerner, 2015). Studies have shown that reducing alcohol availability to the public can reduce violence. By regulating sales locations, hours, and even prices there can be a cut in violent crime (World Health Organization, 2009).
Changes to alcohol serving hours have been made worldwide in an effort to reduce violence and prices have been raised in many places as well to curb ‘binge-drinking’. Studies have shown that just a 1% increase in drink prices would decrease alcohol consumption by .46% for beer/cider, .69% for wine, and .80% for liquor/spirits (World Health Organization, 2009). A lower quantity of consumption logically would lead to less alcohol-induced violence. If more drastic measures were to be taken, a 10% increase in price of beer has the potential to decrease the number violent acts on college campuses each year by an entire 4% (World Health Organization, 2009).
Other factors come into play when considering alcohol and violence. A drinking establishment with high crowding and poorly trained staff can even contribute to violence. The Stockholm Prevents Alcohol and Drug Problems dedicated resources to high levels of bar staff training, training for bouncers (door staff), and licensing restrictions. An evaluation of that program showed a decrease in violent crime of 29% (World Health Organization, 2009). These policy changes could be coupled with community and individual based intervention for even greater results.
Both short- and long-term intervention and treatment for alcohol can reduce many kinds of violence. For example, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), couples’ therapy, and programs like alcoholics anonymous have been shown to decrease violence crimes like child and partner abuse, sexual violence, and suicide (World Health Organization, 2009). In terms of college campus sexual assault, alcohol-related violence is more likely to occur in environments that show alcohol as a positive thing, such as fraternity parties. As shown earlier, the majority of sexual assault perpetrators are male. Studies show, on average, that males are more like to drink alcohol in large quantities (World Health Organization, 2009). By addressing the gender dynamic in sexual assault, there can be a huge improvement in its prevention.
In most Western societies, being male is associated with risk-taking behavior, aggression, and sexual prowess and gender inequality increases the risk of violence -by men against women- and inhibit a victim’s ability to find help and protection (World Health Organization, 2009). These gender inequalities and untrue ideals, even old traditional patriarchal beliefs that men control women, leave women and girls much more vulnerable to abuse, especially sexual. Community interventions on gender equality are not just focused on individual behavior but on community-based action to eliminate violence against women (World Health Organization, 2009).
Safe Dates is a school and community program and initiative that was focused on 8th and 9th grade boys and girls (roughly 13-15yrs old). The program is a 10-module education curriculum, a graphics/art contest, a theatrical production, and adult training for teachers, providers, and leaders. A random controlled trial of the Safe Dates program discovered that one month after the end of the program, there was less reported psychological, physical, and sexual violence (compared to control groups). This progress was tested and proven again four years after the end of the first program (World Health Organization, 2009). Community based education and intervention is the best step to preventing sexual assault in the future.
Conclusion
Incapacitated sexual assault is a horrible problem across the world, but preventative measures can be taken. Educating children leads to less assault in future college generations. Limiting alcohol abuse limits alcohol based sexual violence. Each campus has the opportunity to create a campus wide (community) program to prevent sexual assault but sadly most settle for a simple one-day assembly or online training. This is a systemic issue that cannot be fixed in a day-long seminar, especially when alcohol and drug use is involved. A cultural, cross-campus change must happen.