The Relationship Between Sexual Victimization and Year in School in U.S. Colleges

Stephen Cranney

95 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Interpersonal Violence

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Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies Intimate Partner and Family Violence Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health

Abstract

It is the conventional wisdom among some universities that the highest risk of sexual assault is in the first or possibly second year in school. While initially belief in this pattern was primarily based on anecdote, recently some attempts have been made to more systematically and quantitatively test the existence of a "red zone," a time of heightened risk of sexual assault sometime near the beginning of a female student's time at the college. However, most of these studies have been conducted with relatively small convenience samples from single schools and have had conflicting results. Here, I test the red zone hypothesis using self-reported sexual victimization data with a large sample (~16,000) drawn from 22 schools as part of the Online College Social Life Survey. To investigate the specific mechanisms responsible for the red zone, I separately test for the existence of a red zone for four different types of sexual victimizations: physically forced intercourse, attempted forced intercourse, unwanted intercourse when incapacitated, and unwanted intercourse due to verbal pressure. Within these categories, I separately address sexual victimization that occurred while hanging out and sexual victimization during a party. Prior literature has emphasized the role of parties in the increased risk of assault for freshman. While I find some evidence for this in the higher estimates for sexual victimization at a party, the freshman effect remains for other types of sexual victimizations, suggesting that the red zone is not easily attributable to a single mechanistic cause, but to more generalizable factors. With one exception, I find that the red zone does not extend into the sophomore year.

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References

1987The scope of rape: Incidence and prevalence of sexual aggression and victimization in a national sample of higher education students.2007Revising the SES: A Collaborative Process to Improve Assessment of Sexual Aggression and Victimization 2006Sexual Assault on Campus: A Multilevel, Integrative Approach to Party Rape 2009College Women's Experiences with Physically Forced, Alcohol- or Other Drug-Enabled, and Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault Before and Since Entering College 2012Accounting for Women’s Orgasm and Sexual Enjoyment in College Hookups and Relationships 1997Sexual Assault on the College Campus: The Role of Male Peer Support 2006An Examination of Sexual Violence Against College Women 1997Review of Sexual Assault on the College Campus: The Role of Male Peer Support.

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2016Does Alcohol Contribute to College Men’s Sexual Assault Perpetration? Between-and Within-Person Effects Over Five Semesters 2019Campus-Level Variation in the Prevalence of Student Experiences of Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence 2024Preventing Sexual Violence: A Behavioral Problem Without a Behaviorally Informed Solution 2019Risk Factors for Sexual Violence Among College Students in Dating Relationships: An Ecological Approach

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