Hidden Rape: Sexual Aggression and Victimization in a National Sample of Students in Higher Education
Abstract
Officially, 87,340 rapes occurred in 1985. Victimization studies such as the annual National Crime Survey (NCS) are the major avenue through which the full extent of crime is estimated. Several recently reported estimates of the prevalence of sexual victimization have been reported that were based on studies designed specifically to gauge the extent of sexual assault. Several features of the NCS approach may lead to underreporting of rape, including the use of a screening question that requires the subject to infer the focus of inquiry the use of questions about rape that are embedded in a context of violent crime. Many studies of the prevalence of rape and lesser forms of sexual aggression have involved college students however. College students are a high risk group for rape because they are in the same age range as the bulk of rape victims and offenders.