Study: Look beyond serial rapists on campuses

July 2015 National:

A new study questions a long-held assumption by many that serial rape offenders should be the primary focus of campus assault prevention.

The study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, tested the "campus serial rapist assumption," an idea that campus perpetrators are often serial offenders, and one frequently cited by advocacy organizations as well as the White House Council on Women and Girls.

The popular focus on serial perpetrators is an incomplete understanding, said the study's lead author, Kevin Swartout, a professor at Georgia State University's department of psychology.

"Campus sexual assault is a multifaceted problem, and not one cohesive group of men is entirely responsible for the problem," he told CNN.

In the study, researchers charted the behavior paths of 1,646 participants during orientation and throughout college, including the analysis of responders' sexual violence from 14 years of age through college.

Of the collegiate men surveyed, 10.8% (177) reported that they committed completed rape, either before or during college, according to responses to the Sexual Experiences Survey, which consists of face-to-face interview questions measuring a range of sexually aggressive acts.

New Study Confirms 1 in 5 College Women Are Sexually Assaulted

See more recent: Are 20 percent of women sexually assaulted before they graduate college?

2015 National:

Twenty percent of female college students and 5 percent of male college students say they’ve been sexually assaulted.

Research results just released by the Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation supports a 2007 study from the federal government which found that one in five female students experience a sexual assault while they are in college. In fact, the poll of more than 1,000 college-aged women and men found that 25 percent of women and 7 percent of men say they had experienced an unwanted sexual incident in college.

Two-thirds of victims had been drinking prior to the assaults. Additionally, there was confusion involving consent: 46 percent didn’t know whether or not there was a lack of consent when both people did not come to a clear agreement on having sex. Most who were assaulted did not report the attack to police or campus officials.

Most of the respondents, however, approved of how their institution of higher education handles sexual assaults in general. More than two-thirds graded their school’s handling of sexual complaints as either an “A” or “B.”