Campus sex assault research under fire

Article here. Excerpt:

'Rolling Stone magazine’s graphic account in December in of a brutal gang rape at the University of Virginia capped a year in which sexual assault on campus gained real traction as a national issue.
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So what’s the true prevalence of sexual assault among college students? It may be less than one in five college women, but it’s also likely to be higher than what’s captured in the NCVS.

Krebs at RTI is working with the Bureau of Justice Statistics to launch a survey at 10 to 15 universities this spring, with the idea of testing a method that could be replicated at any college or university.

And the Bureau of Justice Statistics is considering including more behavioral cues, especially for sexual assault and rape, in a redesigned version of the NCVS, according to Michael Planty, who heads the victimization statistics unit.
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109 rape allegations made to the police department of a small Midwestern city from 1978 to 1987. Kanin found that 41 percent of the cases were false, based on the determinations of police officials. In all those cases, he said, the accusers recanted their allegations.

Kanin’s study has also been blasted by other researchers. David Lisak, a former psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, has written that the study “violates a cardinal rule of science” by failing to describe Kanin’s efforts to evaluate the criteria of the police department.'