Rate of Sexual Assault Shows Sharp Decline, Lower Among College-Age Women

Article here. Excerpt:

'One of the reasons that Rolling Stone's discredited story about a vicious gang rape at the University of Virginia (UVA) was initially believable is that many of us take it for granted that colleges are a hotbed of sexual assault.

As Sen. Kristen Gillibrand of New York has said, "Women are at a greater risk of sexual assault as soon as they step onto a college campus."

This is simply not true, according to the latest figures on sexual assaults released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Surveying women between the ages of 18 and 24, BJS found that "The rate of rape and sexual assault was 1.2 times higher for nonstudents (7.6 per 1,000) than for students (6.1 per 1,000)."...
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Until the numbers decline to zero, there is no such thing as "good news" in data about rape and sexual assault. However, the trends as measured by BJS are going in the right direction. Between 1997 and 2013, the rate of rape or sexual assault against women dropped by about 50 percent. Again, too high, but going in the right direction. The decline in the rate of sexual assault is part of a widely observed decline in violent crime more generally, which is down about 60 percent over the past 15 to 20 years.'