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Sexual Assault on College Campuses: A 50-State Survey of Criminal Sexual Assault Statutes and Their Relevance to Campus Sexual Assault

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David DeMatteo at Drexel University
David DeMatteo
Meghann Galloway at Drexel University
Meghann Galloway
Shelby Arnold at Drexel University
Shelby Arnold
Unnati Patel
Unnati Patel
Unnati Patel
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Abstract

A recent series of highly publicized campus sexual assaults and the questionable responses by the academic institutions where they occurred has led some policymakers and academic administrators to call for legislative and institutional change. For such changes to be effective, academic administrators and legislators need solutions that effectively protect victims, punish perpetrators, and encourage institutional compliance with relevant legislation. Furthermore, there has been significant debate about how much the criminal justice system can and should be involved when sexual assaults occur on college campuses. To address these questions, there needs to be a more thorough understanding of existing state sexual assault laws and their capacity to handle sexual assaults that occur on college campuses. This project identified and systematically examined all U.S. state statutes relating to sexual assault to evaluate to what extent these laws are appropriate and accessible for victims of campus sexual assault. Results revealed that all 50 states have at least 1 criminal statute addressing sexual assault, with a total of 432 statutory subsections being identified for inclusion. Across statutes, key concepts relating to consent and incapacity were often ill defined or undefined, and many of the statutes appear to be poorly suited to handling campus sexual assaults. These findings have implications for the adjudication of campus sexual assaults, and such results can potentially be used to amend existing legislation and inform future legislation.
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Sexual Assault on College Campuses: A 50-State Survey of Criminal
Sexual Assault Statutes and Their Relevance to Campus Sexual Assault
David DeMatteo, Meghann Galloway, Shelby Arnold, and Unnati Patel
Drexel University
A recent series of highly publicized campus sexual assaults and the questionable responses by the
academic institutions where they occurred has led some policymakers and academic administrators to call
for legislative and institutional change. For such changes to be effective, academic administrators and
legislators need solutions that effectively protect victims, punish perpetrators, and encourage institutional
compliance with relevant legislation. Furthermore, there has been significant debate about how much the
criminal justice system can and should be involved when sexual assaults occur on college campuses. To
address these questions, there needs to be a more thorough understanding of existing state sexual assault
laws and their capacity to handle sexual assaults that occur on college campuses. This project identified
and systematically examined all U.S. state statutes relating to sexual assault to evaluate to what extent
these laws are appropriate and accessible for victims of campus sexual assault. Results revealed that all
50 states have at least 1 criminal statute addressing sexual assault, with a total of 432 statutory
subsections being identified for inclusion. Across statutes, key concepts relating to consent and inca-
pacity were often ill defined or undefined, and many of the statutes appear to be poorly suited to handling
campus sexual assaults. These findings have implications for the adjudication of campus sexual assaults,
and such results can potentially be used to amend existing legislation and inform future legislation.
Keywords: sexual assault, college, statutory survey, Clery Act, Title IX
A recent series of highly publicized sexual assaults on college
campuses involving questionable responses by academic institu-
tions has resulted in calls for change from several groups. Several
college students who have been sexually victimized, and the par-
ents of these students, have expressed outrage at the response of
some academic institutions to the occurrence of sexual assaults on
campus, which has prompted some university administrators to
initiate policy change and seek guidance from lawmakers on how
to reduce incidences of sexual assault and better handle the inci-
dents that occur (McCaskill, 2014). In turn, legislators at the state
and federal levels have begun to pay closer attention to sexual
assault on college campuses, with some efforts directed at under-
standing the scope of the problem and other efforts directed at
reducing incidents of campus sexual assault by strengthening
existing legislation and enacting stronger laws. For example, Cal-
ifornia’s recent measure “yes means yes,” which was passed
unanimously by the California Senate in 2014, requires individuals
engaging in sexual activity to affirmatively consent (Chappell,
2014). President Obama’s It’s on Us campaign aims to raise
awareness of the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses
(Somanader, 2014).
Although all efforts to address campus sexual assault should be
applauded, it is important that administrative and legislative re-
sponses be based on reliable data and appropriately tailored to the
problem being addressed. For example, for academic institutional
policies and state or federal legislation to be effective in reducing
campus sexual assault, academic administrators and legislators
need solutions that effectively promote and facilitate the reporting
of campus sexual assaults, protect victims of campus sexual assault
from unintended collateral consequences, protect alleged perpetra-
tors from unjust dispositions, swiftly and appropriately punish
perpetrators of campus sexual assault, and encourage institutional
compliance with self-imposed policies and relevant state and fed-
eral legislation. Although this charge appears to be relatively
straightforward, recent data from a large national survey of aca-
demic institutions indicate that many academic institutions are
failing to comply with best practices and relevant laws in terms of
how they adjudicate and report incidents of campus sexual assault
(McCaskill, 2014).
There are also several unanswered questions relating to campus
sexual assault. For example, prevalence rates of campus sexual
assaults vary widely based on the methodology used to gather the
data, how the data are compiled, and the way the data are reported
(Yung, 2015). There has also been significant debate regarding
how much the criminal justice system can and should be involved
when sexual assaults occur on college campuses. A key question is
whether such incidents should be handled administratively by the
university, or whether all incidents of sexual assault should be
processed through the criminal justice system. Finally, the scope of
existing state legislation that has relevance to campus sexual
assaults has not been examined, so it is unclear whether existing
state statutes relating to sexual assault provide sufficient protection
for victims and perpetrators when such assaults occur on college
campuses.
David DeMatteo and Meghann Galloway, Department of Psychology
and Thomas R. Kline School of Law, Drexel University; Shelby Arnold
and Unnati Patel, Department of Psychology, Drexel University.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to David De-
Matteo, Department of Psychology, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street,
Stratton Suite 119, Philadelphia, PA 19104. E-mail: david.dematteo@
drexel.edu
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law © 2015 American Psychological Association
2015, Vol. 21, No. 3, 227–238 1076-8971/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/law0000055
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... The most common way to educate campus community members including students about SV is through training, but training on Title IX regulations and procedures is lacking. Over 20% of IHEs does not provide SV response training to faculty and staff, and over 30% does not provide SV training to students (DeMatteo et al., 2015). In a study at one university, Wareham et al. (2022) found that after over 2,300 students took a Title IX training, most indicated that they understood Title IX, but only 14% could correctly identify the purpose of Title IX and only 16% could correctly provide the process of reporting to Title IX. ...
... There are several reasons why college students do not report SV experiences to university authorities such as lacking knowledge about or not trusting campus resources, experiencing negative emotions, minimizing magnitude of harm, fearing retaliation from a perpetrator, believing nothing will result from reporting, and finding alternative methods of coping (Holland & Cipriano, 2021;Holland & Cortina, 2017). In a majority of cases at IHEs, the victim and perpetrator know each other (DeMatteo et al., 2015;Suran, 2014). Victims who know the perpetrators are less likely to report the incident to a university, especially if universities do not offer confidential reporting mechanisms (DeMatteo et al., 2015;McCaskill, 2014). ...
... In a majority of cases at IHEs, the victim and perpetrator know each other (DeMatteo et al., 2015;Suran, 2014). Victims who know the perpetrators are less likely to report the incident to a university, especially if universities do not offer confidential reporting mechanisms (DeMatteo et al., 2015;McCaskill, 2014). Universities' mandated reporting requirements to the Title IX office could further discourage students from disclosing incidents to university employees (Newins & White, 2018). ...
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... In other words, victims of rape are not choosing to comply: Their body automatically goes into this protection mode, which alters any outward appearance of "resistance" or explicit response to the perpetrator. Previous research shows that about half of state laws include incapacitation that renders the victim incapable of consent such as through alcohol or drug intoxication (DeMatteo et al., 2015), and our further legal mapping identifies whether any include these newer trauma-informed understandings of victim immobility responses. ...
... Half of the 50 U.S. states do not specifically define consent in their sex crimes laws; yet, 39 statutes include forcible compulsion, and all 50 states include incapacitation due to alcohol or drugs, or being unconscious or asleep, as characteristics that make a person incapable of understanding or agreeing to the act (see Table 1). There are significant loopholes in some states when it comes to conditions of consent and the acts involved (DeMatteo et al., 2015;Lawson, 2018;RAINN, 2021). For example, under Ohio law, a married woman "can be drugged and sexually assaulted legally by her husband, as long as he does not use force and they're not technically separated" (Lawson, 2018). ...
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... For men that report experiencing sexual violence, the number is closer to 70% having experienced it prior to age 25 (Smith et al., 2018). It is not surprising, then, that institutions of higher education are environments experiencing high rates of sexual victimization due to the age of individuals attending them (Cantor et al., 2015;Daigle et al., 2008;DeMatteo et al., 2015;Fedina et al., 2018). Although assessments vary depending on many factors (e.g., the methodology used), research reveals that more than 20% of American college students experience sexual victimization (Carey et al., 2015;Fedina et al., 2018;Krebs et al., 2009). ...
Understanding the mental calculus of a victim advisor: A survey experiment in the context of college campus sexual victimization
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This study examines factors that weigh on a victim advisors’ mental calculus when approving whether a victim report a crime to the police. A factorial design was embedded in a survey of college students (n = 1,221) and vignettes randomized the relationships between the victim, advisor, and perpetrator and the age of the victim and perpetrator. Results indicate that relationships between parties significantly weigh on an advisors’ mental calculus of approving a crime be reported. Moreover, advisors disapprove reporting if the perpetrator is a juvenile and they approve reporting if the victim is a juvenile. Advisors’ personal biases also mattered.
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... Moreover, for the last five decades sexual behavior amongst college students and the related deviance has been a matter of concern (Krebs et al., 2009). It has been contended and proved in varied studies that one out of 4-5 undergraduate female students in their college life encounters sexual violence (Straus et al., 2004;DeMatteo et al., 2015;Rich, Seffrin and McNichols, 2021). Further, studies (Mohler-kuo et al., 1996; Krebs et al., 2009;Lawyer et al., 2010) have proved that sexual assaults in college campuses are more incapacitated rapes (IR) rather than forcible rapes (FR). ...
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Sexual violence among young people is often dismissed on account of rape myths, which are stereotyped and prejudicial beliefs about rape victimization experiences. The perceptions and attitudes towards rape are generally socioculturally driven, wherein combative sexual beliefs, stereotyped gendered roles, acceptance of interpersonal violence, and sexual conservatism are some of the important underlying factors impacting the acceptance of rape myths. Rape-supportive stigmatizing beliefs lead to discouragement among the young female cohort towards disclosing sexual assaults or such attempts. The current study sought to identify impact of demographic and education factors associated to rape myth acceptance (RMA) among college/ university students in Delhi. The Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance (IRMA) Scale was administered to evaluate the levels of agreement and disagreement regarding myths associated with rape among 1800 college/university students, including 914 females and 886 males of three different courses/streams of study, that is, humanities, law, and STEM undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Delhi, whose ages ranged from 18 to 30 years, and investigated the effects of gender, age, level of study, and course of study on attitudinal variation about rape. The findings reveal a significant association between the gender of a respondent and his/her level of acceptance or rejection of rape myths. Age, level of study, and course of study didn't have a considerable impact on the variable level of agreement or disagreement regarding rape myths.
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... All 50 states have at least one criminal statute that addresses sexual assault, with a total of 432 statutory sub-connections being identified for inclusion (DeMatteo et al., 2015). The Clery Act of 1990 to ensure the safety of their students and faculty through CSA reporting. ...
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... This lack of trust in university resources is understandable as evidence suggests that campus administrators face challenges reconciling institutional priorities and capacities with the needs of survivors (Clay et al., 2019;Moylan, 2017;Strout et al., 2014) and best practices are not always followed (Amar et al., 2014a). Poorly defined statutes and jurisdictions also complicate this process for universities and legal systems (DeMatteo et al., 2015). This is problematic because an institution's failure to meet survivors' needs adds to the trauma they experience (Smith & Freyd, 2013) and can further exacerbate negative mental health outcomes for SV survivors (Hannan et al., 2021). ...
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IntroductionUsing the biopsychosocial model, we explored the mental health and substance use factors associated with sexual violence (SV) victimization and perpetration among U.S. college students and compared the differences in strength of these correlates by gender, SV perpetration vs. victimization, and type of SV. This uniquely contributes to the existing literature by (a) focusing on mental health and substance use correlates of SV among college students, (b) including both SV victimization and perpetration, and (c) comparing the strength of correlates by gender, perpetration vs. victimization, and type of SV.Methods We conducted a meta-analysis of 101 studies meeting inclusion criteria of U.S. college samples published between January 2000 and April 2019 and calculated Q-statistics to compare differences in strength of correlates.ResultsNine mental health factors were positively associated with SV victimization (e.g., suicidal ideation). SV victimization and perpetration were positively associated with substance use. No significant differences were found comparing strength of correlate by gender or perpetration vs. victimization experience. PTSD, drug use, and alcohol were more strongly associated with certain types of SV than others.Conclusions In association with SV, mental health and substance use are serious considerations for individuals and organizations serving college students.Policy ImplicationsIt is important for these institutions to respond to reports of SV in a trauma-informed way, increase the accessibility and quality of on-campus mental health services available to SV survivors of all genders, and make the campus community aware of the resources are available.
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