About one in 10 say they don’t think what happened to them is important enough to bring to the attention of police. Other reasons they don’t go include the views that it is a personal matter or that authorities won’t or can’t help. One in five said they fear reprisal.
A recent Rolling Stone article that described a gang rape alleged to have occurred at a University of Virginia fraternity brought renewed attention to the issue of campus sexual assault. The magazine later said it couldn’t stand by its reporting. But even before the article’s release, the Obama administration had taken steps to pressure colleges to better treat victims, and Congress has grappled with how best to get colleges and law enforcement to work together on these cases.
Researchers from the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics used 1995 to 2013 figures from the National Crime Victimization Survey.
Some questions and answers arose from the report’s findings, which were released Thursday.
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Why would some victims think the crime was not important enough to contact police?
