The statistics are alarming
Know this, sexual assault is 100% preventable. Together, we must use the horrifying statistics as our energy and focus to reduce and eventually end these crimes. The numbers cannot continue to be Indiana’s reality.
In Indiana, sexual violence is a serious social justice and public health issue for women, children, men, and diverse communities throughout the state. Indiana is critically behind the curve on addressing sexual violence and meeting the needs of victims.
According to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data from 2016/2017
3 in 5
(60% of) women in Indiana have been victims of sexual violence at some point in their lifetime.
1 in 3
women in Indiana have been raped in their lifetime.
Half of women in Indiana have been victims of unwanted sexual contact in their lifetime.
1 in 4
4 men in Indiana have been victims of sexual violence at some point in their lifetime.
1 in 5
men in Indiana have been victims of unwanted sexual contact in their lifetime.
Nationally,
1 in 7
women who are raped become pregnant.
More than half of female rape victims were acquaintances with the person who sexually assaulted them, and 39.3% of survivors were raped by an intimate partner.
State Report
Survey Report
Marginalized and Vulnerable Communities
Sexual violence impacts people of different races at strikingly unequal rates. These women have experienced sexual violence at some point during their lifetime,
of multiracial women
of Native American women
of Black women
of White women
Hispanic women
of Asian/Pacific Islander women.
More than 1 in 4 lesbian women and 50% of bisexual women were raped during their lifetimes.
gay men were raped in their lifetime
men were made to penetrate someone else during their lifetimes.
Survey Report
Cost
Rape costs $122,461 per victim and nearly $3.1 trillion to the economy over the lifetimes of all 25 million victims in the US population.
Source: Peterson C, DeGue S, Florence C, Lokey CN. Lifetime Economic Burden of Rape Among U.S. Adults. Am J Prev Med. 2017 Jun;52(6):691-701. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2016.11.014. Epub 2017 Jan 30. PMID: 28153649; PMCID: PMC5438753.
Reference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28153649/
Child Sexual Violence
From 2017-2018, Indiana raked 10th highest in the country for prevalence of sexual assaults among public school high school students U.S. Department of Education: Civil Rights Data Collection 2017-2018:
Sexual Violence in K-12 Schools.
The 2023 Indiana Youth Risk Behavior Survey collected by the Indiana Department of Health reports:
14% of Indiana high school students had experienced some type of sexual violence in the last year
16.3% of young Indiana women and 11.6% of Indiana young men had been physically forced to engage in sexual intercourse in their lifetime.
Marginalized and vulnerable Indiana high school students experience sexual violence at higher rates than their majority counterparts and all rates are above the national averages (in parenthesis)
- Multiracial 21.3% (13%)
- Black 16.5% (9.3%)
- Hispanic 13.4% (12.5%)
- White 13.7% (11.4%)
- Gay, Lesbian, or Bisexual 28.2% (21.2%)
- Other/Questioning 21.3% (18.7%)
- Heterosexual 11% (8.7%)
National averages taken from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, 2023.
Campus Sexual Assault
A 2019 Indiana University survey indicated that 56% of respondents had experienced nonconsensual sexual touching and 21% of respondents had experienced rape, since they began attending college. IU Bloomington Campus Climate Survey Results, 2019.
NATIONALLY
1 in 4 women, 1 in 15 men, and nearly 1 in 5 transgender or gender non-conforming students
were sexually assaulted in college while attending college.
Report on the AAU Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct (2020)
In 2021, 44% of all on-campus crimes included forced sex offenses.
Reporting to Law Enforcement
In a review of 2016 Indiana victim data, 81.3% of rape victims didn’t report to law enforcement because they thought “no one would be able to do anything.”
93.8% of victims raped while drugged or intoxicated thought reporting “would be inefficient”
54% of rapes/sexual assaults are not reported to police. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey data, 46% of rapes/sexual assault were reported to law enforcement, which was nearly double the number of assaults reported in 2022 (21%). This does not necessarily mean that more assaults occurred, but that reporting of these crimes has increased.
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