Study Finds That Arrests Are Made in Very Few Campus Sexual Assault Cases

A survey by the Chicago Tribune finds that there are very few arrests and even fewer convictions relating to sexual assaults on college campuses. The research found that there were 171 reported cases of sexual assaults at six universities in Illinois and Indiana since the fall of 2005. Only 12 arrests were made in these cases and only four defendants were convicted. Nationwide, crime statistics from the Justice Department show that arrests are made in about 25 percent of all reported rapes and 62 percent of those arrested are convicted.

According to the Tribune‘s survey of sexual assault cases on the six campuses, there was only one conviction in a case when one student had attacked another, despite the fact that this was the most common type of sexual assault reported to campus authorities.

The six universities in the study are: Northwestern University, Indiana University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, Illinois State University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Illinois. At three of the six universities surveyed, there were no convictions for sexual assault despite the fact that 63 cases had been reported to campus police. At Northwestern University there were 21 reported cases of sexual assault. No arrests were made in any of these 21 cases, according to the Tribune‘s analysis.