sexual assault

Sexual assault on college campuses has been called an epidemic. It's estimated that one in five women and one in 16 men will experience some form of sexual violence during college. But the process colleges and universities use to investigate and adjudicate reported sexual assaults appears to be broken.

The first day of class for many local college students begins in late August. While students and parents are buying books and dorm supplies, there's one thing some families don't consider when preparing for college: a conversation about sexual assault. With more than 4,000 undergraduates enrolled at Xavier University and more than 30,000 at the University of Cincinnati, what are colleges doing to help educate students about sexual violence?

The Bureau of Justice Statistics' recent National Crime Victimization Survey estimates that people in the U.S. experienced more than 320,000 incidents of rape and sexual assault in 2016. The majority of incidents of abuse are reported by women, but men are also victims, and research suggests men face an even greater stigma in reporting sexual assault than women.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, people with disabilities are at least 2.5 times more likely to experience violent victimization than those without disabilities. An NPR investigation released this January revealed Justice Department data on sex crimes that showed people with intellectual disabilities, both men and women, are victims of sexual assault more than seven times as frequently as people without disabilities.

Hamilton County is experiencing a spike in sexual assault calls and a rash of domestic violence incidents that resulted in three deaths in October. Seven individuals have lost their lives in Hamilton County this year due to domestic violence homicide.

A Netflix series has the nation talking and school officials all over the country are joining the discussion, sending emails to parents warning them about "13 Reasons Why."

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women and one in 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college. These cases frequently make headlines, such as the recent case of Brock Turner at Stanford University, whose short sentence of six months for sexual assault sparked outrage.