Rape strikes 1 in 8

One in eight Utah women will be raped and one in three will be sexually assaulted during their lives, according to a study released Thursday by the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice.

The research was commissioned to combat a national report released earlier this year that placed Utah's numbers even higher, noting that one in five women — or 20 percent — of Utah women will be raped.

Nearly 13 percent of the Utah women surveyed for the state study reported that they had been raped during their lifetime.

Although lower than the national estimate, the rape figure is close to what state researchers expected to find. It is the sexual assault number, however, that came as a surprise.

Heather Stringfellow, executive director of the Rape Recovery Center, said the finding that one in three women in Utah will be sexually assaulted is shocking and shows that women are suffering many crimes outside the narrow legal definition of rape.

"Sexual violence is much bigger than rape," Stringfellow said. "If we're going to look at sexual assaults in general, the main statistic we need to look at is the one in three, which is staggering."

According to the study, child molestation is the most common form of sexual violence in Utah at 14.4 percent, followed by rape at 12.7 percent. Nearly 90 percent of victims reported suffering their first sexual assault before their 18th birthday.

Also, only 8.6 percent of victims were attacked by a stranger, the study states. More commonly, the perpetrator was someone known to the victim but who was not an intimate partner or a family member.

One of the strengths of the CCJJ study, Stringfellow said, is that it specifically discusses the problem of sexual violence in Utah, which consistently has higher rape rates than national averages.

"Sexual violence is very prevalent in our community," she said. "Every walk of life is affected. Every age group, every family. Every group of friends typically will have one person in that group who has been a victim."

Other results also caught researchers off guard, said Mike Haddon, director of research for the CCJJ.

For instance, more than half of victims surveyed reported being more concerned about their family or friends finding out about the assault than they were of contracting a sexually transmitted disease or getting pregnant as a result.