Sexual Violence Prevention: Data

While sexual violence impacts everyone, data from the 2023 Wisconsin Youth Risk Behavior Survey show that some communities are hit harder than others. For example:

• Nearly one in eight high school students (12%) reported that at least once in the last year, someone has forced them "to do sexual things they did not want to do."
• Students who identify as Lesbian, Gay, or Bisexual students were more than three times more likely to report experiencing sexual assault than their peers who identified as heterosexual (27.3% vs. 8.7%).

Meanwhile national data show that:

• Nearly half (45.1%) of the women in the United States and more than one in six men (16.9%) have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime, according to the 2023/20224 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey.
• According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, 90% of sexual violence victims report knowing the person who assaulted them.

The following resources provide sexual violence data at the national, state, and population level.

• The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) is an ongoing survey that collects the most current and comprehensive national- and state-level data on intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and stalking victimization in the U.S. The NISVS can be reviewed on the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) website.
  • The NISVS 2016 and 2017 Report on Victimization by Sexual Identity summarizes the lifetime and 12-month experiences of stalking, sexual violence, and intimate partner violence victimization by sexual identity. You can review the report on the CDC Stacks website.
• The United States Transgender Survey provides information on discrimination faced by transgender and gender non-conforming people in multiple areas of life. The report can be found on the Advocates for Trans Equality website. Please note that the data for this survey comes from a large, non-randomized sample of the transgender community.
• Uniform crime reporting data dashboards are provided by the Wisconsin DOJ, Bureau of Justice Information and Analysis. These dashboards contain information on arrests related to various crimes in Wisconsin over time. View the dashboards on the Wisconsin DOJ website.
• The Wisconsin Youth Risk Behavior Survey is used to monitor the health behaviors of Wisconsin high school students, and information related to sexual and dating violence is included. The full 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey summary report is available on the DPI website.