British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Exploring belief about drug-facilitated sexual assault
Dr Adam Burgess
Dr Adam Burgess, is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent. His work focuses on the public perceptions of risk, and particulary that relating to health issues. In a project funded by the British Academy he sought to examine the belief that drink-spiking is a high risk factor in sexual assault, despite the lack of any evidence to suggest that this is the case, and its dismissal by the police as urban legend. Dr Burgess conducted a number of surveys among students at four universities, and follow-up interviews with groups and individuals.
The research aimed to answer four central questions:
- What is the extent and character of belief in drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) amongst university students?
- What are university students' sources of belief in DFSA?
- How do participants respond when their credulity in DFSA is probed?
- Is there a particular group of university students who are especially concerned about DFSA?
The principal survey was carried out in the UK from September 2006 until May 2007 and consisted of 200 questionnaires, 20 in-depth interviews, and four focus groups. Questionnaires were distributed to undergraduate students at the University of Kent (n=100), the University of Sussex (n=50), and the University of London Union (n=50). In addition to this, 34 undergraduate and postgraduate students were interviewed at the University of Kent. The 200 students who completed the questionnaire were predominantly women (75%), and second year undergraduate students (47%); the mean age of questionnaire respondents was 21.The questionnaire used in the British study was based partly upon a survey in the US run by Pamela Donovan and a team of student researchers at Bloomsburg University.
Date from the British questionnaire suggests that the typical university student sees her/himself as highly risk-conscious - a fifth of respondents (all female) believed that they were at significant risk of sexual assault. In terms of specific awareness of DFSA, 190 (95%) of the questionnaire respondents had heard of 'date rape' drugs, and an even higher number had heard of drugs being slipped into people's drinks (193, or 96.5%). Moreover, 110 (55%) of the respondents claimed to know someone personally who had had a drug slipped in their drink.
Respondents were more likely to express acute worry about DFSA than any of the other crimes they were asked about such as burglary. Respondents were also asked to rate the circumstances under which they considered themselves to be most at risk from sexual assault. A choice of six answers was given: when drunk; when walking alone at night; after having taken drugs; after having your drink spiked with drugs; in your home; when walking in an area where crime is known to be high. Interestingly, having a drink spiked with drugs was the most commonly cited risk factor for sexual assault, with 150 (75%) of participants identifying this as an important risk factor. First- and second-year students were far more likely than those in their third and forth years to rate the risk of DFSA to be high or very high.
Overall, respondents exhibited a very strong risk consciousness concerning DFSA. The vast majority indicated that they were subject to exhortations to regulate their behaviour: more specifically, 166 (or 83%) had been cautioned not to leave a drink unattended. It is therefore surprising that only 40% of the respondents claimed to have changed their behaviour due to concern about drink-spiking. The data from the US survey gives a similar picture of student behaviour. Interviews helped shed light on this contrast. In contrast to the questionnaire respondents, the interviewees frequently spoke of how their behaviour was shaped by a concern about DFSA, but this was rarely conceived of in terms of behavioural change. Instead, most participants had internalised a set of precautions that were regularly described as commonsensical and unspoken, such as always watching one's drink. Such types of self-regulation are unlikely to show up in questionnaire data that asks about conscious shifts in behaviour.
British questionnaire respondents who did claim to have altered their behaviour were asked to explain what this behavioural change involved. Interestingly, only one of the respondents indicated that she had altered her alcohol intake as a response to concern about DFSA. Most of those who responded to this question mentioned not leaving their drink unattended, turning down drinks from strangers, and buying bottled drinks. A certain language of precaution emerges in these answers that echoes interviewees' comments on self-regulation and, as we shall see below, is affirmed by advice from mothers and friends.
Our research also sought to determine where belief in routine DFSA originates from. The data suggests that students' perceptions of DFSA are strongly shaped by local, interpersonal relationships, such as those with friends and family. Notably, when asked to identify people who had cautioned them about leaving drinks unattended, 76 (38%) of the questionnaire respondents indicated that friends had given them such warnings, whilst 86 (43%) pointed to family members. The interview data confirmed the idea that the media plays a central role in shaping beliefs about DFSA, but television soap operas appeared more important than news media (given the absence of attempted prosecutions there has been comparatively little news media coverage). A number of interviewees mentioned a drink-spiking storyline on the British soap opera Hollyoaks, assuming that they must be based upon some approximation to reality.
Overall, belief in DFSA seems to be based in indirect experience. Only nine of the questionnaire respondents and one of the interviewees reported having been a victim of drink-spiking, and none of these incidents involved sexual assault. In contrast, a staggering 194 (97%) of the questionnaire respondents claimed to have heard of drugs being slipped into someone's drinks, a finding that is deeply suggestive of the extent to which drink-spiking stories are passed on. Very few of these incidents involved sexual assault, or even an identifiable perpetrator Indeed, the vast majority of the stories respondents told about alleged cases of DFSA were represented as 'lucky escapes', due mainly to the intervention of friends. In short, belief in drug-facilitated sexual assault is founded in indirect experience of incidents that involved no sexual or violent element, only the assumption that they might have. Ultimately it seems based in uncertainty about the experience of female drinking in public, an activity to which no stigma is any longer attached but nonetheless remains a (privately) fraught one. The spectre of spiking may serve to displace such anxieties and refocus attention away from the altogether more problematic issue of regulating the quantity of alcohol consumed.