The Red Zone Risk for College Sexual Assault: A Critical Review of the Literature

Abstract

The term Red Zone refers to a period of time thought to be high risk for sexual victimization upon entering college in the United States, although empirical evidence for a defined Red Zone has not been established. This article critically reviews empirical research from the last 20 years that investigates the temporality of sexual assault reported by undergraduate women. A keyword search of three major sociopsychological databases was conducted, and articles were included if they reported original empirical results of the timing of sexual assault on campuses, if they directly compared different class years, or if they reported on sexual assault by class year. Ten articles meeting criteria were evaluated in light of methodological, definitional, and measurement issues to assess whether support for a Red Zone of risk exists. We posit that the current extant literature does not provide clear empirical support for the concept of a Red Zone at the beginning of a woman’s entry into college and lasting for the first month or two. However, extending the potential time frame for a Red Zone to include college women’s first and second years has some merit, although the usefulness of considering half of a woman’s college career as high risk for sexual violence is questioned. Importantly, investigations into the temporality of campus sexual assault (CSA) would benefit from the inclusion of multiple other risk factors as potential mediators/moderators to understand whether identifying a particular time frame is useful or whether social contexts and risk factors explain the significance of an identified time frame.