Implementation Evaluation of Bystander Programs to Reduce Sexual Violence Victimization and Perpetration in College Communities

Purpose: Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act required American colleges to implement bystander training to reduce sexual violence (SV). Our team investigated whether campuses with greater bystander programming coverage and skill-building indicators had lower SV perpetration and victimization rates. Methods: Surveys and interviews with key informants charged with selecting and implementing bystander programming were used to create bystander programming coverage and skill building indicators. Electronic surveys were sent to undergraduates (2017–2019) to measure bystander training coverage, SV perpetration, and victimization. Results: Of 100,846 surveys completed across 17 campuses, SV rates measuring physically forced sex ranged from 2.3–2.8% for victimization and 0.2% for perpetration. SV rates measuring drug or alcohol facilitated sex victimization ranged from 2.5–2.9% and 0.5–0.8% for perpetration. Using linear regression and adjusting for student population and campus crime rates, greater bystander training coverage and increased skill-building indicators were not associated with lower SV rates for campus level analyses. Similarly, at the student-level, there were no statistically significant reductions in SV perpetration nor victimization rates associated with increased bystander skill-building indicators. Conclusions: Greater bystander skill-building indicators were not associated with lower sexual violence rates among undergraduate students. Key informant data suggested that campuses with higher SV rates required students to complete bystander training. We address the challenge of large implementation evaluations concurrent with a federal mandate for bystander training (Campus SaVE) and its impact on training variance within and across campuses. Future prospective evaluations of Campus SaVE are recommended.