The Frequency of Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault Investigations

While there is a general belief throughout parts of the world that drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) cases have dramatically increased in recent times, the true prevalence of DFSA will never be fully realized. This is due to the general underreporting of sexual assaults, the pharmacodynamics of the drugs used to commit these crimes, the challenges that delayed reporting can impose on the charges associated with these cases, and the lack of a uniform system of defining and statistically capturing data on sexual assaults that are facilitated by drugs. Over the years, a number of studies have attempted to quantitate the frequency of DFSA in various countries throughout the world. Unfortunately, no two studies have taken the same approach in their assessment of DFSA; therefore, it is difficult to combine their results to allow for a realistic evaluation of how prevalent DFSA really is. This manuscript reviews the studies that have attempted such an assessment of DFSA prevalence to compare and contrast their results.