Rape rates and military personnel in the United States: an exploratory study.

This study involves a test of the cultural spillover hypothesis through a state-level analysis of the relationship between rape rates and the proportion of military personnel in the population. A statistically significant correlation not predicted by this hypothesis was found between rape rates and the proportion of Air Force personnel in the population. Further exploration revealed that this was largely because of the high correlation between the Air Force and the Indian population. Multivariate analyses revealed that the proportion of Indian women in the population was the main predictor of rape rates. Per capita alcohol consumption was also found to be positively correlated with both rape rates and Air Force personnel but was not significantly related to rape in the multivariate analysis.