Safety Sexual Assault, Stalking Widespread on Campuses
By Megan Costello - WEnews correspondent
(WOMENSENEWS) -- Sexual assault and stalking of college women are
widespread and grossly underestimated by official statistics, a recent
study funded
by the Department of Justice indicates.
An estimated 28 percent of college women surveyed said they had suffered
completed or attempted rape, sexual coercion, unwanted sexual contact,
or stalking during a seven-month period, according to this unprecedented
in-depth research effort.
The national survey of more than 4,000 college women found that almost 3
percent, or 1 in 36, suffered a completed or attempted rape in the seven
months prior to the study by University of Cincinnati researchers.
Thirteen percent of college women surveyed reported they were stalked
during that period. The study was the first national survey of college
women to
include stalking, which was defined as repeated, fear-inducing behavior.
"We were trying to get a broad view of what was going on," said Bonnie
Fisher, an author of the study and associate professor of criminal
justice at the University of Cincinnati. "It doesn't paint a healthy
picture." The
study was funded by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National
Institute of Justice.
Official university annual crime reports generally indicate that a mere
handful of rapes occur on any given campus. Universities are not
required by law to include stalking incidents in their official crime
statistics, or
to record incidents of sexual assault that are revealed to counselors at
rape crisis and women's centers.
"You're not going to hear the real numbers," said Dolores Card, director
of the Syracuse University R.A.P.E. center. "You're going to hear campus
security numbers." She said that more than 40 women reported being
sexually assaulted to the R.A.P.E. center during the last year, yet campus
security reported five incidents of rape.
At least 300 schools have been cited by the Department of Education for
failing to properly report campus crime statistics as required by the
Campus Security Act. Several of the universities that were reviewed by the
department for incorrect reporting failed to include incidents of sexual
assault.
"There's still a lot of gross mishandling," said Howard Clery,
co-founder of Security on Campus, a nonprofit organization for the
prevention of
college campus violence.
College Women Don't Report Sexual Assault
While campuses may be underreporting the rapes they know about, college
women are not informing them of much of what takes place. Fewer than 5
percent
of the surveyed women who were raped reported it to law enforcement or
other campus officials.
"When you see that women are not reporting these incidents to the
authorities, the official statistics are really underestimating the
extent of what women are experiencing," said author Fisher. "That's what I
find
eye-opening and startling."
College women are among the female population most vulnerable to sexual
assault. Over 80 percent of women who reported being raped were under
the age of 24, according to a 1992 survey by the National Victim Center.
Moreover, current evidence indicates that college women are less likely
than other women to report being sexually assaulted to law enforcement.
Sixteen percent of women in the general population reported their rape to
the
police, according to the National Victim Center study. By contrast,
Fisher's
survey showed that only about 2 percent of college women reported their
assault
to the police.
Almost half of the college women surveyed who were sexually assaulted
did not report it because they did not want other people to know.
Nearly Half Did Not Think Their Rape Warranted A Report According to the
survey, well over 40 percent of women who were raped said they did not
report the incident because they did not think it was serious or were not
sure that a crime had been committed. Almost half of the college women who
were identified by the researchers as having been raped did not consider it
to be a rape. The survey indicated that 9 of 10 victims knew
their offenders.
"When you're talking about college rape, you're talking about date rape
and acquaintance rape primarily," said Syracuse's Card. "They're
uninformed," she added. "That's why it's so important to have some type of
prevention and education program. The other part of prevention is telling
them what to
do if it happens."
Card noted that most college campuses do not have rape crisis centers,
where women are fully informed of their medical and legal options. More
than
13 percent of the women surveyed who were raped said they did not know how
to report it.
Another factor in the reluctance of college women to report sexual
assault is that rapists are fellow students with whom they are likely to
have
future contact.
"Rape splits peer groups into who believes him and who believes her,"
said Irene Anderson, Director of the Oasis Center for Sexual Assault and
Relationship Violence at the University of Arizona. "Often times it's a
very disruptive event. Women as caretakers are trained to not make that
conflict in their peer groups."
The consumption of alcohol also decreases the likelihood that women will
report being sexually assaulted. Ninety percent of campus rapes involve
alcohol, according to a 1994 study by the National Center on Addiction
and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.
And Fisher's study showed that over 40 percent of sexually victimized
college women had been drinking or taking drugs before the incident.
Underage college women who were assaulted under the influence of alcohol
are often afraid of being sanctioned or blamed for their drinking, said
Card
from Syracuse.
Anderson from Arizona agrees. "In my experience, when there is alcohol
or drugs involved, the feelings of self-reproach and shame are likely to be
much higher," she said. "It's far more difficult for a woman to be very
clear
in that situation that she was not responsible for the assault."
Approximately 20 percent of the surveyed college women who were raped
said they did not report it because they anticipated harsh or dismissive
treatment by the police or others in the justice system.
"I'm more surprised that anyone reports to the police," said Jennifer
Beeman, director of the Campus Violence Prevention Program at the
University of
California at Davis. Date rapes are rarely prosecuted, and adversarial
proceedings encourages victim blaming, she added. "Over and over and
over, it's about blaming victims," she said.
Megan Costello is a New York-based freelancer.
For more information, visit:
Bureau of Justice Statistics:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/svcw.htm
Students Active For Ending Rape: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/safer/
National Clearinghouse on Marital and Date Rape:
http://www.members.aol.com/ncmdr/
Security on Campus, Inc.: http://campussafety.org/
Linda Purrington
<lpurring@earthlink.net>
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