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Acquaintance Rape And The College Social Scene

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Acquaintance Rape and the College Social Scene

In Acquaintance “Rape and the College Social Scene,” the authors, Sally K. Ward, Kathy Chapman, Ellen Cohn, Susan White and Kirk Williams, main purpose was to report on a study they performed of the cases of sexual assaults at a specific college campus. The article provides estimates of the rate of acquaintance rape, recounting the situations surrounding the acquaintance rape, and people working toward making policies against this type of aggression. This article focuses on the themes of underreporting of the assaults, the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses, and the link between alcohol use and assault. Underreporting happens normally because the assault was done by someone the victim knew. If the perpetrator is known to the victim, people are less likely to label what transpired as rape.
The article states that most women fail to report rapes and assaults because they are scared nothing will be done or they are unsure how to define what they have experienced. Research shows that on thirty-two campuses only fifty-eight percent of victims reported their rape to anyone and only five percent of that fifty-eight reported their rape to the police. A lot of research points to alcohol as the main reason for sexual aggression or assault. The article does well at focusing on the themes of underreporting assaults, the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses, and the link between alcohol use and assault.

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