Every 98 seconds sexual assault occurs. More than 570 people in the United States alone face sexual assault in the duration of 24 hours. A large percent of these victims are students. Rape and sexual assault is escalating rapidly throughout the country within highschool and college students meanwhile schools are not addressing these issues. Many factors contribute to the rise of sexual assault such as; illegal drinking, greek-life, lack of police related officials, and campuses are not supporting them. Although students don’t speak up about sexual assault because they are afraid of getting in trouble, these incidents are occurring more and more. Schools need to address the issue of sexual assault on campuses because it is the victims and their …show more content…
Students are attracted to greek-life because of the commeriaty. According to James G. Martin Center “fraternities and sororities constitute a huge part of the social scene at Northwestern. The school reports that about 3,000 students, or 40 percent of the student body, participate in the Greek system.” With many students involved in Greek life, students are drinking at higher amounts, hazing, and other illegal activities leading to rape. With more parties being held, both male and female rape rates are increasing. “Some fraternities encourage both heavy drinking and sexual exploitation of women .” (NIAAA) “Brown University recently stripped one fraternity of recognition, including housing, for four years, and suspended privileges for another fraternity, in response to reports of spiked drinks at one party and unwanted touching at another.”(New York Times) These spiked drinks lead to accounts of rape.
Many college campuses are failing to report cases of sexual assault and rape to police. Campuses don’t report these cases because they do not want their reputations ruined.
“As long as colleges continue to do just the bare minimum to protect themselves, rather than students, nothing will change. A common frustration among both victims and the accused is that they don't know how to navigate convoluted university hearings. Certain policy changes, like removing barriers to open communication, are easy to implement
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Campuses are putting up a visage to distract parents and students at a vulnerable time of college hunting just so they can get more money. Our money is more important to colleges than children’s safety, just so they are more marketable they ignore the true troubles students are facing. Rather then administration narrowing down on students mental health they focus on the students grade point averages and the final exams administered. Statistics show that “a 2014 report by the U.S. Department of Justice estimated that 80% of student victims don’t report their rape or sexual assault to police, based on data from 1995–2013. Just because a school had no rape reports doesn’t mean no rapes happened.”(Reddit) Colleges are too naive to report them so they can have a better
Despite having hundreds of sexual assault cases each year, most colleges take little action to resolve these cases. In fact, only 20% of female sexual assault survivors report cases, the rest believing that it was too personal to share, or that if they did, the police wouldn’t listen to them. If they did report, often times it was to the local police rather than the campus police in fear that they would be shamed or turned away by the universities.
There is no way to escape the agony. There is no way to forget the suffering. There is no way to forestall the crime. Victim’s souls burdened by the pain, the nightmares and the terror from their attack. Just as shackles cinched tight around a prisoner’s ankles, survivors will forever drag along their haunting memories. Sexual assault is a mounting issue that preys upon college students. While, furthering their studies, pupils are at greater risk for being sexually assaulted as opposed to individuals of other age groups and walks of life. Students are more susceptible to become victims due to their new independence, the campus living environments and the low arrest rate.
“Among undergraduate students, 23.1% of females and 5.4% of males experience rape or sexual assault” (RAINN). Rape is a threat virtually anywhere people go, but no place has a higher risk for sexual assault than college campuses. However, many of these occurrences go without penalties against the attacker, and even more are not reported at all. The lack of consequences for the accused indirectly suggests that rape and other forms of sexual assault are allowable and create further problems for the victims of the horrendous actions. Harsher punishments need to be given out for sexual assault on campus, as the current rulings are biased and immoral.
The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act was set to take effect in March of 2014, but even after that began, the numbers still stayed the same. Even if the numbers had changed, this Act was set to take place on very few campuses, therefore it wouldn't have made a large difference. The large amount of college campuses that do not make any changes in policy to assist in preventing these circumstances is very troubling, considering the substantial detrimental effect sexual assault has on students. Sexual violence has a long term impact on its victims; those impacts range from health problems to psychological issues that include chronic illnesses, injuries, sleep disturbance, sexually transmitted infections, depression, humiliation, suicidal ideation, and trouble concentrating (Abooali). For women in particular, the list of detriments goes even farther and includes unwanted pregnancy, lack of ambition, contribution, and self-esteem, particularly for those in ethnic minority groups such as African Americans and Hispanics (Abooali). If sexual assault isn't a big enough issue on it's own for college campuses to take action, these after-effects should kick these institutions into high gear on ways to prevent this from
Every high school senior knows the amazing feeling of receiving that big envelope in the mail containing their acceptance letter to the school of their dreams. They’re filled with happiness and excitement, knowing that they are going to have the best four years of their lives at college. Never in a million years would a student expect their college experience to turn into a nightmare. Never would they have thought that their campus would not be safe enough to walk around alone at night without carrying their keys in between their fingers like knives. A student goes to school to learn, not to get assaulted or raped. Sexual assault is becoming a big problem on college campuses, and school officials are under reporting and trying to cover up the assaults because there are perverse economic and reputational incentives to hide those numbers.
For years, women have been sexualized publicly on television and other forms of media. With twisted TV shows such as Law and Order and CSI glorifying the stone-cold reality of sexual assaults and rapes that occur daily on college campuses. Television gives away a blissful ending with every sexual assault or rape, but it is far from the truth. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 80% of rape and sexual assaults of female students goes unreported to the police. (Langston) This does not mean it was never documented, the reports were made to the campus police, then should be passed on to the Special Victims Unit, but almost always the report is put aside, forgotten about, then eventually lost. Two solutions of trying to help this overwhelming statistic are to constantly educate female students about the harsh reality of sexual
Most college’s sexual assault prevention programs may be useless and unreliable because they are focused on the victims and not the attackers. Most sexual assaults are unreported, giving campus staff worker and campus police authorities the false impression that current efforts are adequate. In additions, campus police may be influenced by college administrators who fear that too strong a persuasion on the problem may lead to potential students and their parents to believe that sexual assault occurs more often at their college than at others. Prevention programs need to focus more on educating both men and women. Programs such as event around campus, especially for men that focus on rape reduction should be mandatory at college campuses. Sexual
The red button has been pressed and the issue of sexual assault on college campuses has blown up. Students, faculty, and staff are fed up with the epidemic that has been so silently swept under the rug. Since 55 schools were found in violation of Title IX for the way they handled sexual assaults and harassment in 2014, universities and colleges have been looking for ways to educate their students. The results at first were problematic: they focused on blaming the victim and judging students based on what they were wearing, how they were behaving, how much they drank. Knowing that this is severely not okay, it is interesting to see how other universities are trying to change the discourse to make it more accepting to talk about these issues and place less blame on women.
The 2015 documentary The Hunting Ground debuted to film festivals revealing to audiences the issues ingrained in our university system in how they treat rape taking place on their campuses (Dick). Testimonials of rape victims from across the nation spoke out about their experiences with how their schools treated their cases-- from accusations simply being ignored to suspected rapists being “disciplined” with expulsions effective only after graduation. Some schools even find fault within the victims themselves, falling privy to trends of victim blaming and “slut” shaming. Schools will have a hundred sexual assault charges on their campus, even more resulting in no action: no suspensions and no expulsions. So the lenience toward assailants, it has to
Sexual Violence defined by the United States Center for Disease Control as “penetrative and non- penetrative acts…[occurring] when a perpetrator commits sexual acts without a victim’s consent” is an issue finding itself highly concentrated on collegiate campuses nationwide (Basile et al. 1). Statistically speaking “one in five women, and a substantial number of men, [will experience] attempted or completed sexual assault during their college career”(OAESV 2). These numbers are utterly horrific, and reflect the decreased safety campuses nationwide are experiencing. Students enrolled in the higher education system are increasingly being put in danger of becoming victims, and victims live in constant fear and doubt of their safety on campus. While the perpetrators of these crimes are ultimately to blame for the danger they present, college and university tendencies in sexual assault prevention and response play a direct role in decreasing levels of campus safety nationwide. Though the higher education system has much room for improvement in many areas pertaining to sex crimes, specific issues such as the weak relationship between campus crisis centers and universities, increasing leniency in perpetrating student athletes, and the overabundance of response rather than prevention programs on campus are a few major patterns contributing to reduced campus safety. These dangerous patterns, common among many universities and colleges, foster campus environments aiding the
Acts of violence occur on college campuses every day. Sexual assault is a horrifying reality and for many students is now a part of their “college experience”. The notorious statistic of one in five college women experiencing sexual assault while in college has gained validity with a new study conducted by the Association of American Universities. The study surveyed young college women from all over the nation and revealed that “23% said they experienced some form of unwanted sexual contact -- ranging from kissing to touching to rape, carried out by force or threat of force, or while they were incapacitated because of alcohol and drugs” (Wallace 1). How college campuses should handle sexual assault cases is a national debate. This hits close
College women are 3 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than omen in the general population. One in four college women will be sexually assaulted while in college. In a national survey of adults, 37.4% of female rape victims were first raped between the ages 18-24. In a study of undergraduate women 19% experienced attempted or completed sexual assault since entering college (CDC, 2012). The myths and rape culture surrounding it makes the suffering and experiences of victims seem invalid and insignificant. Young women come to college for awesome experiences, to learn prosper and have fun not be taken advantage of. Humans need to feel secure and safe in new environments like university. Negligence, rape culture and lack of preparation by campus authority/administration when dealing with sexual assault(SA) further perpetuates sexual violence on college campuses.
Universities all over the country have actively participated in preventative efforts towards relieving the crisis of the formidable amount of sexual assaults that occur on U.S. college campuses. Sexual assault among college students—as both victims and perpetrators—is an epidemic that has been identified and acknowledged as problematic for several decades. As an ongoing and consistent problem, there is little empirical evidence indicating that sexual violence prevention initiatives to date have been effective. The U.S. National Institute of Justice (NIJ) estimates that between one-fifth and one-quarter of college women are victims of sexual assault, including attempted or completed rape (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000). Recent research
Considerable interest has been paid to the occurrence of sexual acts on U.S. university campuses in the past decade. The Clery Act pushed for a greater focus on the prevention of and the response to campus sexual victimization. Campus crime statistics were to be made publicly accessible in efforts to increase transparency between universities and students. Rape figures collected from postsecondary institutions have been increasing since data collection began in 2001. As of 2014, four-year or above public, private non-profit, and private for profit U.S. postsecondary institutions reported rape figures of 2,114, 2,167, and 27, respectively (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). Initiatives by the White House in 2014 established a Task Force to become better informed about effective strategies to efficiently handle campus sexual victimization, and consequently prepare universities to be proactive and consider how such issues may affect their Title IX policies. One outcome included the development of a survey to gauge self-reported sexual victimization data from students, the Campus Climate Survey Validation Study (CCSVS) (Krebs, Lindquist, Berzofsky, Shook-Sa, & Peterson, 2016). A pilot CCSVS of nine schools assessed school-level sexual victimization during the 2014-2015 academic year. Here, sexual assault is described as an unwanted, nonconsensual sexual contact that could involve rape, which specifically involved a penetrative act. These terms will be used as such hereafter,
The lack of awareness of sexual assault is caused by fear of colleges and rape victims, because rape on college campuses is not taken seriously by colleges or the justice system. In an article written by Tyler Kingkade, he explains colleges fear a drop in applications when they report a rape, “Dartmouth revealed in February 2014 that it had seen a 14 percent drop in applications, which many people attributed to protests over harassment, sexual assault and hazing on campus, Ivy League competitor Harvard University saw a 2.1 percent drop in applicants over the same period” (Kingkade). Colleges have noticed if they do not report rape, hazing or protests over either issue will not affect their application rates. As these universities are trying to protect their reputation, they take making more money more important than students