Victim Advocacy

Have you ever wondered what Statutory Rape really is? It is sexual intercourse with a minor. In humbler terms it is when a male adult 18 years or older has sexual intercourse with a female who is 17 years old or younger without consent. The issue that I have seen arise a great deal of the time is that the laws in most states are sexually biased when it comes to an adult male and an underage female. In this essay I want to specifically focus on the State of North Carolina, being that I live in this state.

What the NCVS is the ongoing victimization study conducted jointly by the Justice Department and the U.S. Census Bureau that surveys victims about their experiences with law violation. What is could about this it helps captures the dark figures out there. And it helps get greater details from the defense side. So, it helps create a clearer picture of everything. Like how UCR picks up 15000 robberies the NCVS will pick up twice as much because more people would have turned in more reports that way. Here are some problems that they are facing though there is a lot of overreporting due to victims’ misinterpretation of events, underreporting due to the embarrassment of reporting crime t interviewers, fear of getting in trouble, or simply forgetting an incident. There is a lot more problems that goes with this system. But a we come to understand NCVS is more efficient that the

UCR or known as the Uniform crime reports is an annual report published by the FBI in the DOJ, which is meant to estimate most of the major street crimes in the United States.The main purpose of the UCR is basically to collect as many crimes or reliable crimes that come up as crime statistics so it can be used in our law enforcement administration. The Ucr is a very helpful tool for the law. The system was created in 1929. It provided information for criminologists,sociologists, and even the media. The Ucr mostly concentrates on assaults and robberies. The NIBRS or the national incident based reporting system is the system that the government uses for gathering data about recent or past crimes. The system has a lot of purposes but one of the main purposes’ is to evaluate the crimes associated with any current culture of violence theories.

In 1992, the NCVS survey was redesigned and produced betters results in victims recalling and reporting more types of incidents.

Every part of our research statement has been defined now, and the purpose of defining each aspect ourselves was to not be over or under inclusive. The reason we have narrowed down the definition of sexual assault to just forced intercourse is because among a crime that is not often reported, rape is the aspect that females will most commonly report to authorities. We chose seventeen as our minimum age because it is the legal age of consent in Texas, and any female older than seventeen is also at risk of being raped on a campus. It may seem over inclusive to add every age over seventeen, but all sexual assault crimes, regardless of age, are reported in the Clery Act. Just studying females is important because they are the most likely population to be victims of sexual assault. Finally, public campuses are the only Universities we are using because data is more readily available and representative of actual crime rates.

Sexual Assault described in technical terms is defined as any sort of sexual activity between two or more people in which one of the people involved is involved against his or her will. (3) The description of "against his or her will" extends to varying degrees of aggression, ranging from indirect pressure to a direct physical attack. While sexual assaults are associated with the crime of rape, it may cover assaults which would not be considered rape. What constitutes a sexual assault is determined by the laws of the jurisdiction where the assault takes place, which vary considerably, and are influenced by local social and cultural attitudes. Every year, an estimated 300,000 women are raped and 3.7 million are confronted with unwanted

Rape according to “A Natural History of Rape”, is defined as, “an event that occurred without the woman’s consent, involving the use of force or threat of force, and involved sexual penetration of the victim's vagina, mouth or rectum.” Rape has been around for ages, it has been seen in different cultures around the world (religious and nonreligious). However, here in America “forced sex” with a familiar face for example, a friend or boyfriend was not considered rape until the 1850s (Dockerman). Despite that, rape or “forced sex” has evolved and now there are different types of drugs that facilitate the crime (Dockerman). In the article, “Drug-Facilitated Date Rape”, it is said that, “drug-facilitated rape is most commonly linked to the surreptitious

In the twenty-first century, rape culture is gaining more and more recognition. The public is finally educating themselves on rape, what it is, and what qualifies as rape. One subtype of rape in particular is date rape. What exactly is date rape? According to an article called Date Rape, it is “the act of forcing sex on a date,” they continue to state “the key word in the definition is force, since it is the legal line that separates rape from romance” (Date Rape 1). Although the definition may seem simple, for some people, it is difficult to grasp. There are a few small differences between rape and date rape. According to the article, “unlike rapes involving strangers, date and acquaintance rapists typically use psychological pressure or strength to press for sex, rather than weapons or threats of violence” (Date

 Date rape is a forcible sexual intercourse by an acquaintance, where one resists sexual advances either verbally or physically. The perpetrator of this crime varies from boyfriends to casual acquaintances. The Centers for Disease Control reported that eight out of ten rape or sexual-assault cases were carried out by people of these relationship statuses. Sometimes rapists claim they are given given mixed signals, or even misread simple flirtation as a woman’s sexual advance. In any situation, a woman is not

     Sexual assault is a term that is used interchangeably with the word rape. The decision on whether or not to use the term rape or sexual assault is made by a state’s jurisdiction. Sexual assault is more readily used in an attempt to be more gender neutral (National Victim Center). Sexual assault can be most easily described as forced or unconsentual sexual intercourse. The individual that is performing these acts on the victim may either be a stranger or an acquaintance. In 1994, 64.2 percent of all rapes were committed by someone the offender had previously known (Ringel, 1997). Regardless, this type of crime can have extreme effects on the victim.

Sexual assault and rape has always been a social and public issue in the United States. A majority of the time, women become the victims, while men become the perpetrators. National surveys in the United States show that one in six women has experienced an attempted or completed rape. Consent appears to be a critical factor in determining whether assault or rape has taken place. Women have a higher chance of being raped by who they are acquainted with rather than strangers.

The National Crime victimization Survey (NCVS) collects personal and household criminal data by a consistent ongoing survey. This program is useful for showing how many crimes happened that may have not have been reported to the police. Victims and criminals are a lot more likely to admit to a survey of criminal events that happened rather than to the police themselves. Unlike UCR and NIBRS, NCVS does not include detailed information nor does it provide any specific

Kidshealth.org: Rape: An informative article describing the violent sexual crime known as rape. It offers pertinent advice for victims and those uneducated regarding this horrific crime.

The main causes of date rape are drugs which come in different forms and have different names. “Drugs are used as sedatives to assist the date rape. Usually the drugs are mixed with the drinks. The main form of date rape drugs are alcohols, Gamma- hydroxybutyrate (GHB) and Benzodiazepines like Rohypnol. These drugs make the victim unconscious or powerless to fight rape” (Cowling 13). There are many ways to prevent date rape; however, there are also ways to receive help if a victim falls victim to date rape. The majority of accounted rape is "date rape" in which the victim and the assailant are acquainted in some way. When forced sex occurs between two people who already know each other it is known as date rape and people who know less of one another is called acquaintance rape. Rape is an act of aggression and violence. Rape is never the victims fault; it is always the rapist fault. While doing this research, studies showed that sixty percent of date rape cases happened to girls that are in college. “Contrary to the belief of most of the people that rape is committed by total stranger, the highest incidence of sexual assault is reported from someone who knows the victim. The college students are the main victims of date rape” (Berger 120). Many campus parties are

p. 69).” rape is violence against women. It is a violation of her body and her trust. According to Burns, a sociologist at Michigan State University, “rape is forced and unwanted intercourse, where sexual assault is used as a power and sex is a method (Mousseau, 2006. p. 1).” Most rapes are committed not by strangers, but by men known to women, perhaps someone they have gone out with or are supposedly their friends. It can be someone she just met or even her fiancé, but often it is an attempt to assert power or anger. A study by the National Center for the Preventive and Control rape claims ninety percent of rapes are never reported. In those that are reported, sixty percent knew their assailants. Of these, women fifteen to twenty-five are majority of the victims. Alcohol and drugs sometimes play a significant factor, especially in date rape or acquaintance rape cases (Mousseau, 2006).