Reports of rape on campus increase
February 4, 2010 | by Wayne Havrelly | kgw.com
Student safety at area colleges is in question after a Newschannel 8 investigation reveals a sudden jump in reported sexual assaults.
“I don't believe the numbers,” said Helen Hunter who analyzed campus crime statistics before picking a college 4 years ago.
“We looked at exclusive private colleges and almost all of them had 0 to 3 reported rapes,” said Hunter.
They selected Lewis and Clark College in Southwest Portland. Her freshman year was fine, but Hunter’s college experience took a sudden turn her sophomore year when she was sexually assaulted by another student.
“He started getting really violent and started pulling my hair and choking me,” said hunter. “It was so confusing for me because I was thinking I went over there and I started kissing him. It was O.K. until it wasn’t.”
Before the attack, Hunter thought rape could only happen from a stranger. She descended into an emotional darkness filled with guilt and shame that she's still fighting to overcome.
Stories like Hunter’s happen far more often at colleges than most would ever believe possible.
A recent report by the U.S. Department of Justice estimates one out of 4 college women are victims of rape or attempted rape by the time they graduate.
“It's happening everywhere and college campuses are the perfect place for it to happen where it can be disguised as social activity,” said Emily Tressel with the Mid-Valley Women’s Crisis Service in Salem.
Newschannel 8 combed through 3 years of crime reports from 8 local campuses looking at trends in sex crimes. Those reports combine rape and other sex assaults into a category called forcible sex offenses.
The two biggest increases happened at the state’s largest universities. The University of Oregon went from just 3 reported forcible sex offenses in the 07-08 school year, to 8 last school year.
Oregon State University had the highest number of sexual assaults at 16 in the past school year, up from 8 the year before.
“I would not say it's a bad thing,” said OSU Public Safety Director Jack Rogers. “In fact, I would call it a success story.”
“Why is it a good thing that the number of sexual assaults reported more than doubled,” asked Havrelly.
“I think that's a brilliant differentiation that you just made of reporting, not necessarily a higher increase of sexual assaults occurring, but we've seen an increase in reporting, said Carrie Giese the sexual violence prevention coordinator for Oregon State University.
That increase in reporting does not appear to be happening at private colleges in the area. All consistently report between 0 and 3 rapes over the past 3 school years, just like when Helen Hunter checked the statistics 4 years ago.
“I think my biggest struggle was not knowing what to do because there's such an incredible lack of dialog when it comes to sexual assault,” said Hunter.
Hunter eventually reported the assault to the College, but not to police. Her perpetrator was suspended, but he returned to school and graduated with no record. After she went public, she heard from 4 other women who claimed they were also attacked by the same man in the exact same way. None reported the attacks.
“I should have gone to the police because he needs to be held responsible for his actions,” said Hunter.
But experts say, on college campuses few sexual assault victims ever feel comfortable enough to report crimes to schools let alone police.
“OSU recognized under reporting is a huge problem so we've initiated many efforts to really look at that and understand what can we do to better help survivors,” said Linda Anderson a psychologist at OSU.
Security experts at Oregon State University and the University of Oregon say the fact that the number of reported sex assaults are up does not disturb them. They say it means they’ve done a much better job of getting the word out that students can feel comfortable in reporting those terrible crimes.
Helen Hunter agrees, and is encouraged by the spike in sexual assault reports at Oregon's two largest universities.
Hunter says people are finally starting to talk about the problem. “Talking about it and starting a dialog about rape on college campuses helps me sleep at night,” said Hunter.
