“I’m a survivor,” said John (not his real name).
After having some drinks at a bar in Ventura on New Year’s Eve 2008, John and his friends invited some people back to a nearby home for a more intimate gathering. At the house, John and his friends continued drinking. He soon began talking to one of the men he met at the bar. They went to a back room to get away from the music and talk. But things soon took a turn for the worse; John said the man became physical and raped him.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, one in five women in college will be sexually assaulted. Furthermore, 90 -95 percent of all college cases go unreported according to the Center for Public Integrity. For those with the responsibility of helping sexual assault and rape survivors, such as counselors and police, one dilemma is determining how to bring justice and peace to survivors who wish to remain anonymous, but still want to take action against the perpetrator. As the statics for reported sexual assault incidents are on the rise, more strategies are being discussed for survivors.
“We live in a victim-blaming society,” said John who refuses to report the incident to police, because he’s afraid of backlash, due to the fact that he was intoxicated during the incident and because he is gay.
It is the survivor’s choice whether they want to come forward to law enforcement, and often they don’t because they know the person, said the Sexual Assault Recovery and Prevention Center (SARP) executive director Kristy McCray.
“This means that we all have known someone who has been assaulted whether they have come forward or not,” McCray said.
A survivor who chooses to remain anonymous can take no legal action against his or her perpetrator, and their case is not recorded by police officials. The state of California also denies those who choose not to file a report access to a SART (Sexual Assault Response Team) kit that must be used within 72 hours of the crime to collect evidence from the predator in case they choose to later file a report.
“No victim, no crime. If you don’t have a victim come forward then it is hard to take action. I don’t know what they could do if they didn’t because it would be difficult to go off an anonymous tip,” McCray said.
The cost of the SART kits is $800, and may or may not lead to a report has made many California legislators think twice about approving it, said SART member Buffy Ramirez.
“Unfortunately within this county I can’t get anyone on board,” Ramirez said of the proposed bill.
The U.S. Justice Department recently decided to address the high numbers of unreported cases by launching a training program for college sexual assault assistance officials.
Cal Poly had no reported sexual incidents according to the 2008 Clery Report, which is a chart of all campus crime that must be made public by every college receiving federal aid. The coordinators at Sexual Assault Free Environment Resource (SAFER) said the report is inaccurate because many cases on and off campus go unreported.
“It is not at all representative of what happens at college, mainly because it only accounts for campus incidents and majority (of sexual assaults) are happening off campus, and the rates of reporting are so low in the general public and on campus,” Thomas said. “I think it is more important to look at the student population and look at the resources at your school if you are sexually assaulted.”
Student coordinators at Cal Poly’s SAFER Program provide counseling and resources to those who have been sexually assaulted. Coordinators Krystin Thomas and Daniel Pfau said many factors explain the high sexual assault rate and number of unreported incidents.
“To be honest, I think a lot of it has to do with the culture of college of going out and drinking a lot of alcohol, and not that there is anything wrong with that, but alcohol is a huge part of consent or lack of consent and it is when a person is inebriated by alcohol and they can’t give legally give consent and even if they said ‘yes’ legally they were under the influence legally it doesn’t exist,” Pfau said.
When asked if she could see the number of sexual assault cases decreasing, Thomas said there is hope for the future, as more people join the fight against sexual assault.
“The rates are really high and they don’t need to be. It’s really easy to lower them if we all take responsibility for it that it is happening in our community rather then be like ‘oh it doesn’t happen’ or ‘it doesn’t happen that often.’”
Students tend to feel a false sense of security and community by meeting so many new people in college, said the SAFER coordinators. The sexual assault rate in the greek system is reported to be one in three women.
“You may have met that person at an exchange or know them through friends and there is this sense that you can trust them because you are all in that same community but it is a false sense of a security,” Thomas said.
“A lot of people see the crime as preventable as in, if you hadn’t gone up stairs with that person or walked home by yourself then would of never had happened, rather than seeing it as the fault of perpetrator of the crime so the focus becomes the victim and not the perpetrator,” Pfau added.
The perpetrators or “undetected rapists” on college campuses are actually very similar to those serving time for sexual assault in prison, according to a recent study done by psychologist David Lisak at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. The biggest similarity was that both groups were repeat offenders and those in college who did admit to rape more then once accounted for nine out of every 10 rape incidents while attending a university.
There has also never been a particular trend in sexual assault incidents within the county said San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s public information officer Rob Bryn. He said the numbers have actually been all over the board ranging from 84 incidents in 1999 to 106 cases in 2008. He also added that in majority of the crimes, the survivor knew the perpetrator and was under the influence of alcohol or some other drug such as Rohypnol or ‘roofies,’ known to make a person unconscious.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, Pfau said, “Tell them you believe them, tell them it is not their fault and empower them to make their decision of whether they want to report it or not but put the power back in their hands, so they feel that I can get through this and I can survive this because everything you need to say needs to be positive because everything that they are telling themselves is probably negative.”
John has decided not to make a police report but said that by having his story written he hopes to prevent future sexual assault incidents from happening.