After three reported rapes within nine days, discussions of sexual assault have taken a forefront in the Cal Poly community, though, the real statistics and history of sexual assault at Cal Poly resembles those of other campuses.
In fact, 1 in 4 college women and 1 in 10 college men experience a sexual assault by the time they graduate college, according to the Sexual Assault Free Environment Resource (SAFER) website. This translates to roughly 35 incidents of rape for every 1,000 women in attendance during an academic year, according to a 2000 U.S. Department of Justice study, “The Sexual Victimization of College Women.”
These numbers have not been apparent at Cal Poly until now though.
Bill Watton, the chief of police for the University Police Department (UPD), said the amount of recent sexual assault reports have not been reflected in past Cal Poly statistics, according to the Clery Act. The act requires all university and college campuses with financial aid programs to keep public record of crimes on or near campus. Watton said there were only three reports in 2007, none in 2008 or 2009 and two in 2010. Yet, Watton said many sexual assaults also go unreported.
Even though many sexual assaults are not reported, past sexual crimes on campus, however, influenced the formation of SAFER on campus. Christina Kaviani, coordinator of the Gender Equity Center, said the group started because of the unsolved disappearance of Kristen Smart in 1996, and the sexual assaults and murders of Rachel Newhouse and Aundria Crawford by Rex Krebs in 1998 and 1999 respectively. SAFER holds an annual ReMEmber Week to promote the memory of these victims and offer support to survivors.
Yet, Kaviani said she felt the SAFER program at Cal Poly is behind other schools in some ways. She said she hoped with sexual assault more prominent in the news, SAFER could become more thoroughly involved in the Cal Poly community.
“For SAFER, the history has been that it started from some horrific incidents, and has not fully been supported consistently to really do what it should be doing, which is educating every student on what is consent, on bystander intervention, on red flag characteristics of perpetrators and reporting,” Kaviani said. “Reporting is a very big issue obviously (because of) what’s happened: we have three reports in one week. As horrible as it is, (reports) should be happening more.”
Watton said the recent reporting of sexual assaults are due to the victims gaining courage from other reports, though he said it was “unusual” for three to be reported in such a short time span.
“We know when this happens, more than one gets reported,” Watton said. “The challenge is trying to make it a better way or easier or more comfortable way to report so that we can do something about these. From a police perspective, we always want our community to be safe.”
Watton said those looking to report can go to either UPD or the San Luis Obispo Police Department, but should go to the department that has jurisdiction over where the sexual assault occurred.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, there were 30 forcible rapes reported in San Luis Obispo in 2009. Ollie Rayshawn Tinoco, 15 years old at the time, sexually assaulted a San Luis Obispo woman near Cal Poly in September 2010 and received 24 years in prison. A Cuesta student, David Andrew Shenosky, received 27 years to life after he reportedly raped a female friend in March 2010 as well.
Behaving responsibly though, is one way officials said people can protect themselves from being assaulted.
Watton said in the wake of these sexual assault instances, students should be more responsible with their drinking habits. According to the Sexual Assault Recovery and Prevention (SARP) Center of San Luis Obispo County website, 52 percent of the sexual assaults reported at the center involved alcohol.
Kaviani said with the emphasis on the recent sexual assaults, SAFER will be able to expand and help teach more students about consensual sex, intervention and avoiding victim blaming.
Mike Smith, a computer engineering sophomore, said because of the recent attention toward the rapes, he has felt more of a responsibility to intervene if necessary.
“It is a guy’s responsibility,” Smith said. “If there’s a girl that’s at a point that she shouldn’t make decisions, then it’s going to be his responsibility to make sure nothing happens to her. Or if you see someone who’s trying to make a move on her when she’s too drunk, you have to step in.”
Watton said with more light on sexual assault at Cal Poly, more survivors will gain the courage to report and to not blame themselves.