Countering Ignorance with Evidence: The Invisible Nature of Sexual Assault and Rape Culture

*All writers contributed equally to this article

 

As students of Sam Houston State University’s prestigious College of Criminal Justice, we have been afforded the opportunity to learn about a variety of issues and topics related to criminal justice, criminology and victimology. This can be extremely awkward when conversing with acquaintances, friends, or even family members who are sometimes misinformed on the topics and issues within the field. Normally, it is easy to shrug these conversations off. We attribute their misunderstanding to distorted media representations of crime and justice. We acknowledge that these individuals were not given the same educational opportunities as we were. We understand that many of those close to us are not educated Bearkats within the realm of criminal justice. That is why we were so taken aback the other week after opening the student-run newspaper and reading a viewpoint article from a student who was misinformed on the topic he was discussing. The article was on rape culture and sexual assaults on campus, and our disdain was truly palpable as we tried so hard to work our way through the unfounded conclusions this staff reporter had made. His claims conflicted with everything we had been learning throughout our studies. His arguments did not mirror the scholarship we have been exposed to. He seemed to ignore the body of literature surrounding this topic. Even more troubling, he seemed to overlook the fact that the College of Criminal Justice houses the Crime Victims’ Institute and that many experts reside in the same building. Immediately, we all wanted to run to the nearest computer and write an article denouncing the student and pontificating upon the sophomoric logic used within the article. After giving that strategy more thought, however, we decided instead to rectify the misinformation provided within that article while, hopefully, providing those without a voice a chance to be heard.

Let’s be honest, just because you cannot see something does not mean it does not exist. Rape culture is all around us—simply turn on your television and radio or listen to conversations and jokes told at parties, if you pay attention, you’ll notice it. Now, sometimes the rape culture is overt—the recent surfacing of a 2005 recording that captures Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump endorsing sexual assault comes to mind. Yes, grabbing a woman’s butt or in Trump’s case “vagina” without her consent or engaging in uninvited kissing is sexual assault. However, rape culture is not always overt. In some places, like college campuses, it may be downright covert. Just because people are not parading up and down the halls, yelling their rape acceptance-related attitudes does not mean it is not occurring on our campus. And we’ll even suggest that maybe we haven’t noticed it because it has become so imbedded into our lives that it is now the norm. Overall, the standpoint “because I can’t see it means it’s not happening” is problematic. These attitudes can have a devastating impact, like continuing to contribute to a historically invisible crime that many criminologists, victimologists and activists have worked tirelessly to make visible. So yes, sexual assault is a real-life problem that all universities face.

Sexual assault in general, and specifically on college campuses, is a topic that, for many years, has been swept under the rug. For example, a 2012 analysis of federal data found that 45% of colleges reported that their institutions had zero forcible sex offense reports, arguably contributing to the invisible nature of sexual assault on university campuses. From an administrator perspective, sexual assaults can be a political maelstrom, which is probably the reason why 124 colleges were investigated by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for failing to handle sexual assault investigations among students in 2015 alone. Despite the refusal to address sexual assault on college campuses, there is a more inherently invisible nature to sexual assaults, one that should be made more visible. No matter how you try to twist the results, the fact remains that females aged 18-24 are more likely than females in any other age group to be the victims of rape and sexual assault. Numerous nationally representative studies of college women have found that between eight percent-35 percent of female students have experienced sexual victimization during their college tenures. This number alone is astounding, but even more concerning is that the vast majority of sexual assaults go unreported, hence the invisible nature of them. The sad truth is these victims on college campuses are sometimes discouraged from reporting their victimization; and research estimates that 88 percent of college rapes go unreported. For example, the U.S. Department of Justice released a special report in 2014 remarking on the fact that roughly 80 percent of students who were victims of a rape or sexual assault did not report their victimization to the police. Furthermore, a variety of studies have found that approximately two percent of victims report their assault to police and approximately four percent reported their victimization to campus authorities.

Let’s put these above numbers into perspective. In 2013, 2014 and 2015, SHSU’s crime statistics reported 47, 43 and 54 forcible sexual offenses in each year, respectively. Given the invisible nature of sexual assaults, where many of them go unreported, this means that the reported numbers of 47, 43 and 54 represent only a small percentage of the actual victimization that occurs. We are suggesting, based on the research surrounding sexual assault, that these numbers are not truly representative of the number of sexual assaults at SHSU, these numbers only represent the reports made. To better understand the actual rate of victimization, a campus-wide climate survey would have to be executed. We are merely presenting this as a potential argument to quash any claims that sexual assaults are not occurring and, therefore, do not need to be talked about.

The facts presented in this article are tried and true, based on a large accumulated body of scholarship that spans five decades. However, the supposition of the potential numbers of sexual assaults at SHSU’s is only designed to showcase what potentially could be happening. As we mentioned previously, a climate survey would tap into this information, and, to date, there has been no climate survey conducted on SHSU’s campus to investigate the true numbers of sexual victimization. Climate surveys are something that a variety of universities are using to examine the true nature of dynamic interactions that are occurring on college campuses. SHSU victimologists should consider conducting a climate survey in the near future, as it would shed light on a problem that has received considerably little attention on campus.

We would like to finish by pointing out that anyone interested in learning more on this topic has a number of learning resources at their disposal. First, we recommend that individuals consult the variety of criminal justice professionals and scholars who are housed within the George J. Beto Criminal Justice Center. We would also like to point students in the direction of the Crime Victims’ Institute. Second, if you are not on campus, you can see one of the many knowledgeable practitioners working at Huntsville’s SAAFE house. Third, there is an excellent documentary, available on Netflix, called “The Hunting Ground,” which will provide interested parties a research-based look into sexual assaults of college women. Lastly, if anyone reading this article needs to talk to someone about sexual assault or victimization, resources and help are available through the SHSU university counseling center and SAAFE House.