Sexual assault reports rise on college campuses
More sexual assaults are being reported on college campuses while these institutions find ways to help decrease the number of sexual assaults happening.
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Blacksburg, Va. Oct. 4 – Unresponsive: Photo allusion of a girl passed
out due to alcohol. This is a main warning sign that someone is not able to fully consent to sex.
Alayna Jones | alayna3@vt.edu | 412-849-6020
BLACKSBURG, Va. Oct. 5, 2017– When parents send their children off to college, they expect that it is a safe place for their children to live and walk around, even at night.
In today’s world, that cannot be promised. Even in the safest towns robberies, break ins and even sexual assaults happen.
Unfortunately, we do not always know every time a sexual assault occurs because sometimes the victim either does not want to report the incident or they do not think sexual assault happened to them. Therefor, the only data and statistics we have is on reported sexual assaults since we cannot accurately account for ones that go unreported.
According to Katie Mey, prevention educator at the Virginia Tech Women’s Center, “When the climate is warmer for survivors to report, meaning when they believe they will be believed and supported, they are more likely to come foreword.”
Recently on college campuses, reporting rates of sexual assaults have been going up according Mey.
In order to keep records of crimes committed on campus, in 1990 the Cleary Act was passed which requires institutions to publish and distribute their Annual Campus Security Report to the public. They are also required to give timely warnings of crimes that represent a threat to the safety of the students or employees.
According to a recent study, researchers found that 18 percent of students said that they had been raped while intoxicated before college. 41 percent of those young women said they were raped during their freshmen year in college while intoxicated.
“Alcohol is not the reason sexual assaults happen, people are the reason sexual assaults happen,” said Mey.
To try and decrease and ultimately prevent these incidents from happening, college campuses have put tactics into place across the university to try and make everyone aware of sexual assault.
Some of these measures include campus wide campaigns around sexual assault, workshops for clubs and organizations about sexual assault prevention and having blue light poles around campus for the public to use to call 911 incase of emergency.
“Virginia Tech advertised a lot freshmen year to get the word out on sexual assault, but not much after that,” said Madeline Kennedy, a junior architecture student at Virginia Tech. “It would be good to continue throughout our four years educating us on this topic.”
Hopefully in the future we can decrease the amount of sexual assault reports on campus, not because survivors do not want to come foreword, but because sexual assaults are not happening as much since students are well educated on preventing it.
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Blacksburg, Va. Oct. 4 – Walking group: Girls walking back from being out at night together. Always use to buddy system when walking around campuses at night to stay safe.
Blaksburg, Va. Oct. 4 – Walking alone: Predators often look for girls walking alone. Walking alone during the day is safe but walking alone back from events at night can be dangerous.
Blacksburg, Va. Oct. 4 – Walking group: Girls walking back from being out at night together. Always use to buddy system when walking around campuses at night to stay safe.