Sexual Assault On College Campuses Is An Increasingly Serious

Sexual assault is defined by the department of justice as: any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape. Women aged 18-24, in college, are three times greater at risk than the average woman any age. (RAINN). The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has 246 ongoing investigations into how 195 colleges and universities handled sexual assault under Title IX. (Huffington Post). Many ask, Why on college campuses? Why have these statistics been rising? For a rapist or an assaulter, college is

In Daniel Luzer’s article “Is Alcohol Really to Blame for the Prevalence of Sexual Assault on College Campuses?” he suggesting that alcohol is not the reason for the continuous sexual assaults at the college level, published on November 18, 2013 by Pacific Standard. In this article Daniel along with other sources suggest that all of the sexual assaults in college, although may involve alcohol, should not be blamed on alcohol, but on the society we have become. They suggest how college students mingle today is different than how they did years ago, and college students are not assaulting females because they are drunk, but because they have not been taught that it is wrong to do so. Different studies have shown that alcohol in colleges has not

The Bystander Program focuses on a wider audience and is aimed at changing community norms regarding sexual assault. Meaning instead of primarily focusing on woman as being the primary victims of sexual assaults and men as the perpetrators, bystander programs approach both as bystanders of sexual assault (Banyard, Moynihan, & Plante, 2007; Baynard et al., 2004; Hines & Palm Reed, 2011). These types of programs have been known to change the attitudes towards sexual assaults, the willingness to help, empathy for victims and

The faces flash by on the computer screen. The women on the screen are differents shapes, sizes, ages, and colors. However, there is one thing that all the women have in common: they have all been sexually assaulted on a college campus. More than one in five women were sexually assaulted on college campuses (Mott, Par. 1). It has been proven that programs in schools can help prevent these statistics from growing. However, more needs to be done to prevent sexual assault on educational facilities because the current programs are not fulfilling their purpose.

The bystander approach has been found to be an effective tool of intervention by increasing overall sexual assault knowledge, bringing truth to rape and sexual violence myths, incorporating positive attitudes of bystanders and assurance that intervening

Sexual assault is defined as any vaginal, oral, or anal penetration that is forced upon another, regardless of sex and sexual orientation, using any object or body part. The issue of sexual assault in America is primarily encouraged by rape culture. Women Against Violence Against Women is an organization that defines rape culture as a complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. The acceptance of rape culture, rape myths, and the disregard for sexual consent also allow for the perpetuation of sexual assault against women on college campuses. Recent examples of sexual assault on college campuses show how prominent this issue has become and how hostile campuses have become for female students. Some examples include the University of Southern California’s “Gullet Report,” Miami University of Ohio’s “Top Ten Ways to Get Away with Rape,” and a sexual assault on the campus of Kansas University. Sexual assault is perpetuated by the acceptance of rape myths and rape culture, lack of effective sexual education, and the disregard for consent. The solution to this issue lies with defeating rape culture, increasing awareness and funding for campus sexual assault crisis centers, and enacting more prevention programs on campus.

“Among undergraduate students, 23.1% of females and 5.4% of males experience rape or sexual assault” (RAINN). Rape is a threat virtually anywhere people go, but no place has a higher risk for sexual assault than college campuses. However, many of these occurrences go without penalties against the attacker, and even more are not reported at all. The lack of consequences for the accused indirectly suggests that rape and other forms of sexual assault are allowable and create further problems for the victims of the horrendous actions. Harsher punishments need to be given out for sexual assault on campus, as the current rulings are biased and immoral.

In fact, considering the fact that much of the information young people know about sexual assault comes from word of mouth, there is a large amount of misinformation when it comes to sex-based violence. When being given tips on how to avoid being sexually assaulted, one may cite that individuals should not walk alone at night or they should only accept drinks at a party from people they trust. Although these are pieces of advice that should be kept in mind, they do not sufficiently address the threat of sexual assault. Based on the commonly discussed ways to keep away from sex-based crimes, one would likely expect the most common perpetrator of sexual assaults to be a stranger. However, that is a misconception. In actuality, a survey run by the University of Michigan reported, “Only five-and-a-half percent of students reported no prior relationship or did not know the perpetrator” (“Sexual Assault Misconceptions”). Information such as the victim knows the assailant in eighty percent of rape cases and approximately half of all sexual assaults are carried out in or near the victim’s house is important for the public to know (“Facts About Sexual Violence;” “Scope of the Problem: Statistics”). Removing misconceptions about sex-based crimes by educating those who are approaching the target age of sexual assault (those that are eighteen to

Sexual assault has been a huge issue for many years on college campuses and universities nation wide. As society has evolved, thoughts on sexual assault have also evolved, becoming more focused on the details of victim treatment than ever before. The topic of sexual assault is debatable and sparks many opinions on weather sexual assault on college campuses is becoming more frequent, or if there is just heightened awareness. Sexual assault can happen to anybody no matter the gender, race, religion, or age. Recently there have been many studies conducted on sexual violence on college campuses and universities producing ample amounts of statistics. One may argue that sexual assault rates are the same, but there are simply more studies and attention on sexual assault in the past 20 years. Gender roles have played a huge part in sexual assault on college campuses. Women and men have different expectations when it comes to roles in the relationship, men are often expected to make the first move. One may ask what causes a perpetrator to sexually harass somebody and think it is acceptable. There are various reasons as to why perpetrators do what they do, and may vary from person to person. Although sexual violence is a large problem for many colleges and universities, there is a surprising shortage of federal laws/rules and regulations regarding sexual assault. Colleges are able to develop their own personal policies and procedures for how they will prevent and deal with sexual

Sexual assault on college campuses has always been a problem (Dick, Ziering, & Mattheissen, 2016). It has been repeatedly established in dozens of national and single school studies that one in five or more women are sexually assaulted while in college and, as stated previously, 5 percent of men who attend college also experience sexual assault (Cleere & Lynn, 2013; Dick, Ziering, & Mattheissen, 2016). But recently, the issue of sexual assault has been brought to the attention of national media (Maurer, 2016). This increasing attention may have led President Obama, in 2014, to sign a memorandum creating a task force to help address sexual violence on college campuses, “The charge of the task force is to identify recommendations for best practices

The main topic covered by this document is the fact that there are countless solutions to the increasing number of sexual assault crimes that colleges can and should use. Since many schools in the past have been hiding and disregarding reports of sexual assault, they do not have what they need to help victims. “To better address sexual assault at our nation’s schools, we need to both strengthen our enforcement efforts and increase coordination among responsible federal agencies” (The First Report of the White House). Considering this, schools will be provided with links and information about how they can enact their own bystander intervention programs on campus as part of a prevention program. Prevention programs are when men are empowered to step in when someone’s in trouble and teaching them how they can be part of the solution. Colleges need to have all of the parts of a plan in place, so they can act on the crime efficiently. Emergency services should also be available at all hours of the day, since sexual assault can happen at any time. Schools will also have trauma-informed training programs for school officials and campus law enforcement. This is due to the fact that trauma can leave the memories of victims fragmented, and insensitive and judgmental questions can cause victims to become more distressed. Some questions aren’t allowed to

The authors of this article state that the rates of sexual assaults amongst students in post secondary education are higher than national rates in the United States. The goal of this article is to examine the perceptions students have about sexual violence and their thoughts on current resources and services available to them. The conducted interviews of a diverse group of seventy-eight post secondary students across different American university campuses. Their results indicate that the majority of students stated to be concerned with safety while on campus and they are interested in the idea of having more information regarding sexual violence. Some of the interviewer’s ideas to prevent sexual violence included things like pamphlets or brochures,

The topic of sexual assault has always been a tough subject to discuss because it is a heinous crime that can and has happened to men, women, young and old. It is a topic that is disturbing and heart wrenching, especially when involving children. In the past few years, our media outlets have captured the images and stories on sexual assault, focusing mainly on College Institutions and how sexual assault cases have been handled within those institutions. Sexual assault is a very important topic to discuss, since this can happen to anyone you know, man or woman, adult or child, or yourself. This paper will touch on the different types of sexual assault, stigma of sexual assault, treatment of sexual assault, and understanding the perpetrator. There will be a brief discussion of the current social issue of college campus sexual assault. Sexual assault is such a wide topic with many areas to discuss, but this paper will outline the basic understanding of sexual assault and what can be done to overcome this stigma of sexual assault and how we can help the victims/survivors.

This literature review provides a brief overview of six scholarly articles and other facts about sexual assault .This review will first define sexual assault as it is defined in these articles. It will analyze the strengths and limitations of the definition used and will discuss the occurrence of sexual assault in the general population.This review will also illustrate the protective factors, barriers to recovery , impact of development and the specific sexual assault population that are absent in these articles. Sexual assault is a societal issue that impacts men and women at every age in their life, it’s much more highly reported among college aged women. The majority of women who are victims of rape are

‘A potential solution for reducing sexaul assault due to alcohol intoxication is a prevention method called the Bystander intervention. According to Michael Winerip, a writter for the New York Times magazine, Jane Stapleton, a University of New Hampshire researcher who runs victim assisitance programs at universities around the country and in Europe, believes the bystander intervention porogram is the best hope for reducing campus sexual assault rates (“Stepping up” par. 2). Bystander intervention is a program where a person or bystander intervenes to prevent another person from being sexually assaulted. The intervention seems pretty basic, but it can be tricky at times. Stapleton recommends getting creative when trying to intervene. Stapleton suggests that suddenly turning on the lights at a party or turning off the music can be the easiest and safest way to stop the assault. Other interventions can be done such as, spilling a drink on the possible assaulter or simply pulling them away. The goal is not only to stop the attack, but to also recognize signs of possible abuse and intervene before it crosses the line from partying to sexual assault. The method is not only called upon women to make it work, but also for men. Anyone who is witnessing an assault should intervene. These interventions are simple and require minimal effort, but can make a drastic change in someone's life. (“Stepping up” par 1-9)