Officials say rape stats misleading

With school entering its second week, at least one rape has been reported to the IU Police Department. The accuser said she knew the alleged offender. Both individuals had been drinking earlier in the evening at different parties. The next day, he said it was consensual, and she said it wasn't. \nWithout names and dates, these details could describe any of a number of sexual assaults that occur on campus each year, according to IUPD. That number is hard to determine. According to officials who have dealt with rape cases firsthand, they remain a seriously under-reported problem at IU and campuses across the nation. \nWhile reported rapes have gone down each of the last three years, analysis of IUPD statistics over the last nine years shows no real trend. These numbers don't depict a downward slope -- more like a shallow roller coaster. \nYet the highest number of reported rapes in a year is 11 on a campus with more than 35,000 undergraduates. That number is markedly low, when compared to the numbers across the country: 20 to 25 percent of women will be raped during college, according to "The Sexual Victimization of College Women" study by the U.S. Department of Justice issued in 2000.\nBut some say IU is not as safe as some might like to think. Carol McCord, assistant dean in the Office of Women's Affairs, said it worries her when people place too much emphasis on reported-rape statistics. She said reported rapes and actual rapes are quite different.\n"If people just read the number of reported assaults, they believe that not a lot of assaults are occurring on campus," McCord said. \nAccording to the Department of Justice study, an estimated 5 percent of rapes actually get reported to the police.\n"The problem is that people don't feel forthright about reporting it -- especially when it's someone they know personally," McCord said.\nMcCord said after years of experience dealing with campus rape, there are some aspects of each case that are almost always consistent. \n"Most are occurring probably in party situations, or situations that began as parties, between people that kind of know each other," McCord said. "They probably have mutual acquaintances." \nWhile the first two weeks of school tend to have the highest rates of sexual assault, they still occur throughout the year, mostly on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.\nAnd then there's alcohol. \n"Alcohol is involved in nearly every assault that occurs." McCord said. \nDetective Sgt. Leslie Slone investigates many of the rape cases that get brought to the IUPD. She said alcohol plays an important role in many cases of rape on campus. \n"Whenever alcohol is involved, communication is impaired, judgment is impaired, sometimes those things lead to behavior that can be criminal or interpreted as criminal," Slone said. \nKatie Kenyon volunteers for Middle Way House, a Bloomington women's shelter that provides aid and support for victims of rape and domestic violence. Kenyon is the community services coordinator for Middle Way's Transitional Program. She said overemphasizing alcohol can be dangerous in rape situations because it shifts some of the accountability away from the perpetrator. \n"Binge drinking on college campuses is terrible, and it's a contributing factor -- but it's not the reason sexual assault happens," Kenyon said. "Sexual assault happens because you have people who are inclined to engage in a certain set of tactics to gain control over a person. Those people commit sexual violence in an attempt to gain power and control -- they may not think that, but they think, 'I'm gonna get what I want.'" \nSlone agreed sexual assault is mostly about personal gain, in the sense it satisfies a perpetrator's need to feel power and control, or at least boost that person's ego. \nStill, if individuals behind sexual assault are such bad people, then why don't the victims report them to the police?\nMcCord said in most cases on a college campus, both people know each other beforehand. The fact they know each other, and often socialize in similar circles, makes reporting it difficult. \n"If it's someone jumping out of the bushes, victims are willing to bring that to case," McCord said. "It's really hard to bring a case against a guy you consider to be a friend. Most women I talk to don't want to get a guy in trouble. \n"Because it is primarily between people who know each other in social circumstances lends to the image that there is not a problem here on campus -- and there is a problem here on campus." \nKenyon said the familiarity between the victim and the offender can often blur the lines of objectivity. \n"It does become more complicated when it involves two people who knew each other," Kenyon said. "It becomes a situation of 'he said, she said.' He said it was consensual, she said it wasn't."\nStill, McCord, Kenyon and Slone agree that since a high percentage of perpetrators are men, it is essential to inform men of how to prevent sexual assault from happening. \n"The reality is that most men do not personally endorse coercive activity or sexual assault as a way to interact with women, and they do not know how to effect their buddies or their friends (who may have committed sexual assault)," McCord said. "We're trying to encourage men to have that conversation with each other -- to help each other stay out of trouble"