Data about sexual assault on campus does not capture the problem

After a 19-year-old IU student reported being raped near McNutt Quad earlier this month, campus began to buzz. Instructors brought up the case in classes, cautioning students to be safe.
 
Thirty-five people posted comments on the Indiana Daily Student article about the crime, a story that amassed more than 4,000 views online.

It’s easy to get angry when a stranger dressed in black — and allegedly wielding a knife — attacks a teenage girl during her evening run. The story deserves outrage, but it’s not the only one.

What about the other reports, such as the two IU students who told police they were raped — one in a car on the east side of town and another at the intersection of Kirkwood Avenue and Dunn Street — on Oct. 2?

What about the majority of victims whose stories never make it into press releases or newspapers because they chose not to report?

The sexual assault cases that become public knowledge represent only a tiny fraction of the victims living, working and studying in Bloomington.

In early October, the University released the newest set of statistics about sexual assault on campus. Because of a change in the way information was collected, the number is more than four times greater than that of the previous year.

Even with the spike, however, University administrators said the numbers still don’t reflect the problem.

Numbers can’t capture the magnitude of sexual assault on campus. It’s a crime that is underreported and stigmatized — a lethal combination.

“I never thought it would happen to me,” a survivor explained at Take Back the Night, an annual event to combat sexual assault that took place in early October.

People who work with sexual assault survivors know that days such as Oct. 2 are not the exception, but the norm. On-scene

advocates at Middle Way House said it’s not uncommon to make trips to the Bloomington Hospital twice in one night.

University administrators said they sometimes receive e-mails about sexual assault after weekends with heavy drinking such as Little 500 and Halloween, as well as after football games.

Sexual assault happens on Sunday afternoons, Tuesday mornings and Wednesday evenings. It happens with ex-boyfriends, strangers and friends. It happens in dorms, greek houses and off-campus apartments. And most of the time, it lives in silence.

***

Each year, IU compiles information for the Clery Report, a federally mandated campus crime report started 20 years ago after a Lehigh University freshman was raped and murdered in her dorm.

In 2009, the report explains, 35 students were victims of sexual assault.

Justin Brown, assistant to the dean of students, is one of the administrators responsible for determining which reports make the cut into Clery. Brown said the spike in reports was because of more meticulous reporting on behalf of the campus community.

For almost a year and a half, a sexual assault prevention team has been meeting to talk about the problem. The Clery Report, Brown said, was one part of that discussion.

This increased communication made it easier for the IU Health Center to contribute information to the annual report.

But “extraordinary and diligent” reporting from the University can only make the report slightly more accurate.

Brown said some reports contain only partial accounts of a crime. When alcohol is involved, fragmented reports become even more common.

“If we don’t know where it happened, we can’t put it in,” Brown said, adding that this kind of reporting happens regularly.

Because Clery was designed to keep tabs on campus crime, most reports made from off-campus locations will never make it into the report, said former IU Police Department Police Chief Jerry Minger.

A woman raped by an unknown assailant at a party on 15th Street in 2000 was not included in Clery.

Neither was the woman whose ex-boyfriend raped her on North Clark Street in 2001 or the two victims passed out and assaulted in apartments on North Walnut and Hunter streets in 2006 and 2007.

Similarly, Minger said, the two students assaulted Oct. 2 will not be part of the 2010 Clery Report.

These off-campus crimes, Minger said, are compiled in a different report, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report.

Even if all of the known cases were compiled into one document, however, it still wouldn’t accurately reflect the problem. Ask advocates, and they’ll say that the real problem isn’t holes in a law, but rather a culture that doesn’t support victims bringing their experiences to the surface.

***

The numbers deceive. As Middle Way House Crisis Intervention Services Coordinator Tina Cornetta explained, when we focus exclusively on the numbers, we forget about the needs of the individuals.

Cornetta said after the two reported assaults on Oct. 2, friends expected her to be surprised.

“As sad as it makes me to say, it didn’t surprise me,” Cornetta said. “I don’t think it’s unusual for there to be more than one sexual assault in a day. Certainly it’s appalling and deserves outrage, but for me, it’s no longer shocking.”

Listen to survivors, and reporting complications become clear.

A recent graduate told the IDS she didn’t call the police or go to the hospital after her ex-boyfriend raped her in a motel room freshman year.

“I could shame him publicly, but that wouldn’t do any good,” she said. “I just didn’t want him in my life, so I didn’t think about it.”

Another survivor, a recent transfer to IU, said a guy she was casually dating sexually assaulted her. She was a freshman at the Art Institute of Chicago at the time and didn’t realize what had happened until she started having vivid nightmares of the
evening.

By then, a month had passed. She didn’t go to the hospital. She didn’t tell the police. She didn’t tell her family.

“Mainly it was just shock,” she said about her decision not to report. “There wasn’t a whole lot that could be done. If I’d done something a month later, I would have been making trouble. And who would believe me after a month?”

Her story does not include an anonymous assailant dressed in black or a poorly lit street. It does not fit the stereotypical narrative of a sexual assault. It doesn’t need to.
The University, police department and Middle Way House share the same message: “We believe you.”