As colleges and universities refine their methods of responding and preventing sex offenses on campuses, more students are coming forward to report incidents – especially at Syracuse University.

The implementation of crisis response programs like Syracuse University’s Rape: Advocacy, Prevention, Education Center are resulting in higher recorded numbers and the appearance of more sexual offenses at schools who implement more progressive programs.

‘Most campuses don’t have the university RAPE Center, so there’s no method of systematic reporting,’ said Dessa Bergen-Cico, associate dean of students and director of the RAPE Center. ‘If you look at how much higher our numbers are compared to others is because a RAPE Center that is not part of another campus department such as the Health Center or Counseling Center is not the norm across college campuses.’

Although federal law requires that all universities provide information from law enforcement and judicial sources, the Jeanne Clery Act requires the university track crimes committed on-campus, university housing, in non-campus university buildings, or on public property adjacent to the campus. It does, however, exempt mental health and religious counseling services from disclosing their statistics.

SU includes numbers from the RAPE Center in its count of sex offenses, and recorded 25 in 2000, 23 in 2001 and 11 in 2002, while an average of four forcible sexual offenses on campus occur per year were reported among the 12 universities that SU considers its peers, according to statistics from the Department of Education Web site.

‘With more education and outreach, we have more people coming in because they’re aware of the services,’ Bergen-Cico said. ‘You’re likely to get an initial increase in the number reported.’

Vanderbilt University was one of the few schools that recorded numbers similar to SU’s, reaching 23 sexual incidents in 2002, and also pursues education as a means to help remedy the problem in the future, said Andrew Atwood, director of Crime Prevention.

‘We have always encouraged our students to report any crime to us, but we’ve especially focused on getting students to report sex offenses to us,’ Atwood said. ‘We’re always encouraged whenever we have a student come forward and report, because we feel that that’s a sign of trust that our students have for us as a department.’

Of the 12 peer schools that SU uses to evaluate its standing in the education community, half have crisis response services, and just one other – University of Southern California – has a devoted crisis center, according to a RAPE Center study.

Increasingly, however, experts and universities are turning to confidential advocacy and education programs such as the RAPE Center to combat the fear of a negative response from the community that prevents many survivors from coming forward.

‘Probably the biggest mistake would be for the victim to keep it to herself and think it will just go away,’ Bergen-Cico said. ‘It’s going to rear its ugly head in some way later on.’

Most students who report to the RAPE Center seek not only treatment but advice on what to do next, if anything.

‘It’s totally up to the survivor: We don’t tell them one way or another, and we support their decision,’ said Janet Epstein, associate director of the RAPE Center. ‘It’s making sure they have the connections to find out what to do next. There are a lot of decisions to made really quickly.’

Immediately after contacting the RAPE Center, students meet with RAPE Center advocates, trained through a program approved by the Department of Health, and are informed of their options and provided with information. Advocates are available to accompany the survivor to the hospital for treatment, answer questions and refer students for follow-up services. On-going counseling is provided by the Counseling Center.

Epstein said that due to the nature of forensic evidence collection, evidence can only be collected in the first 96 hours after an assault, and drug tests should be done within 12 to 72 hours of ingestion.

The majority of survivors, however, decline to seek prosecution or legal remedy against their attacker, according to Bergen-Cico.

‘Victims don’t want to move toward prosecution because they believe that will color their whole college experience,’ Bergen-Cico said. ‘The unfortunate part of that is that many times the offender will go unaddressed.’

Measures that force survivors to pursue prosecution or identify their attacker are considered one of the main deterrents to seeking treatment or advice in a time of critical need, Bergen-Cico said. Worries about disrupting their campus experience mutes survivors.

‘It’s the unfortunate fact that when the offender has assaulted one person, it’s usually not the first, and generally not the last,’ Bergen-Cico said. ‘We would be really pleased if we were able to do more in intervening with the offender. It is important that the safety of the victim is not put at risk.’

The challenges are even greater in a campus setting, where public scrutiny and common knowledge can deter a survivor’s need to take action, Bergen-Cico said.

Bergen-Cico said the average offender assaults from five to seven victims before attention is brought to their actions. Adding to the tendency for sexual offenses to be underreported, RAPE Center statistics showed attackers were most likely to be SU students, and all recorded incidents fell under the category of ‘acquaintance rapes,’ where the victim and attacker know one another prior to the incident.

The Department of Public Safety and the RAPE Center have worked to develop a relationship that uses the resources of both organizations to the advantage of survivors while protecting their confidentiality, according to Bergen-Cico.

‘Our job is not just to enforce law and pick up the bad guy, but to help the victim find the resources they need to help heal,’ said Marlene Hall, director of the Department of Public Safety.

Andrea Parrot, a professor at Cornell University and sexual-offense researcher, was adamant, however, that issues of law enforcement should not be a priority when a survivor comes forward.

‘It’s hard enough to get victims to be willing to come for even psychological counsel, much less go to the police or have medical evidence collected,’ said Parrot. ‘Consider the fact that probably less than 1 percent of rape cases that are reported to the police ever end up in a conviction, and the fact that most people at crisis centers know that.’

The widespread nature of the problem is often underestimated because many sexual offenses go unreported. According to Parrot, studies estimate that 25 percent of college women are victims of sexual assault before or during college.

Education on the issue, however, is considered critical to solving the problem. Many female and male students do not realize what constitutes sexual assault, nor how to address it, and some attackers lack an understanding of the gravity of their actions.

‘Everyone has opinions, thoughts, misconceptions, and ideas, and getting everything out there helps people get a look at what’s really happening, and how they can help change things,’ Epstein said.

Also, an increasingly important factor in preventing rape is the social group of the offender, according to Bergen-Cico.

‘The importance of prevention that involves men and empowering men to intervene with each other cannot be overemphasized,’ Bergen-Cico said. ‘That’s the part of the equation that’s been missing all these years.’

But the problem is so far-reaching that it is not solely a men’s nor women’s issue, but a challenge to the community as a whole.

‘If you take a look at the stats, it’s a very high likelihood that someone you know has been affected by this,’ Bergen-Cico said.

Published on April 7, 2004 at 12:00 pm