Rape and Sexual Assault Cases on College Campus

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Rape and Sexual Assault Cases on College Campus
Sexual assault is a prevalent problem in many colleges, and many victims do not have adequate resources to access justice (Goldberg 13). Females are the main victims and males particularly students are the main culprits. In a study conducted by White House Task Force, about 20% of female college students suffer from sexual assault (Mantel 916). The same data indicate that only a few female students have the courage to disclose their story. The fear of reporting sexual abuse incidents result from the fact that most of the victims feel that even when they report, the attacker will not receive meaningful punishments. Although these crimes warrant a jail sentence, most of the perpetrators walk freely in the compound where they committed a crime. Mantel (2014) affirms that 25% of colleges do not provide adequate training to staff on how to address sexual assault issues and a third of these institutions do not offer specialized education to professionals responsible for investigating and offering verdicts on sexual abuse cases (Mantel 918). Current mechanisms do not deliver justice to the victim but mainly benefit the criminals. Some of the shocking forms of punishment include writing apology letters to the college administration or an order to leave campus housing. In some instances, the culprits undergo sessions of counseling funded by schools. Slamming these forms of punishment on heinous crime will not serve justice to the victims. The actions made by rapists will probably haunt victims for the entire of their lives (Guerette and Sandra 34). However, the colleges’ unjust decisions to let criminals walk freely without a meaningful punishment is the worst thing to happen in sexual assault cases. Federal Bureau of the investigation, an organization tasked with security services and domestic intelligence in the United States, considers rape as one of the most abominable crimes, only second to murder. It is therefore totally abysmal that a crime regarded as one of the most heinous acts is disciplined by college administration who only sanction inadequate punishments (Guerette and Sandra 40). It is apparent that an increase in sexual assaults incidences in colleges is attributable to mishandling, dismissing, and inadequate punishment to aggressors, subsequently promoting a culture where rape is viewed as a norm in society. One of the most effective ways of destroying the harmful rape culture and eradicating sexual abuse in colleges is through prevention and awareness campaigns as well as cooperation between school administrations and authorities to bring perpetrators to book (Gillibrand 30). Colleges that are not seeking justice for rape and sexual assault victims are devaluing them.
Many universities and colleges assign untrained workers with tasks to address the issues connected to rape and sexual assault crimes. By doing this, they create an outcome of partial consequences, whereby victims do not receive the justice they deserve. Mantel (2014) indicates that some of the punishment devised by such employees are unreasonable. She states that despite the presence of sufficient evidence, aggressors receive some ridiculous penalties that will not deter them from committing the crime in the future. She points out one case when a female student reported a group of male students groping her. Despite the incidence being verified by a documented footage that was examined by officials, the assaulters were only banned from attending a homecoming dance. In another instance, a male student was deferred for only one year for chocking and sexually abusing a client of Brandt-Young’s (Mantel 918). Colleges and universities are finding it difficult to report crime incidents to the authorities in a bid to preserve a good reputation in the public eyes. College education is a form of business, and a bad reputation has a huge potential of driving customers away, particularly when learning environment is perceived unsafe. Implementing programs to curb the problem will lead to more cases of sexual assault being reported to the relevant authorities. This is the main reason why colleges are reluctant to address this pervasive problem. The article titled The Debate: How Should College Campuses Handle Sexual Assault authored by Kirsten Gillibrand, who is an American politician and a lawyer, indicates that college disciplinary systems do not offer justice to the rape victims and they only act to fuel the problem. In the article, the former Vice President in Obama’s administration, Joe Biden, is quoted demanding that we have to “step up. It’s time. It’s absolutely time because the moral disapprobation of society is the most powerful tool for effecting change.” (Gillibrand 29). Moreover, colleges do not disseminate information about sexual assault rates, leaving students in the dark and allowing culprits to walk freely because administration believes that by punishing them, an issue which cannot be quickly solved may arise and this can have a negative impact on the reputation of the institution. Protection of reputation has been done at the expense of the sexual welfare of students who usually suffer from post-sexual assault mental disorders that can haunt them for the rest of their lives. Victims’ safety and their emotional health are in the hands of partially trained or untrained staff, whose only interest is the reputation of their institutions. Cristina Brandt-Young, an attorney at a New York-based Legal Momentum, an institution that deals with women’s defense and legal education stated that “people need to understand the dynamics of sexual assault and […] the dynamics of forensic interviewing, so that they don’t retraumatize people while they investigate,” (Mantel 918). He states that it is crucial to provide victims with adequately equipped personnel with appropriate tools to deliver justice to the affected individuals. It will be difficult to stop sexual abuse in colleges if the victims do not receive justice in the process of investigation and verdict.
Poor handling of sexual assault in colleges has left victims with no choice but to remain silent and give the assaulters a chance to get away with their crimes. Victims are of the opinion that there is no need to put themselves through an exhaustive process of interrogation, investigation, and more time spent in the same room with the attackers when the odds are against them (Mantel 916). Failure to report sexual crimes has dire consequences, including the victim suffering again in the hands of the same assaulter or the same assaulter attacking another unsuspecting individual. In fact, an article by Gillibrand indi...