Source: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914204579393263617548666?KEYWORDS=*

Making Campuses Safer for Women

Sexual predators often blend in easily at college, their 

criminal intent seemingly unthinkable.

By 

Monika Johnson Hostler 

Feb. 24, 2014 7:27 p.m. ET

It has been a long seven years since a landmark study in 2007 found that one in five college 

women has been raped or the subject of attempted rape. The Campus Sexual Assault 

Study, conducted by the Research Triangle Institute with funding from the National Institute 

of Justice, received widespread attention when it was published, but keeping a focus on this 

scourge of college life has not always been easy. The effort, though, has received 

considerable help during the Obama administration, particularly last month when the 

president heralded a new commitment to addressing sexual violence on campus. Mr. 

Obama on Jan. 22 issued a presidential memorandum establishing a White House task 

force to address the matter with specific policy recommendations.

There is much to be done in the effort to create safe communities where young people can 

learn and thrive, with the threat of sexual violence radically reduced. The one-in-five figure 

for sexual assault should make the parents of a college-age daughter shudder, but it 

doesn't give the full picture. The aftermath of rape can have a direct effect on educational 

attainment for survivors. Various studies, including one in 2007 led by Dr. Dean G. Kilpatrick 

at the Medical University of South Carolina, have found that college survivors suffer high 

rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and drug or alcohol abuse, which can 

damage their ability to succeed in school.

A particular area of concern for those of us who work in this field is the underappreciated 

complexity of the relationship between alcohol consumption and sexual assault in college 

settings. Too often, the fact that alcohol is present in an unwanted sexual incident is allowed 

to short-circuit examinations of what occurred: The victim is assumed to be partly to blame. 

But the messy social dynamics of campus life shouldn't be allowed to obscure an unsettling 

truth: Alcohol is sometimes used by rapists as a tool for rendering their targets more 

vulnerable. These predators often blend into their schools and student communities with 

ease. They seem so like their male peers that sexual criminality seems out of the question. 

Notably, campus perpetrators are often serial offenders. A 2002 study by David Lisak and 

Paul M. Miller found that 7% of college men admitted to committing rape or attempted rape, 

and 63% of these men admitted to committing multiple offenses, averaging six rapes each. 

These men know that alcohol, in addition to rendering their victims more vulnerable to 
assault, also makes them less likely to remember the event and less likely to be believed or 

taken seriously if they report it.

Dr. Kilpatrick's 2007 research cited above indicates that only 12% of campus sexual 

assaults are reported. Research done by Dr. Kimberly Lonsway and former sex-crimes 

detective Joanne Archambault of End Violence Against Women International has showed 

that false reporting of rape is very rare. Additionally, their research looking at federal data 

reveals that there has been little or no change in the rate of prosecution, conviction and 

incarceration for rape in the past two decades. Of 100 forcible rapes that are committed, 

approximately 5-20 will be reported; 0.4 to 5.4 will be prosecuted; 0.2 to 5.2 will result in a 

conviction; only 0.2 to 2.9 will yield a felony conviction; and only 0.2 to 2.8 will result in 

incarceration of the perpetrator.

Those numbers are a scandal, and there is no reason to think that they are any different on 

college campuses. 

What's to be done? Greater public understanding and strengthened prevention efforts must 

be undertaken in a dedicated and consistent way before young people get to college. Rape 

crisis centers provide prevention programs in middle and high schools with federal Rape 

Prevention and Education Program funds from the Centers for Disease Control, but this 

program is woefully underfunded. Ideally, young people would be receiving layered 

messaging from a variety of sources about bystander intervention, consent and healthy 

sexuality like those in the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center's "Youth 360" campaign.

The Campus SaVE Act, passed as part of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act 

of 2013, requires universities to provide prevention information to students; we urge the 

schools to pair with rape crisis centers and expert advisers to meet the spirit rather than just 

the letter of the law. 

The aim should be to make students—and faculty members, administrators and parents—

aware that sexual assault is everyone's problem. With more work, we can create highereducation environments where men and women together take responsibility for each other's 

welfare—so that when sexual predators try to prey on vulnerability, they will find someone 

standing in their way.

Ms. Johnson Hostler is president of the board of the National Alliance to End Sexual 

Violence.