It is a typical Friday night and you are walking home from your favorite bar with a friend you met in your chemistry class last week. He takes you to your door to say good night. For some young women, a ‘good night' will not mark the end of the evening. For some young women, the night could spiral out of their control.
Kelly Anderson, director of the Dane County Rape Crisis Center, said acquaintance assaults could be the reason victims often do not report the crime. On the UW-Madison campus, numerous sexual assaults go unreported each year.
According to the UW System Sexual Assault Report, 42 victims of sexual assault reported the crime to officials on the UW-Madison campus in 2007, but 1,223 sexual assaults were reported throughout Wisconsin. There were 248,300 reported assaults in the United States.
Anderson said the figures are misleading because sexual assault is an underreported crime. According to Anderson, the U.S. Department of Justice determined only 40 percent of sexual assault victims file a report. She said people who work directly with victims think the rate is much lower.
""Those of us who work in the field say it's probably as low as 10 or 20 percent who do report to law enforcement,"" she said.
According to Anderson, between 85 and 90 percent of sexual assaults are committed by somebody the victim knows.
""The number-one place for sexual assault is either at the perpetrator's home or the victim's home,"" Anderson said. ""They are not a stranger in a dark alley.""
Anderson said reporting rates for victims assaulted by a stranger are significantly higher because they lack the relationship an acquaintance assault has.
""There is this process of coming to understand that this person hurt me and meant to hurt me and didn't care about me,"" Anderson said. ""That's a lot harder to do with someone you knew and trusted than it is with a stranger who violates you.""
According to Anderson, victims could be fearful of reporting because of the possibility of harsh reactions. She referred to ""ignorant"" comments made about the recent allegations against UW-Madison fraternity Sigma Chi. She said women who look at the incident could be afraid to report in the future because of how the campus may react.
Anderson said the longer victims wait to report, the less likely law enforcement is to believe them. She stressed the importance of victims seeking help immediately and getting a medical examination.
""A lot of people say, ‘I just want to put this behind me ... I want to go back to class and live my life and pretend like this never happened.' What we know about that is that is almost never successful as a way of trying to cope with trauma, because those feelings do come back,"" she said.
College students tend to tell their friends about assaults first, according to Anderson. She said it is important to know how to react in a way that does not make the victim doubt themselves.
According to university officials, there are several resources on campus that victims of sexual assault can go to for help.
Kevin Helmkamp, assistant dean of students, said sexual assault is a crime that touches many people on campus and it is important to make resources known to students in the event that they will need them.
""I think the nature of sexual assault is so personal that it makes it different from other sorts of crimes,"" he said. ""[Our goal is to continue] to educate students about what we will do and what we won't do and show them they actually have a lot of power.""
