Charles Couch
Staff Writer
No sexual assaults were reported from VCU during the last academic year and only one has been reported since August, according to the Richmond Police Crime Incident Information Center. However, 12 forcible sex offenses, which includes forcible fondling, were reported for 2011 in VCU’s Annual Security and Fire Safety Report, released Oct. 1.
“I’m not surprised that the number looks like that, but I can tell you it’s probably inaccurate,” said Shalise Bates-Pratt, VCU’s sexual assault and domestic violence services coordinator. “It’s not inaccurate because Richmond didn’t try to tell the truth. It’s inaccurate because of the nature of this crime – it makes it inaccurate almost across the board with local numbers.”
These inaccuracies are not only due to jurisdictional issues between the VCU and Richmond Police Departments, but also the fact that more than 50 percent of sexual violence victims do not report the incident to authorities, Bates-Pratt said.
“It’s a crime, it’s a violent act, but it’s also a very personal thing that’s happened to someone and can be very humiliating,” Bates-Pratt said. “It’s much more easy to say ‘Man, I was robbed’ and tell the whole world than it is to say that you were violated in that intimate sort of way.”
Moreover, this creates a problem for the school because university officials have no accurate way of testing the effectiveness of policies, programs or education regarding sexual assault, Bates-Pratt added, which can further exacerbate the issue at large.
A rape reported to the Richmond Police on Aug. 28, just outside of VCU’s Monroe Park Campus has raised the question of students’ risk of sexual assault. The victim told police that she was abducted from the Rite-Aid parking lot at the corner of Broad and Belvidere, across the street from student dorms. Officials confirmed the victim was not a student.
According to “The Sexual Victimization of College Women,” a report released by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2000, large concentrations of young women on college campuses are at greater risk for sexual violence than women in the general public.
Also, the report said that women largely under-report sexual crimes for several reasons including “embarrassment, not clearly understanding the legal definition of rape, not wanting to define someone they know who victimized them as a rapist or because they blame themselves for their sexual assault.”
Bates-Pratt said this report provides a more accurate picture of the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses. The report estimates “that the women at a college that has 10,000 female students could experience more than 350 rapes a year – a finding with serious policy implications for college administrators.”
Last academic year, VCU’s female student enrollment peaked at about 18,611. Applying the Department of Justice’s estimate means there were potentially about 650 rapes last year.