Sexual assault underreporting remains despite efforts

*Editor’s note: Nicole's last name has been withheld to protect her identity. 

Nicole* knew him before and they both lived in the same residence hall at Southern Illinois University, where she attended undergrad. 

"We were talking and my roommate got called out into the hallway. That’s when he started doing things to me — doing things that I wasn’t comfortable with, but he was not reacting to me saying ‘No, stop,’” Nicole said.

He sexually assaulted her.

Nicole never reported it. The fear no one would believe her kept her quiet. 

“I had a hard time believing that bad things could happen to good people, so I told myself that if I didn’t think about it, it didn’t happen,” she said. “I repressed it for about three years.”

It wasn’t until the summer between her first and second year of graduate school at the University of North Dakota when Nicole watched a Title IX presentation that she realized she needed to talk about it. 

“Watching that training… it just brought it all back and I knew it was time for me to finally tell someone,” she said. “It wasn’t fair for me to not allow myself to move past it.”

The first person she told was a close friend she trusted. Second, her mom.

Speaking out took a heavy weight off her chest.

“I was at a point where I didn’t necessarily feel anymore as though I should be ashamed ... I was mad," Nicole said. “But I was also still scared of what others might think of me because society shapes it to fall back on the victim. It took a while for me to remind myself it wasn’t my fault and that it is never the victim's fault.”

NON-CONCRETE REPORTING

One in five women and one in 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college, according to a 2015 report by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. 

Ninety-one percent of the victims of rape and sexual assault in the U.S. are female and 9 percent are male. In eight out of 10 cases of rape, the victim knew the person who assaulted them.

But for men, it’s often a misconception and stereotype that they can’t be raped, said Step In. Speak Up. president Corinne Lankwicz.

“A lot of male survivors don’t report, not because they are not informed, but because they are embarrassed,"Lankwicz said. "They feel like they are supposed to have this strength about themselves, this physical strength, mental strength and be a role model, and when something like that happens, all of that power is taken away and it becomes something that society has pushed onto them.”

At Ball State, the 2016 campus security report showed that 68 percent of on-campus assaults happened in residence halls. Nineteen of the 24 on-campus sexual assaults reported in 2015 were in residence halls.

RELATED: Universities fail by not addressing residence hall sexual assaults, study says

However, these statistics may not be entirely accurate. Numbers aren't always concrete, said Allison Wynbissinger, a victim advocate at Ball State, because sexual assault is a vastly underreported crime.

In an academic year, Wynbissinger said the Office of Victim Services serves arbout 80 students for sexual assault, relationship violence and stalking.

RELATED: College students at high risk of victimization during 'Red Zone'

Even with underreporting, numbers at Ball State have still been increasing in past years.

University Police Department Chief Jim Duckham said the increase in sexual assault reporting at Ball State could be due to educating more students about how to report an incident.

"I think the emphasis on education and prevention leads to reporting of incidents that previously may not have been reported," Duckham said.

Find out how to report sexual assault

Duckham wants students to know UPD takes reports of sexual assault seriously.

“Our investigators have received advanced training on the best practices for sexual assault investigation and are dedicated to working collectively with our campus community to reduce sexual assaults,” Duckham said. “I do believe that when UPD gets involved in the community and builds relationships, that creates opportunities for people to hopefully trust us, and to tell us when an incident occurs."

RAPE CULTURE

For Nicole, now at Ball Sate, and many other survivors, the main reason she didn't report her assault was the stigmatization that came with it. Rape culture and victim blaming teaches women that they should feel ashamed, or feel they deserved their assault.

But that's not the case, as Nicole came to learn.

“No one deserves to have that happen to them or be blamed," Nicole said. "It's not our fault, but that’s what society tells us — you were too drunk, your skirt was too provocative, your top was too revealing. Why can’t we say, ‘I’m sorry that happened to you. How can I help you?'”

When people look at how a victim dresses or use orgasm or erections as “validation,” it can perpetuate the misconception that people are “asking for it."

That's why understanding consent is important, Lankwicz said.

It can start in childhood, when parents force their kids to give family members hugs and kisses, even if they may not want to, she said. 

“If you are teaching your children at a young age that ‘if I tell you to do something, you have to do it,’ that’s where it starts," Lankwicz said. “Same thing with rape and sexual assault ... It will start with things like sex jokes, or party themes like 'office hoes and CEOs,' derogatory things like that, or just making sexual comments about another person. It starts on that spectrum and just continues down the line until it gets out of hand and becomes physical.”

WHAT DOES BALL STATE OFFER?

Ball State offers many resources to help sexual assault survivors, like Step In. Speak Up., OVS’ Peer Victim Advocate Team, the STOP team and Rape Aggression Defense System Classes.

The Counseling Center also offers Journey to Wholeness, a process-oriented therapy group for survivors of sexual assault.

Journey to Wholeness allows survivors of sexual trauma to explore the meaning of their experiences and learn effective ways of coping, said Ashley Boester-Dean, Counseling Center therapist and group coordinator.

“My goal in facilitating the group is to help survivors know that they are not alone, that someone else out there can understand and empathize with their experiences, and for them to feel supported and cared for by the group," Boester-Dean said.

Survivors can meet with group facilitators before joining to talk about what they might get out of the group and answer any questions they might have. But while the group can be beneficial, it isn't the only option for survivors, Boster-Dean said.

“Sometimes joining the group is just one piece of their treatment,” she said. “Sometimes a survivor is just not ready to join a group setting, or maybe wants to do some individual counseling instead, and that is OK."

The group is closed for the remainder of the semester, but Boester-Dean encouraged anyone interested in joining the group for next year to contact the Counseling Center.

Students and survivors can also get involved on campus to help promote sexual assault awareness and education during April’s sexual assault awareness month.

Starting April 17, the Counseling Center and other departments and organizations across campus will host outreach events.

“We are all working hard to challenge and change the culture around sexual assault, like many other universities across the nation,” Boester-Dean said. “We want to foster a campus climate of respect and dignity for all members of the Ball State University community.”

The most important thing to do is to spread education on how to be an effective bystander, know what consent is and know what they can do to try to end sexual assault, Nicole said.

“Don’t turn a blind eye to it,” Nicole  said. “People continue to say that rape culture does not exist, but it does. It’s not going to get better until you make that decision to take that step towards helping end it.”

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