Rally at courthouse
Police officers, prosecutors, victim advocates and social workers rang bells outside the Waupaca County Courthouse Thursday, April 12, during a rally to raise awareness about sexual violence. "A bell is present in many ways in people’s lives from cradle to grave. It is an acoustic accompaniment to the most important events in people’s lives," said Sue Mueller with CAP Services and the Waupaca County Sexual Assault Response Team. "It warns of calamities, has been used to drive away evil forces, provides community protection, marks boundaries, signals time, accidents, danger, the start of the school day, the end of the work week, a symbol of victory, a joyous occasion and the solemness of our departure in death." Mueller, who was among several speakers at the rally, said the bells were being rung at the courthouse "as a protective symbol of hope and to communicate our vision that the world would be more intolerant of sexual violence." According to the U.S. Department of Justice, there are an average of 207,754 victims of sexual assault each year. "Every two minutes, another sexual assault is perpetrated in our country," said Rebeckah Ripley, a sexual assault victim advocate with CAP Services. "Seventy percent of all victims are age 15 or younger." Ripley said her office served 71 victims of sexual abuse and assault in Waupaca County from Jan. 1 through March 31 this year. Staff at Riverside Medical Center in Waupaca collected forensics evidence on four sexual assaults in the first quarter of 2012. "Not only is sexual violence an issue in our country, but it is an issue in Waupaca County," Ripley said. Ripley noted 90 percent of rape victims know their assailants. "The most common site of a sexual assault is in the survivor’s or the perpetrator’s home, because the perpetrator is often known and trusted in the victim’s life," Ripley said. She also stressed that sexual assault is not a crime of passion. "Sexual assault is about power and control. The perpetrator usually chooses a victim for their vulnerability. At greatest risk are those people who are at a power disadvantage with those around them, such as children, elderly, employees, students, and people with disabilities," Ripley said. Victims often believe they are responsible for the sexual violence that they have survived. "The trauma of a sexual assault is so overwhelming, so dehumanizing, so inhumane that a victim typically searches for reasons why such an atrocity could have occurred," Ripley said. "Victims blame themselves, because blaming myself is so much easier for me to wrap my traumatized brain around than holding someone else accountable for stripping me of my dignity and right to be respected as a human being." The Department of Justice reports that only one in 10 rape victims come forward. "A victim often thinks therte is no way any rational person could believe this completely irrational story of what someone else has done to them," Ripley said. "Sexual assault robs an individual of their dignity, of their personhood." Several speakers stressed the importance of not only greater community awareness of the extent of the problem, but of the need for professionals serving victims and for the general public to help restore a victim’s sense of dignity and humanity.
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7 Comments for "Rally at courthouse"
Actually, the DOJ reports 73% for females and 78% for males.
[quote]The Department of Justice reports that only one in 10 rape victims come forward.[/quote]
Actually, the DOJ reports that 50% of all rapes and sexually assaults are reported to the police.
[quote]Ripley said her office served 71 victims of sexual abuse and assault in Waupaca County from Jan. 1 through March 31 this year. Staff at Riverside Medical Center in Waupaca collected forensics evidence on four sexual assaults in the first quarter of 2012. "Not only is sexual violence an issue in our country, but it is an issue in Waupaca County," Ripley said.[/quote]
Exact numbers for the county are hard to come by, but the city of Waupaca Police Dept reported 5 cases of sexual assault in 2007; and zero cases in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.
71 victims would (roughly) suggest 284 victims per year. Assuming 284 annual cases in Waupaca County, that would be about 7 cases per 1,000 population. As reported by the DOJ, the national rate is only 0.7 cases per 1,000 population.
Given the suggested numbers, Waupaca County experiences 10 times as many sexual assaults as the national rate.
Something doesn't add up.
Accurate statistics are adequately horrendous to shock society, why inflate them?
[u]Sources:[/u]
[url]http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv10.pdf[/url]
[url]http://waupaca2.municipalcms.com/docview.aspx?docid=6958[/url]
lastpercentile Apr 13, 2012 5:44 PM
Why indeed??
Maybe it's because it happens more than we'd care to admit.
Maybe it's not about "statistics".
Maybe it's because statistics just don't stand up very well compared to the toll victims pay as a result of these crimes. It's easy to stand back and look at these crimes from a distance. Yet it makes them seem commonplace and not as shocking as they should be.
aboutblank Apr 13, 2012 11:50 PM
In fact, the article quotes not less than 11 statistics; which suggests that the rally was very much "about statistics".
My point was: the statistics should be accurate or the entire message could be discounted by readers - which is the exact opposite of the rally's intended goal.
If it's not about statistics, then don't use (inflated) statistics.
WNOW isn't going to write a story about the horrors of sexual assault, because they don't write stories anymore - they just act as public stenographers.
lastpercentile Apr 14, 2012 5:03 AM
93% of all victims know their abusers. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2000, Sexual Assault on Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement; US Department of Justice, Office of Justice.)
Only one in ten child victims reports the abuse. (Janssen, M. 1994. Incest, Exploitative Child Abuse; The Police Chief Magazine, 51, 46-7.)
The following statistics are from "The Sexual Victimization of College Women," U.S. Department of Justice, 2000:
*In 94% of the completed and attempted rape cases, the offenders were known to the victim (classmate, friend, boyfriend/ex, acquaintance)
*Less than 5% of completed and attempted rapes were reported to law enforcement officials.
There would be no purpose in inflating statistics. The SAVS program did serve 71 victims in the first quarter of 2012. Ripley DID NOT state that there were 71 sexual assaults in the first quarter of 2012; she stated that is how many victims the program served. Victims of sexual violence seek services both in the immediate wake of an assault or abuse disclosure and for year to come.
WaupacaGal Apr 19, 2012 7:04 PM
WaupacaGal Apr 20, 2012 10:42 AM
The DOJ has published (literally) a dozen reports since 2000; each with more accurate statistics than this report. Why use a report that over 10 years old?
[quote]The Police Chief Magazine[/quote]
Are you kidding me? This is not a peer-reviewed journal. You might as well be quoting a Law & Order SVU episode. Not to mention this "magazine" article itself is now old enough to vote.
[quote]In 94% of the completed and attempted rape cases, the offenders were known to the victim[/quote]
This statistic applies only to women enrolled in college, and the reasons it is higher (than the rate for the total population) are well known. If you are going to quote statistics for specific sub-populations, then be clear about it.
And again, this report is based on a survey conducted in 1996, almost a generation ago.
[quote]Ripley DID NOT state that there were 71 sexual assaults in the first quarter of 2012; she stated that is how many victims the program served. Victims of sexual violence seek services both in the immediate wake of an assault or abuse disclosure and for year to come.[/quote]
She implied it.
If you are counseling women year(s) after a sexual assault, then you might want to include that information in the "71" number. Otherwise the (99%) unsophisticated readers will likely conclude that a woman is sexually assaulted almost every day in Waupaca County.
The bottom line is: these statistics were simply gathered from websites, which gathered them from other websites, which cut and paste them from other websites.
If you are going to quote statistics in front of a reporter, then you should do REAL research, quote CURRENT peer-reviewed statistics, and provide adequate context. None of which was done here.
lastpercentile Apr 22, 2012 7:48 AM
I may be the only person in this conversation who understands them.
You can't conduct a study with "gaping, loose, confused, confounded" definitions.
[quote]The Waupaca Police Department reports that there were 0 sexual assaults that meet the UCR definition; that is correct. However, there were sexual assaults reported in that 4 year span.[/quote]
And why can't the WPD report these "under-defined" sexual assaults? Because it suits their purposes NOT to report them - that's why.
Hiding behind the UCR is a calculated, strategic ploy to hide crime; and it's particularly egregious in small community.
The Waupaca Police Dept wants its constituents to believe that nobody has been sexually assaulted in over 4 years. Right?
You're upset with me - and the policemen who attended your rally don't include every sexual assault in their annual report. They are actively hiding these incidents from the public.
[b]So, if you want to lash out at somebody over the discounting of sexual assaults - start with the police department(s).[/b]
lastpercentile Apr 22, 2012 8:04 AM