You hope that police disbelieve victims of masked knife-wielding serial rapists and don’t follow up when victims report their rapes? Am I misunderstanding something here?
It drops by half, IIRC, but in any case, we’ve got 15-20 percent of college guy who think they can have sex with someone without her consent and have it not be rape.
In many states it would not be the highest degree of sexual assault or rape (if the state uses that term) if it were even prossecutable and can be the problem with the language in some surveys.
I have not said that. I have not even looked at the numbers. What I said was that as long as the variables stayed the same (and I was taking people at their word that they have) that a long term trend would still be statistically valid. I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination re statistics and surveys, but I have been forced at work to sit in on many a session talking about surveys and how statistics relate to them.
I am not sure what you mean when you say the DOJ numbers don’t measure rapes. They do measure rapes. The problem is that many people say they measure only a small subset of the types of rapes that they should be measuring. That would not invalidate the trend re the types of incidents that were measured. It would simply mean that other types of rapes might not be decreasing. In fact, that is my hypothesis. I think forcible stranger rapes are probably decreasing like most types of violent crimes (and I am talking about over a long period of time, i.e. decades, not relatively short term up and down variations like those you refer to). I would guess that other types of rape/sexual assault like incapacitated, etc, are not going down and may be going up.
Like I said, I am not an expert on stats. Data10 seems like he has probably forgotten more about statistics than I know about them, but I have spent enough time around the real experts in the field to make me think I have a decent idea as to how parts of it work.
It’s clear that you are not an expert re statistics and surveys. What do you mean by “the variables stayed the same”? What variables are you talking about?
If you are only measuring a tiny subset of rapes, and the tiny subset gets smaller over time, that doesn’t tell you anything about all rapes. You have no way of knowing whether your tiny subset remains the same percentage of all rapes year over year. That is, in 2000, your subset of rapes might be 2% of all rapes, and in 2010 it might be 3% and in 2015 it might be 1%. So knowing that the size of your subset of rapes is decreasing doesn’t tell us anything about whether all rapes are increasing, decreasing or staying the same.
By the way, in the DOJ/BJS survey, the percentage of rapes that are acquaintance rapes has not changed over time. But with the DOJ/BJS survey, there are a number of different factors that would affect their trend: whether women are becoming more/less likely to self-report stranger rapes on the survey, whether women are becoming more/less likely to report acquaintance rapes when they were sober, whether women are becoming more/less likely to report acquaintance rapes when they were drunk, whether the raw number of stranger rapes is increasing/decreasing, whether the raw number of acquaintance rapes is increasing/decreasing, whether women are becoming more/less likely to call some particular behavior “rape,” and so on.
“I have another comment about a series of posts from @northwesty and TV4, making the spectacularly silly argument that if the the DOJ numbers are drastically wrong, we can still establish a trend from them.”
Fang – those rape apologists over at RAINN make the same spectacularly silly argument as I do:
“Sexual assault has fallen by 49% in recent years. Had the 1993 rate held steady, about 9.7 million Americans would have been assaulted in the last 20 years. Thanks to the decline, the actual number of victims was about 4.2 million. In other words, if not for the progress we’ve made in the last 20 years, an additional 5.5 million Americans would have become victims of sexual violence. While we should be happy that we’re making progress, we are still a very long way from solving this problem.”
https://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/frequency-of-sexual-assault
I find that the information and policies put out by RAINN to be the most reasonable, logical and useful of anything I see. For example, they have opposed the whole DOE OCR focus on campus adjudication. they just don’t see that as the best place to focus effort. I agree with that.
RAINN uses DOJ numbers.
(They also use other numbers).
https://www.rainn.org/nearly-half-of-colleges-have-not-investigated-sexual-violence-reports
quote — An alarming 41 percent of institutions of higher education have not investigated a single report of sexual violence in the past five years, according to a new national survey of colleges. The survey was undertaken by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), a former sex crimes prosecutor.
Another disturbing finding: 22 percent of institutions leave it up to their athletic departments to address claims of sexual violence involving student athletes. As Scott Berkowitz, RAINN’s president, told MSNBC: “As much as I respect coaches and athletic directors, sexual-assault investigation is probably not one of their primary skills.”
Additionally, the survey revealed that:
More than 10 percent of institutions failed to assign a Title IX coordinator to coordinate investigations into alleged sexual violence, in clear violation of federal law.
Twenty-one percent of institutions failed to train their faculty and staff on sexual violence. Nearly a third (31 percent) haven’t trained their students on the topic.
Thirty percent of the institutions failed to train law enforcement officials on how to respond to sexual violence, and 73 percent of the institutions lack protocols regarding how campus actors and local law enforcement will coordinate when an incident is reported.
RAINN is working closely with Congressional leaders, who are expected to soon introduce legislation to combat this crisis.
[/quote]
@“Cardinal Fang” : @momofthreeboys may be one of those people who doesn’t think getting raped is all that big of a deal? Possibly even if it’s of a loved one or her?
I don’t know if she has sisters. She definitely has a mother (and of course she’s a woman herself).
Those people do exist, is all.
The silliness of your argument was saying that even though the DOJ/BJS numbers are wrong, we can use them for a trend. RAINN (a group that is not very careful about its statistics) does not make that particular argument.
Stark – thanks for posting those RAINN recommendations.
I think they are the best thing I’ve seen on the topic. Their priorities are:
- Bystander intervention.
- Risk reduction.
- General education.
- Enhance victim support on campus.
- Encourage reporting to and partnership with law enforcement.
- De-emphasize college judicial boards.
I agree heartily with all of those. Including #2 and #6 that will get you flamed as an apologist, a deny-er, a victim blamer, male chauvinist pig, etc.
Very similar to what so many others have been saying – including all those Ivy League law profs.
Fang – RAINN says, as I do, that the size of the problem is half the size it was 20 years ago and that great progress has been made. As borne out by the DOJ stats.
@northwesty, I don’t agree with 6.
I am not trying to be argumentative…
If something happened to your daughter in New Orleans, you wouldn’t either.
The recommendation state: Do not handle investigations in-house. Involve local law enforcement and other system actors.
That was the first wrong step of Notre Dame in the Prince Shembo case. However, where local law enforcement is at best inept and at worst overtly hostile colleges and universities need some avenue to address situations. I guess if you are Tulane and you’re going to get sued either way at least this way you get your star receiver in the bargain. The better solution would have been for the NOPD and the New Orleans prosecutors office to have tried a bit harder to put a case together. That would have gotten Tulane out from between that rock and hard place. 8-|
I also think RAINN does a very good job of parsing all the varying perspectives and offers good information and I also agree with their suggestions.
@northwesty’s summary of the RAINN letter leaves out some of the recommendations while over-emphasizing others. The recommendations are right in the letter, at the end:
Notice, in particular, that RAINN says (second bullet) colleges must, themselves, investigate every claim.
In their letter, RAINN supports victims of rape reporting their crimes to the police, as do we all. But they are silent about the issues of proof standard that we have discussed exhaustively here. They are also silent on how colleges should deal with lesser offenses of sexual violence and other sexual misconduct, which the police are not going to want to hear about, but which are serious violations of most colleges’ rules. Even if every single case that would result in a prosecution is reported to the police, the college judicial boards will still have work to do.
I had not followed the Prince Shembo case when it came out, but took a look at it last night. The victim was a student from a different college (St Mary’s). It made me wonder whether ND’s duty to her is different from its duty to its own students who may be victims. That could be why a police investigation was more appropriate in that case, but I don’t know. I also noticed that it was not a rape case. According to the victim, Shembo put his mouth on her breast while holding her on his lap.
^^The number one thing parents can do is talk to their kids about alcohol consumption. Women, especially, enjoy the flavored vodkas and those can make individuals drunk really, really fast. When people are drinking they may do things they would never do if they were sober.
Couldn’t have said it better myself:
https://rainn.org/images/03-2014/WH-Task-Force-RAINN-Recommendations.pdf
"De-emphasize Internal Judicial Boards
While we respect the seriousness with which many schools treat such internal processes,
and the good intentions and good faith of many who devote their time to participating in
such processes, the simple fact is that these internal boards were designed to adjudicate
charges like plagiarism, not violent felonies. The crime of rape just does not fit the
capabilities of such boards. They often offer the worst of both worlds: they lack protections
for the accused while often tormenting victims.
We urge the federal government to explore ways to ensure that college and universities
treat allegations of sexual assault as they would murder and other violent felonies. The fact
that the criminal justice process is difficult and imperfect, while true, is not sufficient
justification for bypassing it in favor of an internal system that will never be up to the
challenge."
I don’t think I am in love with RAINN’s views. 
But I will pretend…
@northwesty, you have a daughter at Tulane. I am sure you have looked at this. Are you ok with the way New Orleans Police and prosecuters have been handling rape cases?
A college guy is drunk. He puts his hands down a woman’s pants without her consent. There are witnesses. First time the guy did this.
Do you want this guy tried in criminal court? Should this guy go to jail. Do you want this on the guy’s permanent record?
RAINN wants a zero tolerance policy on sexual assault. RAINN also says 20
percent of college women are assaulted in college. RAINN might be tougher on sexual assault than me.
Human beings tend to look at recent history and project forward based on recent history. I think that is what RAINN is doing relating to colleges handling rape cases. I have no problem with college rape cases going to the police. But if schools are cut out, that’s a worse result for victims.
I am optimistic the police are going to do a better job going forward but I am not that optimistic.
I may be reading more into what RAINN is saying than they are saying. RAINN may still want the schools involved. RAINN may want the schools and the police involved. School involvement isn’t good enough. A school can’t throw a guy in jail.
RAINN isn’t “silent” about much Fang. Their site is one of the few very comprehensive places I’ve found for individual state laws on criminal sexual behavior. If you haven’t surfed that site you should. RAINN isn’t “silent” on proof standards because there aren’t any national “proof standards” and each state is different how it categorizes various degrees of criminal conduct…as I know I have pointed out often. The RAINN website has comprehensive links not only to state laws, but also resources for individual states.
As an aside, in a recent poll by PSB ( Penn Schoen Berland) 85% of voters agreed that, “The legal system, not colleges, should be primarily responsible for deciding if students are guilty of sexual misconduct or assault.” This viewpoint is supported by voters regardless of party affiliation, with more than 80% of Democrats, Republicans and independents in agreement that police should have primary responsibility for investigations.
Considering we’ve been disagreeing about surveys on this thread it’s ironic I would post about another thread, but I think it supports why RAINN, as a leading national organization, has taken the position it has. I would hedge abit and as I’ve said before I think colleges can provide education and mediation to students who are engaged in conflict, but if it meets the definition of a felony, I do believe that the police and local justice system are better equipped.