Okay, okay, I know I am a beauty blog, but I am also a college educated woman. It's the holidays, there are parties and drunk shenanigans. Winter break is coming and so is the Spring semester where Spring Break and nonsense will be happening... and I see so fucking much going around this time of year about uninvestigated sexual crimes on college campuses. So I feel the need to put this out there because there are a few things that the average co-ed doesn't always know.
First and foremost... every college has an index number of sorts. These index numbers refer to the frequency of certain crimes on the given campus. So these crime rate numbers would give an accurate representation of the safety of a given campus, right? Wrong! These numbers only refer to REPORTED crimes-- that is, crimes reported by the school to the police. Because the number only refers to reported incidents... schools find it an incentive to not report crimes.
This leads to a number of problems. Most prevalent, victims being re-victimized and blamed for their ordeal, or even being punished. Keeping the victims quiet is easier and less detrimental to the reputation of the school than to actually punish the offenders.
So how do you actually get results when reporting a sexual assault on a college campus?
FIRST! NEVER GO TO THE SCHOOL FIRST! You have found yourself or a friend the survivor of a sexual assault or rape... what do you do now? Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to go to the school first and you shouldn't! The first thing you do is go to the hospital to get a rape kit done (if applicable). It doesn't matter if you are drunk, on drugs, anything-- the hospital is not going to jam you up for your Saturday night activities. You go in and request a rape kit-- you will receive compassionate care. Now, you can call the police and request they meet you at the hospital, you can call them first to take you to the hospital, or you can have the hospital call them for you. But the hospital is the first step.
Next comes the police report. Your school will try to make you believe that the first step is to report to the school, but that is a big load of shit. When you go to the school officers, chances are the line of questioning will feel much more like interrogation.
Where did it happen? What were you doing? You were at a party? You know parties are against regulations? Was there drinking/drugs? You didn't report those things? Were you drinking/on drugs? You know that's against policy, right? Are you sure it was rape?
It's honestly fucking horrifying. The school will try to jam you up on something stupid, like drinking some beers at a party, so that you don't push forward with filing a complaint. How do you circumvent that? You go immediately to the police. When you go to the police and file a report, their investigation of the crime FORCES the school to also conduct an investigation and provide information to the police. Having the police investigating also puts someone with power on your side-- the school will not be able to bully you or make you talk to them without an advocate present.
Once the police report is under way and you are moving forward with pressing charges then you go to the school and report it there as well. You can provide them with some details of the police report and make them aware that you are also pressing charges within the school justice system. If they refuse to file a report because you already filed a police report... tell them you will be back with a lawyer. They are required to file a report and begin an investigation.
The school does not want to carry out any form of investigation because this will reflect poorly on their index number. By going to the police and pressing charges, you are forcing their hand.
Document everything, I can not tell you how many times I have gotten out of trouble or gotten results because of having well documented evidence. Record all of your conversations-- the laws on this are as follows:
1) You can not put a voice recorder, camera, etc in some random room, walk away and come back later to retrieve it and see what was said.
2) You CAN record any conversation in which you are a willing participant.
Record all of your conversations with police and school officials, in person and on the phone. You are not required to inform them that you are recording. Document, document, document. And know your rights. Demand copies of all reports.
Going about reporting the crime in this manner will assure you that an investigation will be carried out.
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