Universities try to cover up rapes

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-12-03-college-rapes_N.htm
Joelyn Timoner blog #1

This article is about a report that was done by an investigative journalism organization about the process rape victims go through when they decide to pursue criminal charges. It says that there is a secret way universities use to hide true numbers of rape on their campuses. The data reveals that victims that only use the are unlikely to have anything resolved and are not involved in the hearing process. Those who want to take it a step further get essentially harassed by school administrators that if they disclose information, they will incur consequences. The study also revealed that less than five percent of rape cases are reported to the police.

This article exhibits the control that the university as an institution may have upon students under their judicial system. There are multiple issues in this article. The most important to data is that since there are less reports to the police of sexual assault, there is more error in the Uniform Crime Report. The university is also setting a control factor in how many rape cases are disclosed to the public. For example, I know UNM sends out the reports of burglary and rape, then those instances are broken up into the resident area and commuter areas. If these universities send those updates as well, controlling their rape numbers helps with their overall admission because they are giving a false sense of security to many students and their families. Plus, these universities are controlling the victims not to speak out about their case. They are trying to control outside media catching wind of the ways they process cases in the campus judicial system. The victim never knows what punishment the offender committed. The study also mentioned that the expulsion seems to never be considered for the crime.