Extent and Characteristics of Rape in the US - Research Paper Example

? Extent and Characteristics of Rape in the United s Introduction There are certain universally accepted immoral acts and wrongs, with sexual assault and rape being one of the most severe ones. Sexual assault refers to rape or sexual violence, including unsuccessful attempts and intimidations. Rape is sexual activity involving actual or attempted penetration, including anal, vaginal and oral, of a victim against his or her will, through coercion, physical force or usage of weapons to threaten. Apart from normal insertion of male penis, penetration may be executed by usage of resembling objects or sex toys to generate pleasure for the offender. Rape may be carried out on male or female victim by male or female offender i.e. may be a heterosexual or homosexual activity. Sexual assaults, apart from rape, also include attempted rape whereby victim is threatened with fear of being committed a rape on. It also includes forcibly fondling, touching and grabbing victim in a sexual manner against his or her will. The detailed scope of these criminal activities has been discussed later in this paper. National Crime Victimization Survey is conducted semi-annually at national level, examining population of approximately 90,000 people. Interviews are conducted and samples are randomly selected and changed after certain lapse of time to identify recurring instances. Responses are critically and thoroughly analyzed before conclusion is made about characteristics and extent of sexual assaults (Rand & Saltzman, 2003). Therefore, results are highly accurate and reliable and have been made as a sound basis of this research paper. This paper entails detailed metrics of occurrence of rapes and sexual violence across the United States. It also describes and analyzes the motives behind sexual offences and corresponding preventive measures to mitigate the probability of occurrences of this social evil to a minimum. Scope of activities The legal definition and meaning of activities, involving sexual violence, is different according to different jurisdictions and prevailing legal frameworks or constitutions. Sexual violence may include successfully committing, attempting to commit but unsuccessful or otherwise threatening to commit such acts of rape or sexual assault. Commercial pornographic business and professional prostitution are not considered to be part of definition of rape and sexual assaults. There are various modes of sexual assault and victimization, as suggested by Koss, Gidycz and Wisniewski in their book, including: Persistent and pressurizing demands by an individual, leading to sexual foreplay or intercourse; exploitation of authority or dominating position by an individual, leading to sexual foreplay or intercourse; coercion and physical violence, by an individual, to force indulgence in sexual foreplay or intercourse; indulgence in sexual intercourse subsequent to being drugged or overdosed with alcohol by another individual; attempt by an individual to engage in sexual intercourse through physical force or usage of drugs or alcohol, but intercourse couldn’t occur; and coercion and physical violence, by an individual, to force indulgence in other sexual activities including anal intercourse, oral intercourse or penetration by sex toys. (Koss, Gidycz & Wisniewski, 1987) Summary of Statistics National Crime Victimization conducts periodic surveys across different territories to identify instances of rapes and sexual violence acts and quantify their frequency of occurrence and other metrics such as characteristics of offenders and victims, favorable and unfavorable circumstances leading to such situations and other factors that affect the likelihood of occurrence of such evils. According to recent statistics obtained through studies and research by these authorities, the aggregate rate of sexual assaults committed with females in the United States declined 64% through 1995 to 2005 and remained static upto 2010. As in 2010, there were 270,000 sexual violence acts including rape and assault on American women, relatively less than half than those occurred in 1995, numbering to about 556,000. Moreover, about 78% of the victims of these acts claimed that they knew the offender. Survey showed that about 34% of all these acts were committed by current boyfriends or spouses, former intimate partners, 6% by family members and 38% by close friends or acquaintances. Rapes committed by absolute strangers ranged to about 22%. In all the cases, about 11% of offenders were armed with a gun or equipped with a knife or similar deadly weapons. Other 9 out of 10 times, assaults were done via physical force and threatening such as twisting of arm, aggressive mishandling and beating. The rate of sexual violence varies according to demographic details of victim or offender or otherwise factors affecting the circumstances. Age is the most important factor since it defines the gravity of situation and mental and physical level of both the offender and the victim. Females with ages less than 34 were more susceptible to suffering from sexual assault acts. Similarly, those women who belonged to lower and poor rural social classes, living in households generating low income levels, were most exposed to conditions leading to rape and sexual violence. This is a debatable concern as to whether more acts have been witnessed to have occurred in urban areas or rural areas. Initially urban areas represented a higher percentage of occurrences of such events; however, through radical corrective measures, urban areas were controlled and regulated. Later statistics depicted that rural areas saw more of these events due to lack of education and legal attention from armed forces and therefore higher level of territorial bureaucracy of few people over the weaker classes. Marriage was another factor, such that those women who either had never been married or were divorcees at the time of the interview had higher rates of victimization. On the contrary, another aspect related to that portion of population who were males but had been victimized by rape and sexual assaults. Nonetheless, such instances were very low in number. Location where these incidents happened was a great observing point since it showed the places where most care must be taken by masses especially women to avoid getting indulged in any such nasty situations. About 55% of sexual violence victimizations took place either at victim’s home or otherwise within close radius of vicinity, whereas 12% took place either at a friend’s or relative’s home or in the nearby vicinity. About 6 out of 10 incidents occurred either at victim’s residence or premises owned by friends, relatives or even neighbors. 70% of such victims maintain that they tried their best to protect themselves against attackers and took maximum self-defensive measures during the crime, successful or in vain. The most common reported form of protection practiced was struggling and resisting cooperating and, in few extreme cases, even trying to beat the offender and take control of situation. Rapes can be one-on-one rape or at rare times includes multiple offenders, commonly known as gang rape. Statistics showed that only 10% of total times were more than one offender involved in sexual assault incident. A factor that has been consistent in all researches and studies carried out in this regard for decades was the fact that the offender had lost control of his senses. About 40% of victims believed that the person who attacked them was heavily overdosed with alcohol or drugs at the time of assault. Another 30% of the victims were not certain about mental capacities of offenders at the time of such incident. However, 30% of these individuals claimed that offender was completely in right frame of mind, with no insanity attributable to alcohol or drug usage (Planty et al., 2013). Studies have dominantly showed that college students have been most commonly victimized by sexual violence. Therefore, most focus has always been emphasized on samples drawn from college or university populations due to high risks involved. At this young age, a child’s mindset is in development phase and therefore any negative footprint therein shall affect his or her state of mind, attitude, beliefs and perceptions for the rest of life. Utmost care is required to take measures to remove such evils from this age group in order to rescue our future generations and their cognitive process which shape our society norms. The occurrence of these crimes has been approximately 4 times higher for these age groups as compared to the overall female population. The highest occurrence has been recorded for girls with ages ranging between 16 to 19 years, followed by second highest rate for age group comprising 20 to 24 years old females (Koss, Gidycz & Wisniewski, 1987). What helped the most to this survey was honest participation of men who had previously been convicted of committing this felony or otherwise have had partially felt such experiences. This provides a viewpoint from other side of the scene where one can assess what goes through the criminal minds that get enticed to commit such unethical offenses. Men were surveyed and results showed that 19% of them have had used physical force to experience sexual contact with females while 1% of them even confessed to have had oral and anal penetration through threatening and coercion. Taking an average of the entire aggregate results to identify most susceptible timings when such crimes can easily take place, 8 rapes per day took place, ranging between 11 pm on Saturdays to 6 am on Wednesdays. This clearly shows that more than 30% rapes occurred after midnight but before 4 am, while more than 60% occurred during the peak times and rush hours of 6 pm to 6 am, which is shockingly disturbing. The block of time that witnessed the highest number of rapes ranged between 8 p.m. on Friday nights to 8 a.m. in Saturday mornings. Nevertheless, it must be noted that there is no particular formula time to avoid and be successful to evade such situations: likelihood of victimizations largely depend on nature of relationship between victim and offender, location where they are often together and ease of access at different times during the day. Rape has never been much about the ethnicity, race, skin color and cultural differences. There may be stereotyped perceptions prevailing amongst the masses but that have not been proved true through such researches. A rapist or an offender might have preferences about certain types of victims but he might not hesitate from approaching on any kind of woman as far as he has least chances of getting caught or exposed. Statistics reveal that number of female and male victims of such crime scenes is almost equally bifurcated amongst the different white and black races. However, what is worth observing is the fact that in 88% of the total cases, the victim and offender belonged to same color and ethnicity. This clearly indicates that these offenders do not have anything against other races and do not target someone specially to cause harm to her just on grounds that she has a different background. These immoral offenders have selfish reasons to commit things that they do and do not have any regards or consideration for social demographics and differences. Statistics also exhibit how they have a taste for and prefer victims belonging to same race and culture, which is also influenced by the reason that it is easier to have access to and approach women within the locality instead of bearing risks of entering different societies and communities. Nonetheless, just to state the class which has been more involved in committing these crimes, jail records showed that number of imprisoned inmates who have been convicted of felonies involving rape and sexual assaults is slightly inclined towards white males instead of other races. But even a minor bias in this study is hardly relevant and might undermine the objectivity that must be maintained. The quantification and determination of measure of sexual violence is actually the hardest part which was also faced by the Bureau during their survey. It cannot be assessed in numbers or percentage as to how much a certain victim was tortured or assaulted. Additionally, the major obstacle is that most of the victims are reluctant and uncomfortable sharing their entire experience openly during such surveys. This hindrance impairs objectivity and completeness of knowledge of facts. Therefore, it is essential that the interviewer is skeptical and open to indicators that help understand the severity and type of episode that the victim has gone through such as tone exhibited, words and definitions used, body movements, gestures, retaliation and sensitivity to certain topics or questions, data collection mode and various other factors pertaining to this entire survey. Intimate partner violence Intimate partner violence comprises rape, sexual violence, forced theft, physical aggression and similar immoral acts committed on an individual by either current or ex spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend i.e. any person whom the victim has had or currently has an intimate level of relationship. It also may include, in some cases, friend or associate with whom the individual shares an association of romantic nature (Catalano, 2012). Through last two decades, intimate partner violence for both genders has fallen by more than 60%; however, more commonly seen is the fact that victims of intimate partner violence have been facing it continuously or repetitively by same offenders especially females regardless of their ages. 77% of females with ages 18 to 24, 76% of females ageing between 25 to 34 and 81% of females with ages 35 to 49 reported to have been victimized by same person more than once. Cantor and Lynch were of the view that a recurring intimate partner sexual violence should be considered as an entirely exclusive and segregated event from past experience since the effects, conditions and circumstances might be completely different in subsequent case from former (Cantor & Lynch, 2000). It is established fact that researching on intimate partner violence is very complex due to recurring instances of carriers of victimizations (Rand & Saltzman, 2003). Underlying motives Rapes and activities involving sexual violence are mainly triggered by psychological motives and past childhood tragic events and exposures. Of course the most common reason for rape is to discharge sexual desires when they hit extreme frustrating levels. Apart from this, many offenders commit rape as a mode of expressing feelings of extreme anger and aggression while others out of sadistic feelings of excitement to inflict misery upon others and watch them suffer. Often people are engaged in inferiority complexes whereby they considering others to be superior and better than themselves, leading them to have serious urge to degrade others and demonstrate power. This feeling of denial pushes them to exhibit sexual assault and fantasize themselves to be stronger and more capable than others. Often, these damaging and ruthless measures are taken by offenders merely as part of fulfillment of their immoral fantasies of raping people without their will and making them do things forcefully which otherwise might not be possible. Sometimes people may also get engaged in such activities when they have lost their senses and abilities to think rationally. This is mostly the case in over-dosage of alcohol and drugs or otherwise in rare instances where people get psychologically disturbed and are no longer in their normal mental capacity. Preventive methods In order to eradicate rapes and sexual assaults from our society, it is crucial that root causes, which create urge and acceptance for committing this evil, are identified and wiped out. There are several measures that must be taken by bureaus and authorities working in this regard. The basic and foremost step is to run education programs and training sessions that create awareness about signs and threats of rapes and activities involving sexual violence. They must be educated well and taught how to avoid situations that are highly prone to end up with sexual assault. Furthermore, thorough guidance must be provided about self-defense tactics against offenders that may be used as a last resort to avoid ravaging conditions. However, they must be instructed that carrying of weapons might backfire in such situations if they are not trained for its proper use. Therefore, utmost care must be taken and prior training must be obtained for carrying dangerous self-defense weapons. Girls, especially at younger ages, must be educated with precautions to avoid taking any drugs or alcohol in excess quantities, which might lead to feelings of hangover and loss of senses, making them prone to be raped. A special highly sedative drug, commonly known amongst teenagers as date rape drug, has gained popularity in recent years due to its radical outcomes. Its purpose is to create hypnotic effects so that the victim, after effects have worn off, might not be able to clearly recall what happened. Offender usually mixes it in food or drink and feeds to victim without her knowledge and later exploits the situation to his benefit. Therefore, parental guidance is compulsory in this regard as well as education by mentors at schools, instructing people to prevent having drinks or edibles given by friends or partners on dates. On national level, legislations and constitutions must be amended to enhance penalties and punishments for committing sexual assault offences including hefty imprisonment and death sentences accordingly. Laws against these crimes must be made extremely rigorous and severe to discourage its practice. Moreover, authorities must take relevant action against sex industries that stereotypes women as object of pleasure and exhibit immoral and aggressive sexual practices. Such demonstration gives leverage to offenders by making them believe that these are part of our socially accepted norms and do not constitute to grave felonies. Also, pornographic content drives more needs for sexual pleasure and eventually become motive for committing misdeeds and sins. Regulatory bodies must increase manpower in armed forces that are patrolling the cities throughout the day so that any occurrence can be either prevented or otherwise detected in time. Police patrol cars must be frequently driving around neighborhoods and on pro rata basis, stricter monitoring and controlling must be enforced in areas requiring more attention due to high number of sexual crimes reported in the past. Another similar security control can be incorporated through installation of high definition automatic rotating surveillance cameras all over the country, covering maximum possible areas. The output of these cameras must be constantly monitored to identify any instances of attempted rape or sexual assault in progress and accordingly can be countered at spot without any delays. Not only the presence of these cameras will discourage offenders from committing such acts as they shall be cautious at all times in front of cameras but also will record proof for later use in case some crime couldn’t be possibly stopped in time. Therefore, it is necessary that such cameras are installed at all public places and are known to have been placed there so criminals are aware of surveillance. At the same time, many cameras must be candid which are intact at places not easily traceable by anyone. This enables the authorities to still maintain control of situation and be able to monitor everything in the event of deliberate destruction by offender prior to committing crime or otherwise malfunctioning of primary cameras. Recent technological inventions include such gadgets, namely anti-rape tools that can be kept or worn by females to rescue themselves from attempted rape or similar assaults. Awareness of such products must be spread and females must be encouraged to take advantage of such devices so that they feel safe when alone or stuck in malicious situations. However, these technological tools such as chastity belts have not become common yet and are also criticized to be highly ineffective in such situations as they can be removed or detached by offender prior to making further move. Few entities are now working on finding such types of medical surgical treatments and solutions for women that are installed inside the female body so that the attacker gets wounded when attempting to penetrate during rape. Nonetheless, all these abovementioned notions are subjected to different circumstances and none of them might be able to work in extreme conditions. They might be only capable of buying extra time for the victim to find help or might make it difficult for offender to be successful in his intentions. Conclusion It is high time that such social evils are eliminated or reduced to minimum acceptable levels in our community. Actions must be taken at national levels and global laws and regulations must be shaped in order to penalize severely all activities that involve sexual assaults and violence. Although, over the years, there has been a downward trend in this practice as shown by statistics mentioned in this paper, still there is much work to be done to further mitigate possibilities and opportunities for commitment of such crimes. Pressure groups and activists must make collaborative efforts aimed at educating masses and creating awareness on how to evade situations that are prone to sexual assaults. Sex industries must be stopped from excessive promotion and exposure, while people must be discouraged from usage of such products that might give way for sexual violence. Justice authorities of the United States have been making conscious effort for removing any opportunities for rapes and sexual assaults from our community. Moreover, the armed forces have also played a critical role throughout the years in catching offenders for maximum number of reported sexual crimes. However, statistics are only based on responses collected from tested population. National authorities are of the view that about 30% of committed rapes are not reported. There are several of thousands of other people who might have gone through similar tragic events but were too embarrassed to report to authorities or too afraid to confront the circumstances. Therefore, it might be only fair to assume that these metrics do not represent the entire population in the United States since many assaults must have gone by overlooked, unreported and not accounted for. Therefore, steps must be taken to encourage people to testify more against such crimes in order to help the forces catch such offenders and bring sexual crimes to minimum level, making this country a better place to live in. References Koss, M. P., Gidycz, C. A., & Wisniewski, N. (1987). The scope of rape: Incidence and prevalence of sexual aggression and victimization in a national sample of higher education students. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 55(2), 162-170. Greenfeld, L. A. (1997). Sex offenses and offenders: An analysis of data on rape and sexual assault (p. 3). Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. Rand, M. R., & Saltzman, L. E. (2003). The nature and extent of recurring intimate partner violence against women in the United States. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 34(1), 137-149. Cantor, David & Lynch, James P. (2000). Self report surveys as measures of crime and criminal victimization. In measurement and analysis of crime and justice, Criminal justice 2000, Vol. 4 pp 85-138, National Institute of Justice NCJ-182411. Catalano, Shannan (2012). Special report – Intimate partner violence 1993-2010, Bureau of Justice Statistics, extracted from (http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4536) Planty, Michael, Langton, L., Krebs, C., Berzofsky, M. & Smiley-McDonald, H. (2013). Special report – Female victims of sexual violence 1994-2010, Bureau of Justice Statistics, extracted from (http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4594) Read More