Rape Victims On College Campuses

Arguably, it has been found that friends and acquaintances are the most common people to rape others than strangers. In many cases, for rape cases that strangers are involved, most of the time they use force and crude weapons to subdue a victim. On the other hand, friends and acquaintances just act maliciously, by using drugs or different heinous methods to overcome an unsuspecting victim, definitely a close friend. Also, those rape cases that are done by a stranger, most go unreported as the victim is afraid and most probably cannot even point out the perpetrator. According to Hallett (2011) “most of the rape victims in schools know their assailants, who are usually their classmates, friends, acquaintances, boyfriends or ex-boyfriends” (Hallett 2011).

California, for example, is one of the states with such a narrow definition of rape, and lawyers have used it to their advantages, making severe sexual offenders go free with minor sentencing. The best example is one of Ex-Stanford student Brock Turner, who was found guilty of three felony accounts of sexual assault. But contrary to California laws, Turner is not a rapist because he did not penetrate his victim, instead, the lawmakers found him guilty of sexual assault, a lesser crime. The reason is that Turner never used his manhood to penetrate the victim, but rather a foreign object, his finger. As a result of the Brooke Turner sentencing, California changed its definition of rape into “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person” without consent (FBI). Therefore, after the new changes, Turner is considered a rapist and should have been charged with a much heavier