Sexual Assault On Campus Essay

“Sexual assault of adolescents and adult women has been called a silent epidemic, because it occurs at high rates yet is rarely reported to the authorities” (Koss 1988). Many female college students are sexually assaulted, because of this college has become much more dangerous than it needs to be. Furthermore, colleges should enforce rules more harshly to end the problem of sexual assault on campus.

Most college sexual assaults occur at parties, where alcohol and party drugs are passed around in abundance. This is classified as a party rape, it “occurs at an off-campus house or on- or off-campus fraternity and involves plying a woman with alcohol or targeting an intoxicated woman” (Sampson 2002). Most people see college parties as predictable events, pregame, drinking, sexual acts, then sharing with friends. This can produce preconceived notions that sexual actions must happen at a party for one to have a “successful” night to brag about. College campuses make harsher rules on partying to prevent these “party rapes” from recurring.

Coupled with disorientation, memory loss, and loss of consciousness; in 60 percent of cases the alcohol in one’s system is considerable enough "make it questionable whether the victim would have been able to even give consent" (French, Beynon,& Delaforce, 2007). Alcohol also increases aggression, which is a bad mix at parties where everyone is usually heavily intoxicated “Perpetrators of violent crimes are more likely intoxicated during the commission of their crime than are perpetrators of nonviolent crimes” (Murdoch, Pihl, & Ross, 1990). This quote shows that if intoxicated, chances are higher that aggressive acts will be committed; thus, college rules should be harsher toward the use of alcohol on, or near the