Responding to College Campus Acquaintance Rape: Contextual Issues and the Challenge of Inter- Organizational Collaboration
Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: One in five college women are victims of acquaintance rape during their academic career and less than 5% of college women who are victims of sexual assault report their victimization (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000). The historically stable prevalence of on-campus sexual assault as well as consistently low rates of reporting point to the need for a collaborative process between the campus personnel that are charged with responding to reports of on-campus sexual assault. Through intensive interviews with key campus informants this qualitative study addressed the following questions about the challenge of responding to on-campus acquaintance rape: 1) How do senior campus personnel understand the disparity between high prevalence rates and low rates of reporting; 2) What are the challenges of inter-organizational collaboration when responding to acquaintance rape; 3) What are the specific roles of on-campus supportive resources; and 4) What are successful elements of a coordinated approach to on-campus acquaintance rape?\nAll study respondents acknowledged the disparity between prevalence and reporting and implicated the guilt, shame, and fear experienced by victim-survivors as a key factor in underreporting. Respondents blamed gender inequity, abuse of alcohol, and the developmental immaturity of male college students for high rates of on-campus acquaintance rape and described two distinct types of offending: situational offending refers to non-consensual sexual assault fueled by alcohol abuse and emotional immaturity; and pre-meditative offending refers to a more predatory trajectory, in which deliberate planning is enacted to manipulate and exploit vulnerability.\nRespondents identified trust between community partners as the most important aspect to successful collaboration. Trust refers to a collective agreement to protect the confidentiality of alleged victims of sexual assault and to guarantee victims' decision-making control throughout their post-assault recovery process. Respondents endorsed primary prevention models and harm reduction strategies to target on-campus acquaintance rape. Models for prevention focused on eliciting changes in campus culture and on targeting predation. A harm reduction approach focused on teaching students how to minimize their risk for victimization.
Author: Deborah V. O'Neill
Institution: University of Pennsylvania
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W55938910