Editorial: Charges difficult but needed against sexual assailants

Charges difficult but needed against sexual assailants

Critics of higher education often complain about the ivory tower syndrome at college campuses. The folks at colleges and universities live in their own insulated world, we're told, and spend their time teaching from a less-than-real-world perspective.

It's a criticism like most criticisms: There's enough truth that it can't be ignored, but it's not altogether accurate, either.

What’s the point?

Following through on prosecution is incredibly challenging for someone who is raped, but criminal charges are the best way to respond to assailants.

Perhaps it's healthy education happens, to a small extent, in a bubble. Learning and observation sometimes has to be at arm's length to get a feel for what's really going on.

Campuses, however, are not detached from the real world at all. We, unfortunately, too often see the ills of society, and the bad acts of individuals, reflected there just as they are anywhere in our culture. That reality shows up most egregiously in those too-frequent reports of sexual assaults.At the University of Arkansas, three women reported rapes in residence halls within a recent six-week period. Of those reports, the most recent was a so-called acquaintance rape at Gladson-Ripley Hall, a freshman dormitory. University of Arkansas police said an 18-year-old female student told police she was raped by a 19-year-old male student.

Police continue to investigate two other recent acquaintance rape reports, one said Feb. 1 at Yocum Hall and another Jan. 16 at Pomfret Hall.

These incidents -- that word never seems quite strong enough -- demonstrate just how real world our college campuses can be. Students have emerged from their childhoods as high school graduates. They get to college -- away from parents -- and discover the first experiences of unconstrained decision-making about how they will conduct their lives. New-found freedoms are mixed with opportunities to succeed or fail in using good judgment. Sometimes alcohol is involved. When a college has thousands of students on campus at any given moment, it sadly comes as no surprise that sometimes, these students make bad, even horrible, choices.

And others pay a terrible price. Their lives are disrupted. Trust is shattered. Suddenly, everyone is a potential assailant. Every situation has to be viewed through a lens of doubt and risk. The college experience is forever changed. It takes tremendous energy to re-learn how to embrace life and reject fear. The process can take a long, long time.

Rape is so damaging.

Yet, among college students age 18 to 24, about one in five sexual assaults were reported to police, according to a recent U.S. Department of Justice report. The reported rapes on the UA campus are a prime example. In all of them, the women declined to pursue criminal charges. Instead, they requested a review through the university's systems. According to UA officials, they can prohibit contact between the people involved and, if one is found responsible for sexual misconduct, the UA can suspend or expel the student.

But that's not a criminal record. What good is just getting them off campus?

Well, there's some good, but there's hardly any protection for future victims.

We're pleased to hear of a new university policy of having a criminal prosecutor review the information collected in each case even when the person filing the complaint won't press criminal charges. It's difficult to move ahead with a criminal case if the person attacked is unwilling to participate, but at least local prosecutors will be informed. Maybe it will help build a case once someone does file criminal charges.

It's too easy to cast blame or even suspicion on a victim unwilling to follow through with prosecution, but let's not pretend every claim of sexual assault goes smoothly. How many times have accusers been re-victimized by the process? Who wants to be called a liar? Who wants to devote so much energy to making people believe what happened?

It is not easy. It's horribly difficult.

And yet we need those who have been raped to take a stand, to let the justice system work on their behalf. It is not perfect, but no assailant deserves an unchallenged chance to get on with life as though nothing happened.

Rapists need to pay for their crimes in the real world, whether it's on campus or off.

Commentary on 03/03/2015

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