According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice, a woman in the United States is raped every two minutes. Further one among four women in the United States is either a victim of rape or attempted rape. These statistics further reveal that in these rapes, the victims usually know their attackers or ravishers. In addition, around 57% of these rapes have involved victims of dates. Essentially, these statistics reveal that more than half of rapes occur during dates, otherwise called date rapes. The alarming rate of date rapes definitely requires action to contain these occurrences. The best move would be to enhance the penalties accorded to the villains of date rape as well as the review of the policy to ensure prosecution of this social vice. Another startling statistic from the research is the fact that among the date rapes that occurred, 75 % of the men are usually on drugs or drinking while 55% of the women involved in date rape are usually drunk or on drugs. The National Crime Victimization Survey indicates that around 92% of rapes are perpetrated by attackers who are well known to the victims.
Further, it was found that nearly half of the rapes that occur are committed by persons who are either friends or acquaintances of the victims. At the same time, it was revealed that 26 % of the rape cases involve intimate partners, a situation usually known as spousal rape. The research also cited some of the risk factors that are responsible for rape cases. Some of the factors that are said to provoke sexual violence include forced or voluntary early sexual experience or exposure, sex stereotyping that is prevalent in men and negative attitudes that men possess of women as sex objects. Other factors cited are drugs and alcohol consumption as well as acceptance of myths concerning rape among the male population. The average number of rape cases that are reported in the United States every year amount to over 89,000 according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Different kinds of data and methods for measuring crime are available in the United States. Two systems are employed in the United States in the analysis of crime. One of the methods used in crime analysis is the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program while the other is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The UCR program is mainly used in collecting official crime data and was initially used by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). One of the strengths of the UCR form of reporting or method lies in its allowance of a thorough and comprehensive outlay of data. This has a facilitative effect to the researcher who obtains a better chance to study crime as well as delinquent behavior. More so, since the UCR program has evolved to contain reports made from the National Incident-Based Reporting System, the data usually contains data of both the victim and the offender irrespective of whether an arrest has been made. More so, this method provides knowledge about the characteristics of individuals such as their ethnicity, gender and age. As such, this method of reporting has the strength of empowering the researcher to better study crime owing to the supplementary materials about offenders that it avails.
However, the weakness of this method of reporting lies in the fact that the UCR program only takes into consideration the reported criminal activities and no more. The method does not record or consider the numerous criminal activities that take place but are not reported. This is so despite the overwhelming number of unreported cases especially involving rape as evident from the rape statistics. Secondly the UCR program in some states in the United States have mandated participation requirements, which is absent in other states. The upshot of this is that there shall be missing data which makes it impossible to have an entire picture of the crime situation in the country.
The second method of crime analysis or collection is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) which is under the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. The method is made up of gathering data using surveys from households which serve as typical samples. The strength of this method lies in the fact that it makes use of samples obtained from interviews with the household members as opposed to information from the law enforcement department. The data gathered through these means comprise details about the ethnicity, age, income and gender of the members. Secondly this method has the ability to record information about criminal incidents that have not been reported to law enforcement officials. In addition, the approach is victim-oriented in nature in turn considering the victims and the direct correlation that crime has on them. The weakness of this method or program lies in the fact that the NCVS program was reconstructed in the year 1992 thereby making it difficult to compare data correctly and accurately. Moreover, the approach tends to measure only crimes that are related to persons of household data and does not measure business and commercial crimes. The method equally does not report crimes that take place involving children aged 12 years and below. The program is also liable to understatement or overstatement of crimes since victims are likely to exaggerate their accounts and yet there is no way to verify the veracity of such claims.
The major problem that besets the prosecution of date rape cases entails proving such incidents beyond any reasonable doubt to the effect that the sexual intercourse was not consensual. A case scenario would be where sexual advance is attempted and the girl refuses to it by saying, “No. Stop. This is bad.” If the offender persists, the activity constitutes a charge of rape. Things become more complicated where the girl is vaguer and responds by saying that the act is immoral and does not object to it in an express manner.
The society including jurors usually view date rape from one spectrum thus inhibiting the prosecution of the crimes. This is because factors such as precipitation, provocation and facilitation of the victim are occasionally cited as causes of the rape incidents. For instance, a girl who invites a boy to her bedroom at night might be said to be facilitating the incident while one who dresses provocatively might be said to be provoking the offender into action.
My position on the whole issue is that such views are sometimes flawed and have the effect of perpetrating the offences hence the rare punishment of offenders. It cannot surely be said that provocation and facilitation are sufficient to thrust offenders into action. Such actions cannot be justified. As such, the society (read jurors) must change the social policy and the prosecution needs to adopt a policy that is stringent on prosecution of such cases.
References
Francis, L. E. (2006). Date rape: Feminism, philosophy, and the law. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Koss, M. (2008). Hidden rape: Sexual aggression and victimization in the national sample of students in higher education. New York, NY: Praeger.
Stan, A. (2007). Debating sexual correctness: Pornography, sexual harassment, date rape, and the politics of sexual equality. New York, NY: Delta.
