RAPE - A NATIONAL CRISIS

If we discovered that every fourth girl and every sixth boy born in this country is destined to get a virus that will diminish their whole life in many ways, what would you do?

According to extensive research by RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network), as of 2022, 463,634 people are raped every year In this country.  On May 23, 2023 it was reported that “More than 450 Catholic clergy in Illinois sexually abused nearly 2,000 children since 1950. The state’s attorney general found in an investigation released Tuesday, revealing that the problem was far worse than the church had let on.” In addition to the general population the Department of Defense estimates about 20,500 service members experienced sexual assault in 2018. And an estimated 80,600 inmates experience sexual violence while in prison or jail. (More than 50% of the sexual contact is between inmate and staff members.)

Once raped, you stay raped, it doesn’t go away like a virus. It lasts a life time.
Though it’s different for each person, here of some of the effects.
      * Depression
      * Drug use
      * Low self esteem
      * Post-traumatic stress disorder - 94%
      * Contemplate suicide - (13% attempt suicide)
      * Moderate to severe distress - much more than with any other crime
      * Work and/or school problems - 38%
      * Dysfunctional relationships, unable to trust etc - 37%
      * Risk of pregnancy
      * Sexually transmitted diseases
      * If victimized by family/friends, it’s much more devastating - 84%.

I became interested in the phenomenon of rape when I worked as a marriage counselor in a university with 25,000 students in the 197O’s and 80’s. I designed a workshop, given one weekend per semester to 300 students at a time; eventually 7000 students attended over a decade. Each participant completed an anonymous questionnaire in which one question was “Have you ever been raped? (penetration of an orifice of your body without your permission).”  I then sampled the total student body to verify the result; 23% of females and 14% of males had been raped. I was shocked. That is almost one of every four women!

In recent years a very large research study was done that included several colleges and universities across the country. They found that 23% to 30% females had been raped. An alarming increase.

The rate of rape is slightly higher for college students than those who don’t attend college. The majority of rape victims are from 12 to 30 years old. Children below 12 are not included in any research I could find. So, there is no data below 12 years old, though there is no doubt that the effects are most traumatic and lasting for those victims. A therapist, working in a prison for rapists, told me that they had developed a therapeutic method with some success, and also found that serial rapists had been sexually abused as children.  

Another important university study gave an anonymous questionnaire to a sample of male students, asking if they had ever raped. Over 1000 men said they had raped once; about 80 of those said they had raped many times; the majority had never raped.  Not one of those rapists was arrested.

That tells us that most men don’t rape, a small percentage are serial rapists, and that the legal system is totally inadequate to deal with this problem. Both because the system isn’t trusted by female victims and because when they do bring someone to court, most accused rapists are not convicted (unless they are black).

Rape is far more damaging than a national virus has ever been.  There is no question about the damage to raped individuals' health and ability to function up to capacity. It affects not only the person raped and what they could have contributed to our society, but it affects their family and any children they may have. In the areas of health care, mental health services, a divorce rate that hovers about 50%, the cost is huge.

After the Rape Kit was invented, I thought we could identify and convict the serial rapists. But the police stored a lot of the kits and didn’t send them to be analyzed. Their excuse was that they couldn’t afford it.  Then the federal government offered to pay for them to be analyzed.  But, last I knew, a there are still some stored in police departments… deteriorating. They are only viable for a limited time period.

We are clearly dealing with a contagious disease that only advances and gets worse as time goes on. The damage is so great it’s incalculable. The cost is enormous. Yet it is so horrifying that people have a hard time even thinking about it.

What can be done right now?
 -Every police station should have a special “rape line” with a female officer responding.
 -All courts should give special attention to rape case and prosecute all those who are guilty.
 -Rapists should be separated from other prisoners and given intense therapy to heal.
 -Teach children early about their bodies, and about good touches and bad touches.